Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/65

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the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell.

��till the nth of June, 1781, when I went to pay him a morning visit. I found him alone, and nothing but mutual enquiries respecting mutual friends had passed, when Barretti came in. Barretti, more curious than the Doctor, soon asked me if the Disturbances in Ireland were over. The question, I own, surprized me, as I had left all things quiet, and was not at first altogether aware of the tendency of his question. I therefore in return asked what disturbances he meant, for that I had heard of none. "What!" said he, "have you not been in arms ?" To which I answered < categorically, "Yes ! and many bodies of men continue so to be." "And don't you call this Disturbance ? " re joined Barretti. " No ! " said I, "the Irish volunteers have demeaned them selves very peaceably," ' &c.

[Here follows a long explanation of the volunteers which I omit.]

' Dr. Johnson, who all this while sat

��silent, but with a very attentive ear to what passed, at length turned to me with an apparent indignation which I had never before experienced from him.'

Here follows Johnson's speech in much the same words as in the text, except that ' wasted in the flames ' is ' roasted in the flames.' Wasted probably is a misprint. Campbell continues : * After this explosion I perhaps warmly replied' [In the text Campbell 'cooly replyed ']. Johnson continues as in the text, but adds : 4 in a jocular way, repeating what he before said, " when we should have roasted the Americans as rebels we only whipped them as children, and we did not succeed because my advice was not taken." ' The con versation ends with his saying: 1 Why, Sir, I don't know but I might have acted as you did, had I been an Irishman; but I speak as an Englishman.'

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