[1361] In the Life of Edmund Smith. See ante, i. 81, and Johnson's Works, vii. 380.
[1362] Unlike Walmsley and Johnson, of whom one was a Whig, the other a Tory. 'Walmsley was a Whig,' wrote Johnson, 'with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me.'
[1363] See ante, ii. 169, note 2.
[1364] Miss Burney described an evening spent by Johnson at Dr. Burney's some weeks earlier:—'He was in high spirits and good humour, talked all the talk, affronted nobody, and delighted everybody. I never saw him more sweet, nor better attended to by his audience.' In December she wrote:—'Dr. Johnson is very gay, and sociable, and comfortable, and quite as kind to me as ever.' A little later she wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'Does Dr. Johnson continue gay and good-humoured, and "valuing nobody" in a morning?' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 412, 429, 432.
[1365] Pr. and Med. p. 185. BOSWELL.
[1366] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 27.
[1367] The Charterhouse.
[1368] Macbean was, on Lord Thurlow's nomination, admitted 'a poor brother of the Charterhouse.' Ante, i. 187. Johnson, on Macbean's death on June 26, 1784, wrote:—'He was one of those who, as Swift says, stood as a screen between me and death. He has, I hope, made a good exchange. He was very pious; he was very innocent; he did no ill; and of doing good a continual tenour of distress allowed him few opportunities; he was very highly esteemed in the house [the Charterhouse].' Piozzi Letters, ii. 373. The quotation from Swift is found in the lines On the Death of Dr. Swift:—
'The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortured with suspense and fear,
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approached, to stand between.'
Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xi. 246.