son defended him
"with all the high spirit of a Roman senator." "He resolved wisely and
nobly, to be sure. He is a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced
by having his wife sing publicly for hire? No, sir, there can be no
doubt here. I know not if I should not prepare myself for a public
singer as readily as let my wife be one."

The stout old supporter of social authority went on to denounce the
politics of the day. He asserted that politics had come to mean nothing
but the art of rising in the world. He contrasted the absence of any
principles with the state of the national mind during the stormy days of
the seventeenth century. This gives the pith of Johnston's political
prejudices. He hated Whigs blindly from his cradle; but he justified his
hatred on the ground that they were now all "bottomless Whigs," that is
to say, that pierce where you would, you came upon no definite creed,
but only upon hollow formulae, intended as a cloak for private interest.
If Burke and one or two of his friends be excepted, the remark had but
too much justice.

In 1776, Boswell found Johnson rejoicing in the prospect of a journey to
Italy with the Thrales. Before starting he was to take a trip to the
country, in which Boswell agreed to join. Boswell gathered up various
bits of advice before their departure. One seems to have commended
itself to him as specially available for practice. "A man who had been
drinking freely," said the moralist, "should never go into a new
company. He would probably strike them as ridiculous, though he might
be in unison with those who had been drinking with him." Johnson
propounded another favourite theory. "A ship," he said, "was worse than
a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better
conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of
being in danger."

On March 19th, they went by coach to the Angel at Oxford; and next
morning visited the Master of University College, who chose with Boswell
to act in opposition to a very sound bit of advice given by Johnson soon
afterwards--perhaps with some reference to the proceeding. "Never speak
of a man in his own presence; it is always indelicate and may be
offensive." The two, however, discussed Johnson without reserve. The
Master said that he would have given Johnson a hundred pounds for a
discourse on the British Constitution; and Boswell suggested that
Johnson should write two volumes of no great bulk upon Church a