'
I mentioned that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London,
principally to see Dr. Johnson. He seemed angry at this observation.
DAVIES. 'Why, you know, Sir, there came a man from Spain to see Livy;
and Corelli came to England to see Purcell, and when he heard he was
dead, went directly back again to Italy.' JOHNSON. 'I should not have
wished to be dead to disappoint Campbell, had he been so foolish as you
represent him; but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles
off.' This was apparently perverse; and I do believe it was not his real
way of thinking: he could not but like a man who came so far to see
him. He laughed with some complacency, when I told him Campbell's odd
expression to me concerning him: 'That having seen such a man, was a
thing to talk of a century hence,'--as if he could live so long.
We got into an argument whether the Judges who went to India might with
propriety engage in trade. Johnson warmly maintained that they might.
'For why (he urged,) should not Judges get riches, as well as those who
deserve them less?' I said, they should have sufficient salaries,
and have nothing to take off their attention from the affairs of the
publick.
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