be in Scotland!'

After Dr. Johnson's return to London,[163] I was several times with him at
his house, where I occasionally slept, in the room that had been
assigned to me.[164] I dined with him at Dr. Taylor's, at General
Oglethorpe's, and at General Paoli's. To avoid a tedious minuteness, I
shall group together what I have preserved of his conversation during
this period also, without specifying each scene where it passed, except
one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very
particular relation. Where the place or the persons do not contribute to
the zest of the conversation, it is unnecessary to encumber my page with
mentioning them. To know of what vintage our wine is, enables us to
judge of its value, and to drink it with more relish: but to have the
produce of each vine of one vineyard, in the same year, kept separate,
would serve no purpose. To know that our wine, (to use an advertising
phrase,) is 'of the stock of an Ambassadour lately deceased,' heightens
its flavour: but it signifies nothing to know the bin where each bottle
was once deposited.

'Garrick (he observed,) does not play the part of Archer in _The Beaux
Stratagem_ well. The gentleman should break out through the footman,
which is not the case as he does it.'[165]

'Where there is no education, as in savage countries, men will have the
upper hand of women. Bodily strength, no doubt, contributes to this; but
it would be so, exclusive of that; for it is mind that always governs.
When it comes to dry understanding, man has the better.'

'The little volumes entitled _Respublicae_,[166] which are very well done,
were a bookseller's work.'