“Sir, all that you say, while you are vindicating one who 212

cannot thank you, makes me only think better of you than I ever did before.  Yet still I think you do me wrong,” etc., etc.

Some time after, in the heat of the argument, he called out,—­

" The more my Lord Lyttelton is inquired after, the worse he will appear; Mr. Seward has just heard two stories of him, which corroborate all I have related.”

He then desired Mr. Seward to repeat them.  Poor Mr. Seward looked almost as frightened as myself at the very mention of his name; but he quietly and immediately told the stories, which consisted of fresh instances, from good authorities, of Lord Lyttelton’s illiberal behaviour to Shenstone; and then he flung himself back in his chair, and spoke no more during the whole debate, which I am sure he was ready to vote a bore.

One happy circumstance, however, attended the quarrel, which was the presence of Mr. Cator, who would by no means be prevented talking himself, either by reverence for Dr. Johnson, or ignorance of the subject in question; on the contrary, he gave his opinion, quite uncalled upon every thing that was said by either party, and that with an importance and pomposity, yet with an emptiness and verbosity, that rendered the whole dispute, when in his hands, nothing more than ridiculous, and compelled even the disputants themselves, all inflamed as they were, to laugh.  To give a specimen—­one speech will do for a thousand.

“As to this here question of Lord Lyttelton, I can’t speak to it to the purpose, as I have not read his ‘Life,’ for I have only read the ‘Life of Pope;’ I have got the books though, for I sent for them last week, and they came to me on Wednesday, and then I began them; but I have not yet read ‘Lord Lyttelton.’  ‘Pope’ I have begun, and that is what I am now reading.  But what I have to say about Lord Lyttelton is this here:  Mr. Seward says that Lord Lyttelton’s steward dunned Mr. Shenstone for his rent, by which I understand he was a tenant of Lord Lyttelton’s.  Well, if he was a tenant of Lord Lyttelton’s, why should not he pay his rent?”

Who could contradict this?

When dinner was quite over, and we left the men to their wine, we hoped they would finish the affair; but Dr. Johnson was determined to talk it through, and make a battle of it, though Mr. Pepys tried to be off continually.  When they were all summoned to tea, they entered still warm and violent.  Mr. Cator had the book in his hand, and was reading the “Life of 213

Lyttelton,” that he might better, he said, understand the cause, though not a creature cared if he had never heard of it.

Mr. Pepys came up to me and said-

“just what I had so much wished to avoid!  I have been crushed in the very onset.”

I could make him no answer, for Dr. Johnson immediately called him off, and harangued and attacked him with a vehemence and continuity that quite concerned both Mrs. Thrale and myself, and that made Mr. Pepys, at last, resolutely silent, however called upon.  This now grew more unpleasant than ever; till Mr. Cator, having some time studied his book, exclaimed—­