Note 335 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 2)

The Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials for 1758, p. 278, contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the Commission, but, according to the Report, it was before the Recorder that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters * and ‡ that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice Willes, Horace Walpole writes:—'He was not wont to disguise any of his passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's Reign of George II, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (ante, i. 45).