f 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.' WlLKES. '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[328] 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[329]. 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.' WlLKES. 'Upon the continent they all quote the
vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also
Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley[330].'

We talked of Letter-writing. JOHNSON. 'It is now become so much the
fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little
into mine as I can.[331]' BOSWELL. 'Do what you will, Sir, you cannot
avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be
published as curiosities:

"Behold a miracle! instead of wit,
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ[332]."'

He gave us an entertaining account of _Bet Flint_[333], a woman of the
town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced
herself upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he) wrote her own Life in
verse[334], which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her
with a Preface to it. (Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was
generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had,
however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that
walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a
counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice -