Of this performance I avoided to talk with him; for I had now formed a clear and settled opinion, that the people of America were well warranted to resist a claim that their fellow-subjects in the mother-country should have the entire command of their fortunes, by taxing them without their own consent; and the extreme violence which it breathed, appeared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a christian philosopher, and so directly opposite to the principles of peace which he had so beautifully recommended in his pamphlet respecting Falkland’s Islands, that I was sorry to see him appear in so unfavourable a light.

On Friday, March 24, I met him at the literary club, where were Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Mr. Colman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Vesey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Steevens, and Mr. Charles Fox.  Before he came in, we talked of his Journey to the Western Islands, and of his coming away ‘willing to believe the second sight,’ which seemed to excite some ridicule.  I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories of it which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, ’He is only willing to believe:  I do believe.  The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind.  What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle.  I am filled with belief.’  ’Are you? (said Colman,) then cork it up.’

I found his Journey the common topick of conversation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be.  At one of Lord Mansfield’s formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Levees, his Lordship addressed me, ‘We have all been reading your travels, Mr. Boswell.’  I answered, ‘I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson.’  The Chief Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, ‘He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian.’

Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success.  He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions.  The Tale of a Tub is so much superiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it:  ’there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life.’  I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver’s Travels, ’When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.’  I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain.  Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God; as he consulted it upon all occasions.  He observed, that ’Swift put his name to but two things, (after he had a name to put,) The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language, and the last Drapier’s Letter.’