Note 980 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 6)
Reading edition
Anecdotes, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775. Payne's Burke, i. 173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:—'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' See ante, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.'