d this year by George Stevens,
Esq., a gentleman of acute discernment and elegant taste.

On April 23, 1773, I was nominated by Johnson for membership of the
Literary Club, and a week later I was elected to the society. There I
saw for the first time Mr. Edmund Burke, whose splendid talents had made
me ardently wish for his acquaintance.

This same year Johnson made, in my company, his visit to Scotland, which
lasted from August 14, on which day he arrived, till November 22, when
he set out on his return to London; and I believe one hundred days were
never passed by any men in a more vigorous exertion. His various
adventures, and the force and vivacity of his mind, as exercised during
this peregrination, upon innumerable topics, have been faithfully, and
to the best of my ability, displayed in my "Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides."

On his return to London his humane, forgiving dispositions were put to a
pretty strong test by a liberty which Mr. Thomas Davies had taken, which
was to publish two volumes, entitled "Miscellaneous and Fugitive
Pieces," which he advertised in the newspapers, "By the Author of the
Rambler." In some of these Johnson had no concern whatever. He was at
first very angry, but, upon consideration of his poor friend's narrow
circumstances, and that he meant no harm, he soon relented.

Dr. Goldsmith died on April 4 of the following year, a year in which I
was unable to pay my usual spring visit to London, and in which Johnson
made a long autumn tour in Wales with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. In response
to some inquiries of mine about poor Goldsmith, he wrote: "Of poor, dear
Goldsmith there is little to be told more than the papers have made
public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by
uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources
were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of the opinion that he owed not less than
L2,000. Was ever poet so trusted before?"

This year, too, my great friend again came out as a politician, for
parliament having been dissolved in September, and Mr. Thrale, who was a
steady supporter of government, having again to encounter the storm of a
contested election in Southwark, Johnson published a short political
pamphlet, entitled "The Patriot," addressed to the electors of Great
Britain. It was written with energetic vivacity; and except those
passages in which it endeavours to vindicate the glaring outrage of the
House of Commons in the case of the