Mr. Hector was so good as to accompany me to see the great works of Mr. Bolton [Boulton], at a place which he has called Soho, about two miles from Birmingham, which the very ingenious proprietor showed me himself to the best advantage.  I wished Johnson had been with us; for it was a scene which I should have been glad to contemplate by his light.  The vastness and the contrivance of some of the machinery would have “matched his mighty mind.”  I shall never forget Mr. Bolton’s expression to me, “I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have—­power.”  He had about seven hundred people at work.  I contemplated him as an iron chieftain, and he seemed to be a father to his tribe.  One of them came to him, complaining grievously of his landlord for having distrained his goods.  “Your landlord is in the right, Smith” (said Bolton).  “But I’ll tell you what:  find you a friend who will lay down one-half of your rent, and I’ll lay down the other half; and you shall have your goods again.”

From Mr. Hector I now learned many particulars of Dr. Johnson’s early life, which, with others that he gave me at different times since, have contributed to the formation of this work.

Dr. Johnson said to me in the morning, “You will see, sir, at Mr. Hector’s, his sister Mrs. Careless, a clergyman’s widow.  She was the first woman with whom I was in love.  It dropped out of my head imperceptibly; but she and I will always have a kindness for each other.”  He laughed at the notion that a man can never really be in love but once, and considered it as a mere romantic fancy.

On our return from Mr. Bolton’s, Mr. Hector took me to his house, where we found Johnson sitting placidly at tea with his first love; who, though now advanced in years, was a genteel woman, very agreeable and well-bred.

Johnson lamented to Mr. Hector the state of one of their schoolfellows, Mr. Charles Congreve, a clergyman, which he thus described:—­“He obtained, I believe, considerable preferment in Ireland, but now lives in London, quite as a valetudinarian, afraid to go into any house but his own.  He takes a short airing in his post-chaise every day.  He has an elderly woman, whom he calls cousin, who lives with him, and jogs his elbow when his glass has stood too long empty, and encourages him in drinking, in which he is very willing to be encouraged; not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.  He confesses to one bottle of port every day, and he probably drinks more.  He is quite unsocial; his conversation is quite monosyllabical; and when at my last visit I asked him what o’clock it was, that signal of my departure had so pleasing an effect upon him that he sprung up to look at his watch like a greyhound bounding at a hare.”  When Johnson took leave of Mr. Hector, he said, “Don’t grow like Congreve; nor let me grow like him, when you are near me.”

When he talked again of Mrs. Careless to-night, he seemed to have had his affection revived; for he said, “If I had married her, it might have been as happy for me.”