I have mentioned Johnson’s general aversion to a pun[976].  He once, however, endured one of mine.  When we were talking of a numerous company in which he had distinguished himself highly, I said, ’Sir, you were a COD surrounded by smelts.  Is not this enough for you? at a time too when you were not fishing for a compliment?’ He laughed at this with a complacent approbation.  Old Mr. Sheridan observed, upon my mentioning it to him, ’He liked your compliment so well, he was willing to take it with pun sauce.’  For my own part, I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed; and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.

Had Johnson treated at large De Claris Oratoribus[977], he might have given us an admirable work.  When the Duke of Bedford attacked the ministry as vehemently as he could, for having taken upon them to extend the time for the importation of corn[978], Lord Chatham, in his first speech in the House of Lords, boldly avowed himself to be an adviser of that measure.  ’My colleagues, (said he,) as I was confined by indisposition, did me the signal honour of coming to the bed-side of a sick man, to ask his opinion.  But, had they not thus condescended, I should have taken up my bed and walked, in order to have delivered that opinion at the Council-Board.’  Mr. Langton, who was present, mentioned this to Johnson, who observed, ’Now, Sir, we see that he took these words as he found them; without considering, that though the expression in Scripture, take up thy bed and walk[979], strictly suited the instance of the sick man restored to health and strength, who would of course be supposed to carry his bed with him, it could not be proper in the case of a man who was lying in a state of feebleness, and who certainly would not add to the difficulty of moving at all, that of carrying his bed.’

When I pointed out to him in the newspaper one of Mr. Grattan’s animated and glowing speeches, in favour of the freedom of Ireland, in which this expression occurred (I know not if accurately taken):  ’We will persevere, till there is not one link of the English chain left to clank upon the rags of the meanest beggar in Ireland;’ ’Nay, Sir, (said Johnson,) don’t you perceive that one link cannot clank?’

Mrs. Thrale has published[980], as Johnson’s, a kind of parody or counterpart of a fine poetical passage in one of Mr. Burke’s speeches on American Taxation.  It is vigorously but somewhat coarsely executed; and I am inclined to suppose, is not quite correctly exhibited.  I hope he did not use the words ’vile agents’ for the Americans in the House of Parliament; and if he did so, in an extempore effusion, I wish the lady had not committed it to writing[981].