Note 39: — Chapter VI

It seems clear that Boswell was sometimes very tactless in leading Johnson to talk; he did not understand that not every company nor every occasion is suitable for the discussion of the most serious matters. He had, too, an unfortunate habit of saying things which were extremely injudicious. He did not even understand altogether what was likely to annoy Dr. Johnson—as on the occasion when he referred to him in company by the name 'Gargantua,' which Johnson had spoken of as having been applied to himself, or when he made what must have been an obvious reference to Johnson's curious clothes: 'Would not you, sir, be the better for velvet embroidery?' These remarks were made, it is evident, without any malevolent intention. It would seem that even when he meant to be rude he did not realise all the harm he was doing: Hume was with some justice annoyed when Boswell quoted the phrase of Temple, 'their infidel pensioner, Hume;'39 and it was introduced just as a child might say in some personal argument, 'I know what someone said of you'; and Foote can never have felt much friendship for Johnson after he heard that the latter had compared his infidelity to that of a dog.40 The company in both cases may have been glad to see Boswell defend his friend, but they must have thought him a considerable fool and hardly a harmless one.