We drank tea with Mrs. Williams.  I had last year the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Thrale at Dr. Johnson’s one morning, and had conversation enough with her to admire her talents, and to shew her that I was as Johnsonian as herself.  Dr. Johnson had probably been kind enough to speak well of me, for this evening he delivered me a very polite card from Mr. Thrale and her, inviting me to Streatham.

On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation, and found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circumstance that can make society pleasing.  Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be equally the care of his host and hostess.  I rejoiced at seeing him so happy.

He played off his wit against Scotland with a good humoured pleasantry, which gave me, though no bigot to national prejudices, an opportunity for a little contest with him.  I having said that England was obliged to us for gardeners, almost all their good gardeners being Scotchmen.  Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, that is because gardening is much more necessary amongst you than with us, which makes so many of your people learn it.  It is all gardening with you.  Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland.  Pray now (throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing,) are you ever able to bring the sloe to perfection?’

I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhospitable, troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving vails to servants.  Johnson.  ’Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to be able to give them.’

Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior.  He attacked him powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it:  his love verses were college verses; and he repeated the song ’Alexis shunn’d his fellow swains,’ &c., in so ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff.  Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saying, ’My dear Lady, talk no more of this.  Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.’

Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick’s talent for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in Florizel and Perdita, and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line: 

‘I’d smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.’

Johnson.  ’Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do.  Poor David!  Smile with the simple;—­What folly is that?  And who would feed with the poor that can help it?  No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.’  I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it.  To sooth him, I observed, that Johnson spared none of us; and I quoted the passage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the sake of a laugh, to a pushing ox, that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns:  ‘foenum habet in cornu.’  ’Ay, (said Garrick vehemently,) he has a whole Mow of it.’