caulay and him; but then I knew how the contest
would end; so that I was to see him triumph. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you cannot
be sure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two
people in a dispute by which their passions may be inflamed, and they
may part with bitter resentment against each other. I would sooner keep
company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man
who contrives to bring me into a dispute with somebody that he may
hear it. This is the great fault of ------,(naming one of our friends,)
endeavouring to introduce a subject upon which he knows two people
in the company differ.' BOSWELL. 'But he told me, Sir, he does it for
instruction.' JOHNSON. 'Whatever the motive be, Sir, the man who does
so, does very wrong. He has no more right to instruct himself at such
risk, than he has to make two people fight a duel, that he may learn how
to defend himself.'

He found great fault with a gentleman of our acquaintance for keeping
a bad table. 'Sir, (said he,) when a man is invited to dinner, he is
disappointed if he does not get something good. I advised Mrs. Thrale,
who has no card-parties at her house, to give sweet-meats, and such good
things, in an evening, as are not commonly given, and she would find
company enough come to her; for every body loves to have things which
please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.'
Such was his attention to the minutiae of life and manners.

Mr. Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of
America, being mentioned, Johnson censured the composition much, and he
ridiculed the definition of a free government, viz. 'For any practical
purpose, it is what the people think so.'--'I will let the King of
France govern me on those conditions, (said he,) for it is to be
governed just as I please.' And when Dr. Taylor talked of a girl being
sent to a parish workhouse, and asked how much she could be obliged to
work, 'Why, (said Johnson,) as much as is reasonable: and what is that?
as much as SHE THINKS reasonable.'

Dr. Johnson obligingly proposed to carry me to see Islam, a romantick
scene, now belonging to a family of the name of Port, but formerly the
seat of the Congreves. I suppose it is well described in some of the
Tours. Johnson described it distinctly and vividly, at which I could not
but express to him my wonder; because, though my eyes, as he observed,
were better than his, I could not by any means equal hi