[1114] At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be ready, he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the house, thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the conversation, addressed him thus: 'Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson:' 'No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.' BOSWELL.
[1115] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. 285) says:—'The roughness of the language used on board a man of war, where he passed a week on a visit to Captain Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what some place was called, and received for answer that it was where the loplolly man kept his loplolly; a reply he considered as disrespectful, gross and ignorant.' Mr. Croker says that Captain Knight of the Belleisle lay for a couple of months in 1762 in Plymouth Sound. Croker's Boswell, p. 480. It seems unlikely that Johnson passed a whole week on ship-board. Loplolly, or Loblolly, is explained in Roderick Random, chap. xxvii. Roderick, when acting as the surgeon's assistant on a man of war, 'suffered,' he says, 'from the rude insults of the sailors and petty officers, among whom I was known by the name of Lobolly Boy.'
[1116] He was the father of Colonel William Mudge, distinguished by his trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. WRIGHT.
[1117] 'I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, and to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 112, 115.
[1118] See post, under March 20, 1781.
[1119] See ante, p. 293. BOSWELL.
[1120] The present Devonport.
[1121] A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with the utmost vehemence 'I hate a Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house where 'he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious regard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of Johnson's constitution, however, saved him from any unpleasant consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen Dr. Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened at the time that they were together in Devonshire, when one night after supper Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which affected his speech so much that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which occurred in the course of his conversation. He attempted it three times but failed; yet at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir Joshua, I think it is now time to go to bed."' Ib. ii. 161. One part of this story however is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be untrue. Reynolds at this time was not knighted. Johnson said (post, April 7, 1778): 'I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this.' See however post, April 24, 1779, where he said:—'I used to slink home when I had drunk too much;' also ante, p. 103, and post, April 28, 1783.
[1122] George Selwyn wrote:—'Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear he lost £10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the year, will be at Cashiobury.' (The reference to this quotation I have mislaid.)
[1123] Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he added to Goldsmith's Traveller. Post, under Feb. 1766.