One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty.  Mrs. Carter said, ’He was a bad man.  He used to talk uncharitably.’  Johnson.  ’Poh! poh!  Madam; who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?  Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived:  and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own.  I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best.  This, you will observe, was kindness to me.  I however slipt away, and escaped it.’

Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, ‘I doubt he was an Atheist.’  Johnson.  ’I don’t know that.  He might perhaps have become one, if he had had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have EXUBERATED into an Atheist.’

Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge’s Sermons.  Johnson.  ’Mudge’s Sermons are good, but not practical.  He grasps more sense than he can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct.  I love Blair’s Sermons.  Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them.  Such was my candour,’ (smiling.) Mrs. Boscawen.  ’Such his great merit to get the better of all your prejudices.’  Johnson.  ’Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.’

In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne, of the Treasury, &c. &c.

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.