'I am, dear Madam,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'April 23, 1781.'
On Tuesday, May 8[325], I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Billy's[326]. 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[327] 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.' WlLKES. '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[328] 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[329]. 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.' WlLKES. 'Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley[330].'
We talked of Letter-writing. JOHNSON. 'It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can.[331]' BOSWELL. 'Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities:
"Behold a miracle! instead of wit, See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ[332]."'
He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint[333], 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[334], 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 ------[335], 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.' WlLKES. 'But this does not move the passions.' JOHNSON. 'He must be a weak man, who is to be so moved.' WlLKES. (naming a celebrated orator) 'Amidst all the brilliancy of ----'s[336] imagination, and the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of taste. It was observed of Apelles's Venus[337], 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 observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country, and gave as an instance, the vote of the House of Commons for remitting money to pay the army in America in Portugal pieces[338], when, in reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our own specie. JOHNSON. 'Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the current coin of the realm?' WlLKES. 'Yes, Sir: but might not the House of Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin to be sent into our own colonies?' Here Johnson, with that quickness of recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the Middlesex Patriot an admirable retort upon his own ground. 'Sure, Sir, you don't think a resolution of the House of Commons equal to the law of the land[339].' WlLKES. (at once perceiving the application) 'GOD forbid, Sir.' To hear what had been treated with such violence in The False Alarm, now turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely agreeable.