might have been of consequence.’  He then told Dr. Adams, that Lord Chesterfield had shewn him the letter.  ’I should have imagined (replied Dr. Adams) that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.’  ’Poh! (said Dodsley) do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield?  Not at all, Sir.  It lay upon his table; where any body might see it.  He read it to me; said, “this man has great powers,” pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were expressed.’  This air of indifference, which imposed upon the worthy Dodsley, was certainly nothing but a specimen of that dissimulation which Lord Chesterfield inculcated as one of the most essential lessons for the conduct of life.  His Lordship endeavoured to justify himself to Dodsley from the charges brought against him by Johnson; but we may judge of the flimsiness of his defence, from his having excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying that ’he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did not know where he lived;’ as if there could have been the smallest difficulty to inform himself of that circumstance, by inquiring in the literary circle with which his Lordship was well acquainted, and was, indeed, himself one of its ornaments.

Dr. Adams expostulated with Johnson, and suggested, that his not being admitted when he called on him, was, probably, not to be imputed to Lord Chesterfield; for his Lordship had declared to Dodsley, that ’he would have turned off the best servant he ever had, if he had known that he denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome;’ and, in confirmation of this, he insisted on Lord Chesterfield’s general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men.  ’Sir (said Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man this day existing.’  ’No, (said Dr. Adams) there is one person, at least, as proud; I think, by your own account, you are the prouder man of the two.’  ‘But mine (replied Johnson, instantly) was defensive pride.’  This, as Dr. Adams well observed, was one of those happy turns for which he was so remarkably ready.

Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom:  ’This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!’ And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed, that ’they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.’

On the 6th of March came out Lord Bolingbroke’s works, published by Mr. David Mallet.  The wild and pernicious ravings, under the name of Philosophy, which were thus ushered into the world, gave great offence to all well-principled men.  Johnson, hearing of their tendency, which nobody disputed, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this memorable sentence upon the noble authour and his editor.  ’Sir, he was a scoundrel, and a coward:  a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger after his death!’