In 1776 we find Boswell skilfully decoying his great idol to dinner at the Dillys to meet the notorious "Jack Wilkes." To Boswell's horror, when he went to fetch Johnson, he found him covered with dust, and buffeting some books, having forgotten all about the dinner party. A little coaxing, however, soon won him over; Johnson roared out, "Frank, a clean shirt!" and was soon packed into a hackney coach. On discovering "a certain gentleman in lace," and he Wilkes the demagogue, Johnson was at first somewhat disconcerted, but soon recovered himself, and behaved like a man of the world. Wilkes quickly won the great man.
They soon set to work discussing Foote's wit, and Johnson confessed that, though resolved not to be pleased, he had once at a dinner-party been obliged to lay down his knife and fork, throw himself back in his chair, and fairly laugh it out—"The dog was so comical, sir: he was irresistible." Wilkes and Johnson then fell to bantering the Scotch; Burke complimented Boswell on his successful stroke of diplomacy in bringing Johnson and Wilkes together.
Mr. Wilkes placed himself next to Dr. Johnson, and behaved to him with so much attention and politeness, that he gained upon him insensibly. No man ate more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice and delicate. Mr. Wilkes was very assiduous in helping him to some fine veal. "Pray give me leave, sir—it is better there—a little of the brown—some fat, sir—a little of the stuffing—some gravy—let me have the pleasure of giving you some butter—allow me to recommend a squeeze of this orange; or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest." "Sir—sir, I am obliged to you, sir," cried Johnson, bowing, and turning his head to him with a look for some time of "surly virtue," but, in a short while, of complacency.
But the most memorable evening recorded at Dilly's was April 15, 1778, when Johnson and Boswell dined there, and met Miss Seward, the Lichfield poetess, and Mrs. Knowles, a clever Quaker lady, who for once overcame the giant of Bolt Court in argument. Before dinner Johnson took up a book, and read it ravenously. "He knows how to read it better," said Mrs. Knowles to Boswell, "than any one. He gets at the substance of a book directly. He tears out the heart of it." At dinner Johnson told Dilly that, if he wrote a book on cookery, it should be based on philosophical principles. "Women," he said, contemptuously, "can spin, but they cannot make a good book of cookery."
They then fell to talking of a ghost that had appeared at Newcastle, and had recommended some person to apply to an attorney. Johnson thought the Wesleys had not taken pains enough in collecting evidence, at which Miss Seward smiled. This vexed the superstitious sage of Fleet Street, and he said, with solemn vehemence, "Yes, ma'am, this is a question which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided; a question, whether in theology or philosophy, one of the most important that can come before the human understanding."
Johnson, who during the evening had been very thunderous at intervals, breaking out against the Americans, describing them as "rascals, robbers, and pirates," and declaring he would destroy them all—as Boswell says, "He roared out a tremendous volley which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic," &c.—grew very angry at Mrs. Knowles for noticing his unkindness to Miss Jane Barry, a recent convert to Quakerism.
"We remained," says Boswell, writing with awe, like a man who has survived an earthquake, "together till it was very late. Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at the time to a warm West Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxurious foliage, luscious fruits, but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightning, and earthquakes in a terrible degree."
St. Mildred's Church, Poultry, is a rectory situate at the corner of Scalding Alley. John de Asswell was collated thereto in the year 1325. To this church anciently belonged the chapel of Corpus Christi and St. Mary, at the end of Conyhoop Lane, or Grocers' Alley, in the Poultry. The patronage of this church was in the prior and canons of St. Mary Overie's in Southwark till their suppression. This church was consumed in the Great Fire, anno 1666, and then rebuilt, the parish of St. Mary Cole being thereunto annexed. Among the monumental inscriptions in this church, Maitland gives the following on the well-known Thomas Tusser, of Elizabeth's reign, who wrote a quaint poem on a farmer's life and duties:—
"Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie,
That some time made the points of husbandrie.
By him then learne thou maist, here learne we must,
When all is done we sleep and turn to dust.
And yet through Christ to heaven we hope to goe,
Who reads his bookes shall find his faith was so.
Among the curious epitaphs in St. Mildred's, Stow mentions the following, which is worth quoting here:—