Talking of a very respectable authour,he told us a curious circumstance in his life,which was,that he had married a printer's devil.REYNOLDS.'A printer's devil,Sir!Why,Ithought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags.'JOHNSON.'Yes,Sir.But I suppose,he had her face washed,and put clean clothes on her.(Then looking very serious,and very earnest.)And she did not disgrace him;the woman had a bottom of good sense.'The word bottom thus introduced,was so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity,that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing;though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness,while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her.His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule,when he did not intend it;he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotick power,glanced sternly around,and called out in a strong tone,'Where's the merriment?'Then collecting himself,and looking aweful,to make us feel how he could impose restraint,and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word,he slowly pronounced,'I say the WOMAN was FUNDAMENTALLY sensible;'as if he had said,hear this now,and laugh if you dare.We all sat composed as at a funeral.
He and I walked away together;we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi,looking on the Thames,and I said to him with some emotion that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost,who once lived in the buildings behind us,Beauclerk and Garrick.
'Ay,Sir,(said he,tenderly,)and two such friends as cannot be supplied.'
For some time after this day I did not see him very often,and of the conversation which I did enjoy,I am sorry to find I have preserved but little.I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters,which required exertion and assiduity,and necessarily occupied almost all my time.
On Tuesday,May 8,I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr.Wilkes,at Mr.Dilly's.No NEGOCIATION was now required to bring them together;for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview,that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again,who was this day seated between Dr.Beattie and Dr.Johnson;(between Truth and Reason,as General Paoli said,when I told him of it.)WILKES.'I have been thinking,Dr.Johnson,that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country,at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House,and not here;for the consequence of trying them here is,that we have an inundation of Scotchmen,who come up and never go back again.Now here is Boswell,who is come up upon the election for his own county,which will not last a fortnight.'
JOHNSON.'Nay,Sir,I see no reason why they should be tried at all;for,you know,one Scotchman is as good as another.'WILKES.
'Pray,Boswell,how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at the Scotch bar?'BOSWELL.'I believe two thousand pounds.'WILKES.
'How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?'JOHNSON.
'Why,Sir,the money may be spent in England:but there is a harder question.If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds,what remains for all the rest of the nation?'WILKES.
'You know,in the last war,the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles;he re-embarked with THREE AND SIX-PENCE.'Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland,which Dr.Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute.
The subject of quotation being introduced,Mr.Wilkes censured it as pedantry.JOHNSON.'No,Sir,it is a good thing;there is a community of mind in it.Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.'
He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint,a woman of the town,who,with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery,forced herself upon his acquaintance.'Bet (said he,)wrote her own Life in verse,which she brought to me,wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it,(laughing.)I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard;occasionally,whore and thief.
She had,however,genteel lodgings,a spinnet on which she played,and a boy that walked before her chair.Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane,and tried at the Old Bailey.
Chief Justice ------,who loved a wench,summed up favourably,and she was acquitted.After which Bet said,with a gay and satisfied air,"Now that the counterpane is MY OWN,I shall make a petticoat of it."'
Talking of oratory,Mr.Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the charms of poetical expression.JOHNSON.'No,Sir;oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments,and putting better in their place.'WILKES.'But this does not move the passions.'JOHNSON.'He must be a weak man,who is to be so moved.'WILKES.(naming a celebrated orator,)'Amidst all the brilliancy of ------'s imagination,and the exuberance of his wit,there is a strange want of TASTE.It was observed of Apelles's Venus,that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished by roses:
his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.'
Mr.Wilkes said to me,loud enough for Dr.Johnson to hear,'Dr.
Johnson should make me a present of his Lives of the Poets,as I am a poor patriot,who cannot afford to buy them.'Johnson seemed to take no notice of this hint;but in a little while,he called to Mr.Dilly,'Pray,Sir,be so good as to send a set of my Lives to Mr.Wilkes,with my compliments.'This was accordingly done;and Mr.Wilkes paid Dr.Johnson a visit,was courteously received,and sat with him a long time.
