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.'

His father was now dying, and a London trip, which had been planned by
Boswell for 1782, found the son at the very limit of his credit. 'If you
anticipate your inheritance,' he was reminded, 'you can at last inherit
nothing. Poverty (added the old _impransus_ Johnson, out of the depths
of his own experience), my friend, is so great an evil that I cannot but
earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have; live, if you
can, on less.' Lord Auchinleck died suddenly at Edinburgh, on August
30th, 1782; and it was unfortunate for Bozzy that neither at the death
of his father nor of his mother, nor, as we shall see of Johnson, was he
present. The evening of the old man's days had been, we are assured by
Ramsay of Ochtertyre, clouded by the follies and eccentricities of his
son. For thirty years he had been sorely tried; twice he had paid his
debts, he had indulged him with a foreign tour, had provided him with
every means of securing professional success at the bar, only to see
that son do everything to miss it and become everything his father hated
in life--a Tory, an Anglican, and a Jacobite. The new laird was anxious
to display himself on a wider sphere. Johnson was now visibly failing,
and was glad of someone to lean upon for little attentions. 'Boswell,'
he said, 'I think I am easier with you than with almost anybody. Get as
much force of mind as you can. Let your imports be more than your
exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' He reverted to the old days of
the tour in a hopeful strain: 'I should like to come and have a cottage
in your park