JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; a man's repeating it no more makes it
his property, than a man may sell a cow which he drives home.' I said,
printing an abridgement of a work was allowed, which was only cutting
the horns and tail off the cow. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; 'tis making the cow
have a calf[218].'
About eleven at night we arrived at Montrose. We found but a sorry inn,
where I myself saw another waiter put a lump of sugar with his fingers
into Dr. Johnson's lemonade, for which he called him 'Rascal!' It put me
in great glee that our landlord was an Englishman. I rallied the Doctor
upon this, and he grew quiet[219]. Both Sir John Hawkins's and Dr.
Burney's _History of Musick_ had then been advertised. I asked if this
was not unlucky: would not they hurt one another? JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.
They will do good to one another. Some will buy the one, some the other,
and compare them; and so a talk is made about a thing, and the books
are sold.'
He was angry at me for proposing to carry lemons with us to Sky, that
he might be sure to have his lemonade. 'Sir, (said he,) I do not wish to
be thought that feeble man who cannot do without any thing. Sir, it is
very bad manners to carry provisions to any man's house, as if he could
not entertain you. To an inferior, it is oppressive; to a superior, it
is insolent.'
Having taken the liberty, this evening, to remark to Dr.
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