44 Anecdotes by
��no menaces of any rascal should intimidate him from detecting imposture wherever he met it x .
APRIL i st. A fair day, dined at Mr. Thrale's, whom in proof of the magnitude of London, I cannot help remarking, no coach man, and this is the third I have called, could find without enquiry 2 . But of this by the way. There was Murphy, Boswell, and Baretti, the two last, as I learned just before I entered, are mortal foes, so much so that Murphy and Mrs. Thrale agreed that Boswell expressed a desire that Baretti should be hanged upon that unfortunate affair of his killing, &c. 3 Upon this hint I went, and without any sagacity it was easily dis- cernable, for upon Baretti's entering, Boswell did not rise, and upon Baretti's descry of Boswell, he grinned a perturbed glance. Politeness however smooths the most hostile brows, and theirs were smoothed. Johnson was the subject, both before and after dinner, for it was the boast of all but myself, that under that roof were the Doctor's first friends. His bon mots were retailed in such plenty, that they, like a surfeit, could not lye upon my memory. Boswell arguing in favour of a cheerful glass, adduced the maxim in vino veritas^ 'well,' says Johnson, 'and what then unless a man has lived a lye 4 .' B. then urged that it made a man forget all his cares, 'that, to be sure' says Johnson 'might be of use if a man sat by such a' person as you V Boswell confessed that he liked a glass of whiskey in the Highland tour, and used to take it ; at length says Johnson, ' let me try wherein the pleasure of a Scotsman consists/ and so tips off a brimmer of whiskey 6 . But Johnson's abstemiousness is new to him, for within a few years he would swallow two bottles of Port
1 Life, ii. 298. some note in London ' who wondered
2 His town - house was in the who was the author of the Pater Borough, on the southern side of Noster. Ib. v. 121. Boswell's ac- the Thames. count of his trial for murder is not
3 Boswell coldly describes him as such an account as a friend would 'an Italian of considerable literature.' have written. Ib. ii. 97.
Life, i. 302. He most likely was 4 Ib. ii. 188; ante, i. 321.
'the foreign friend of Johnson's, so 5 Life, ii. 193.
wretchedly perverted to infidelity 6 ' Come (said he) let me know
that he treated the hopes of im- what it is that makes a Scotchman
mortality with a brutal levity.' Ib. happy.' Ib. v. 346.
ii. 8. He also was the * Italian of
without
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