talk uncharitably.' JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam;
who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a
dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done
harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own.
I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be
drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you
will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it.'

Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an Atheist.'
JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had
had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have EXUBERATED into an Atheist.'

Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge's Sermons. JOHNSON. 'Mudge's Sermons
are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he
takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect,
but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love Blair's Sermons. Though
the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every thing he should
not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour,' (smiling.)
MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get the better of all your
prejudices.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us
ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.'

In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several
ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne, of the
Treasury, &c. &c.

Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious circumstance
in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS.
'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature
with a black face and in rags.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he
had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very
serious, and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman
had a bottom of good sense.' The word bottom thus introduced, was so
ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not
forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of
Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah
More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee
with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should
excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to
assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called
out in a str