' Here again
Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the
supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it
worth our while to dispute.
The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as
pedantry. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of
mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over
the world.'
He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town,
who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself
upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he,) wrote her own Life in verse,
which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface
to it, (laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut
and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, however, genteel
lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before
her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane,
and tried at the Old Bailey.
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