A little while after I had told this story, I differed from
Dr. Johnson, I suppose too confidently, upon some point, which I now
forget. He did not spare me. 'Nay, Sir, (said he,) if you cannot talk
better as a man, I'd have you bellow like a cow[1096].'
At Dr. Webster's, he said, that he believed hardly any man died without
affectation. This remark appears to me to be well founded, and will
account for many of the celebrated death-bed sayings which are
recorded[1097].
On one of the evenings at my house, when he told that Lord Lovat boasted
to an English nobleman, that though he had not his wealth, he had two
thousand men whom he could at any time call into the field, the
Honourable Alexander Gordon observed, that those two thousand men
brought him to the block. 'True, Sir, (said Dr. Johnson:) but you may
just as well argue, concerning a man who has fallen over a precipice to
which he has walked too near,--"His two legs brought him to that," is he
not the better for having two legs?'
At Dr. Blair's I left him, in order to attend a consultation, during
which he and his amiable host were by themselves. I returned to supper,
at which were Principal Robertson, Mr. Nairne, and some other gentlemen.
Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, I remember, talked well upon
subordination[1098] and government; and, as my friend and I were walking
home, he said to me, 'Sir, these two doctors are good men, and wise
men[1099].
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