Note 288 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 2)

Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See post, p. 109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading Les Pensées de Pascal, alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"