Note 600 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 4)

What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague. Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (ante, iii. 265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:—'Shelburne speaks of Burke in private with great malignity.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, says (Auto. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate with Lord Shelburne's brother. Ante, ii. 282, note 3.