I said to him, 'You were yesterday, Sir, in remarkably good humour:
but there was nothing to offend you, nothing to produce irritation
or violence. There was no bold offender. There was not one capital
conviction. It was a maiden assize. You had on your white gloves.'
He found fault with our friend Langton for having been too silent. 'Sir,
(said I,) you will recollect, that he very properly took up Sir Joshua
for being glad that Charles Fox had praised Goldsmith's Traveller, and
you joined him.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, I knocked Fox on the head, without
ceremony. Reynolds is too much under Fox and Burke at present. He is
under the Fox star and the Irish constellation. He is always under some
planet.' BOSWELL. 'There is no Fox star.' JOHNSON. 'But there is a dog
star.' BOSWELL. 'They say, indeed, a fox and a dog are the same animal.'
We dined together with Mr. Scott (now Sir William Scott his Majesty's
Advocate General,) at his chambers in the Temple, nobody else there. The
company being small, Johnson was not in such spirits as he had been the
preceding day, and for a considerable time little was said.
Pages:
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766