...parts, or great cultivation of them, is apt to confer." " Of all men I ever knew," writes Macken2ie, " his ordinary conversation was the least tinctured with pedantry, or liable to dissertation." Yet it is not difficult to reconcile the two characterisations, to see the same man in both, for the...

...philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief. His discourse, indeed, was very remote from metaphysical disquisition or...familiar. The country round them, the manners of the village, the comparison of both with those of England, remarks on the works of favourite authors, on...

...philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief. His discourse, indeed, was very remote from metaphysical disquisition, or...England, remarks on the works of favourite authors, on the sentiments they conveyed, and the passions they excited, with many other topics in which there...

...Hume "is a very pleasant Gentleman in Conversation." The Scottish novelist Henry Mackenzie agreed: "Of all men I ever knew, his ordinary conversation...tinctured with pedantry, or liable to dissertation [argument]." Reviews were mixed, however, about Johnson's conversation. Some people regarded Johnson...