"In his Lordship's dressing-room lay Johnson's small _Dictionary_[34]: he shewed it to me, with some eagerness, saying 'Look'ye! _Quae terra nostri non plena laboris._' He observed, also, Goldsmith's _Animated Nature_; and said, 'Here's our friend! The poor Doctor would have been happy to hear of this.' In our way, Johnson strongly expressed his love of driving fast in a post-chaise. 'If (said he) I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation.'" In the year following this visit to Ashbourne, 1778, there was fear of invasion. Our army was fully occupied in the war with America and it was thought that France and Spain might seize the opportunity to make an attack upon England. The militia was called out and Bennet Langton was stationed with the Lincolns at Warley Camp. He invited Johnson to visit him there, and Johnson staid about a week, shewing, as he had done at Fort George, a keen interest in military matters: "He sate, with a patient degree of attention, to observe the proceedings of a regimental court-martial, that happened to be called, in the time of his stay with us; and one night, as late as eleven o'clock, he accompanied the Major of the regiment in going what are styled the _Rounds_, where he might observe the forms of visiting the guards, for the seeing that they and their sentries are ready in their duty.... On one occasion, when the regiment were going through their exercise, he went quite close to the men at one of the extremities of it, and watched all their practices attentively; and, when he came away, his remark was, 'The men indeed do load their muskets and fire with wonderful celerity.'" At the age of 69 he slept in a tent, and enjoyed himself both at the regimental mess and at dinner with the General. "A camp" he wrote to Mrs Thrale "however familiarly we may speak of it, is one of the great scenes of human life. War and peace divide the business of the world. Camps are the habitations of those who conquer kingdoms, or defend them." Finally, we must not omit a special journey to Uttoxeter. Johnson had a long memory, even for his own failings: "Once," said he "I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful.... I desired to atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." FOOTNOTES: [32] It is curious that Johnson, who was not exactly delicate in his manner of eating (see p. 64), should be greatly upset by this. But he complained of the same thing of a waiter in Edinburgh. [33] See p. 45. [34] Johnson produced an abridged edition in 1756. _The True-Born Englishman_