scrape, for I heedlessly said,
'Would not YOU, Sir, be the better for velvet and embroidery?' JOHNSON.
'Sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent
himself. Have you no better manners? There is YOUR WANT.' I apologised
by saying, I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as
little as any man in the world, and yet, perhaps, might receive some
additional lustre from dress.

Having left Ashbourne in the evening, we stopped to change horses at
Derby, and availed ourselves of a moment to enjoy the conversation of
my countryman, Dr. Butter, then physician there. He was in great
indignation because Lord Mountstuart's bill for a Scotch militia had
been lost. Dr. Johnson was as violent against it. 'I am glad, (said he,)
that Parliament has had the spirit to throw it out. You wanted to take
advantage of the timidity of our scoundrels;' (meaning, I suppose, the
ministry). It may be observed, that he used the epithet scoundrel very
commonly not quite in the sense in which it is generally understood, but
as a strong term of disapprobation; as when he abruptly answered Mrs.
Thrale, who had asked him how he did, 'Ready to become a scoundrel,
Madam; with a little more spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete
rascal:' he meant, easy to become a capricious and self-indulgent
valetudinarian; a character for which I have heard him express great
disgust. We lay this night at Loughborough.

On Thursday, March 28, we pursued our journey. He said, 'It is commonly
a weak man who marries for love.' We then talked of marrying women of
fortune; and I mentioned a common remark, that a man may be, upon the
whole, richer by marrying a woman with a very small portion, because a
woman of fortune will be proportionally expensive; whereas a woman who
brings none will be very moderate in expenses. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it,
Sir, this is not true. A woman of fortune being used to the handling of
money, spends it judiciously: but a woman who gets the command of money
for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it,
that she throws it away with great profusion.'

He praised the ladies of the present age, insisting that they were more
faithful to their husbands, and more virtuous in every respect, than in
former times, because their understandings were better cultivated.

At Leicester we read in the news-paper that Dr. James was dead. I
thought that the death of an old school-fellow, and one wi