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.’

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.

On Tuesday, May 8, I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly’s.  No negociation was now required to bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) Wilkes.  ’I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here; for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again.  Now here is Boswell, who is come up upon the election for his own county, which will not last a fortnight.’  Johnson.  ’Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.’  Wilkes.  ’Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at the Scotch bar?’ Boswell.  ‘I believe two thousand pounds.’  Wilkes.  ’How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?’ Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England:  but there is a harder question.  If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?’ Wilkes.  ’You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and six-pence.’  Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute.

The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry.  Johnson.  ’No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it.  Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.’