243.)
When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not
giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to
society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing
to dine at Wilkes's house (_ante_, p. 224, note 2).
Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in
1784:--'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley
possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (_Misc.
Works_, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French
Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who
gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect
democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age,
and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price
made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there
was nothing on earth so _grand_ as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price
lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and
other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished.
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