In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne[321], of the Treasury, &c. &c.  Somebody said the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining.  JOHNSON.  ’But it certainly may.  This is a remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice; why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man?  Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life[322]?  As a literary life it may be very entertaining.’  BOSWELL.  ’But it must be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety—­ such as his having gone to Jamaica; or—­his having gone to the Hebrides.’  Johnson was not displeased at this.

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, I thought 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[323].

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[324].’

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.

One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he said to me, ’Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry.’  And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in George the Second’s reign, when Whigs were in power, compared with the present reign, when Tories governed;—­’Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to consider that Tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that principle, will oppose by any means.’