'No matter,
Sir, (said Johnson;) they consider it as a compliment to be talked to,
as if they were wiser than they are. So true is this, Sir, that Baxter
made it a rule in every sermon that he preached, to say something that
was above the capacity of his audience.'
Johnson's dexterity in retort, when he seemed to be driven to an
extremity by his adversary, was very remarkable. Of his power in this
respect, our common friend, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, has been pleased to
furnish me with an eminent instance. However unfavourable to Scotland,
he uniformly gave liberal praise to George Buchanan, as a writer. In
a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries,
in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on this
ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, exclaimed, 'Ah,
Dr. Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an
Englishman?' 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson, after a little pause,) I should
NOT have said of Buchanan, had he been an ENGLISHMAN, what I will now
say of him as a SCOTCHMAN,--that he was the only man of genius his
country ever produced.
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