Note 1013 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 6)

'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but—I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man—but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' Monthly Review for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in lying), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him—but it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.'