Mr. Burke uniformly shewed Johnson the greatest respect; and when Mr. Townshend, now lord Sydney, at a period when he was conspicuous in opposition, threw out some reflection in parliament upon the grant of a pension to a man of such political principles as Johnson; Mr. Burke, though then of the same party with Mr. Townshend, stood warmly forth in defence of his friend, to whom, he justly observed, the pension was granted solely on account of his eminent literary merit.  I am well assured, that Mr. Townshend’s attack upon Johnson was the occasion of his ‘hitching in a rhyme[982];’ for, that in the original copy of Goldsmith’s character of Mr. Burke, in his Retaliation, another person’s name stood in the couplet where Mr. Townshend is now introduced[983]:—­

     ’Though fraught with all learning kept[984] straining his throat,
      To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.’

It may be worth remarking, among the minutiae of my collection, that Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia, the Trained Bands of the City of London, and that Mr. Rackstrow, of the Museum in Fleet-street, was his Colonel.  It may be believed he did not serve in person; but the idea, with all its circumstances, is certainly laughable.  He upon that occasion provided himself with a musket, and with a sword and belt, which I have seen hanging in his closet.

He was very constant to those whom he once employed, if they gave him no reason to be displeased.  When somebody talked of being imposed on in the purchase of tea and sugar, and such articles:  ’That will not be the case, (said he,) if you go to a stately shop, as I always do.  In such a shop it is not worth their while to take a petty advantage.’

An authour of most anxious and restless vanity being mentioned, ’Sir, (said he,) there is not a young sapling upon Parnassus more severely blown about by every wind of criticism than that poor fellow.’

The difference, he observed, between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this:  ’One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion.  You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other till you find reason to love him.’

The wife of one of his acquaintance had fraudulently made a purse for herself out of her husband’s fortune.  Feeling a proper compunction in her last moments, she confessed how much she had secreted; but before she could tell where it was placed, she was seized with a convulsive fit and expired.  Her husband said, he was more hurt by her want of confidence in him, than by the loss of his money.  ’I told him, (said Johnson,) that he should console himself:  for perhaps the money might be found, and he was sure that his wife was gone.’

A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in company with him on a former occasion; ‘I do not remember it, Sir.’  The physician still insisted; adding that he that day wore so fine a coat that it must have attracted his notice.  ’Sir, (said Johnson,) had you been dipt in Pactolus[985] I should not have noticed you.’