Authors, Scottish -- 18th century -- Biography; Biographers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Boswell, James, 1740-1795
shewing himself with Boswell in some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa.
'What have you to do with liberty and necessity?' cries the doctor to
his friend, who had been worrying himself and his correspondent with
philosophical questions, on which some six years before he had got some
light from the _Lettres Persanes_ of Montesquieu. 'Come to me, my dear
Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre,
and talk old times over.' Thrice during the 1781 visit to London do we
see his unfortunate habits breaking out; and, when we find him saying he
has unfortunately preserved none of the conversations, Miss Hannah More,
who met him that day at the Bishop of St Asaph's, explains it--'I was
heartily disgusted with Mr Boswell, who came upstairs after dinner much
disordered with wine.'
Let us hear his own confession over his conduct at the house of Lady
Galway.
'Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty
difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very
agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had
circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to
Miss Monckton's where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and
above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the
first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion a noble lady of the
most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking
myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous
manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax.
I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of
the imagination, and, as an illustration of my argument, asking him,
"What, sir, suppose I were to fancy that the--(naming the most charming
Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not
be very happy?" My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories,
and kept me as quiet as possible, but it may be easily conceived how he
must have felt.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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