Note 853 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 5)

Kennel is a strong word to apply to Burke; but, in his jocularity, he sometimes 'let himself down' to indelicate stories. In the House of Commons he had told one—and a very stupid one too—not a year before. Parl. Hist, xxiii. 918. Horace Walpole speaks of Burke's 'pursuit of wit even to puerility.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 443. He adds (ib. ii. 26):—'Burke himself always aimed at wit, but was not equally happy in public and private. In the former, nothing was so luminous, so striking, so abundant; in private, it was forced, unnatural, and bombast.' See ante, p. 104, where Wilkes said that in his oratory 'there was a strange want of taste.'