been ready to bring
John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have been only,

'Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury.'"

I was then member for Aylesbury.'

Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a
barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON.
'Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The SCOTCH would not know it
to be barren.' BOSWELL. 'Come, come, he is flattering the English. You
have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and
drink enough there.' JOHNSON. 'Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to
give the enhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.' All
these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and
with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick
he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union
between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited
Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance
of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused
themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a
superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be
arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him;
but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its
justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained,
can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about
to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in
meditatione fugoe: WILKES. 'That, I should think, may be safely sworn of
all the Scotch nation.' JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes,) 'You must know, Sir,
I lately took my friend Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised life in
an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native
city, that he might see for once real civility: for you know he lives
among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London.' WILKES. 'Except
when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me.' JOHNSON.
(smiling,) 'And we ashamed of him.'

They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking
Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the
ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he
said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, 'You saw Mr. Wilkes
acquiesced.' Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous
title given