It would seem that Johnson's sensibility, such as it was, was not very severely taxed.
"Boswell.—But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged?
"Johnson.—-I should do what I could to bail him; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer.
"Boswell.—Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?
"Johnson.—Yes, Sir, and eat it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow. Friends have risen up for him on every side, yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."
Steevens relates that one evening previous to the trial a consultation of Baretti's friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, the solicitor. Johnson and Burke were present, and differed as to some point of the defence. On Steevens observing to Johnson that the question had been agitated with rather too much warmth, "It may be so," replied the sage, "for Burke and I should have been of one opinion if we had had no audience." This is coming very near to—
"Would rather that the man should die
Than his prediction prove a lie."
Two anecdotes of Baretti during his imprisonment are preserved in "Thraliana":