He says that the register of
deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men
fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are
eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered
dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a
boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of
Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's
_Recollections_, i. 146.
[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28.
[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.
[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of
this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a
journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and
quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.
Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and
no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were
properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the
presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however,
some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which
he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of
information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is
disappointed, he can hardly complain.
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