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JOHNSON AND WILKES.

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HIS community of feeling seemed to draw Johnson and Wilkes the nearer, for they had already had some interesting conversation during the evening. Aiderman Lee having uttered the loyally pathetic plaint, "Poor old England is lost!" Johnson said, "Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it," a sly allusion to the North Briton controversy in which Wilkes figured so conspicuously. "Had

Lord Bute," said Wilkes, "governed Scotland only I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy." It was after this event that Johnson said how much he had enjoyed Mr. Wilkes' company.

On a subsequent occasion Johnson and Wilkes again met at the dinner table of Mr. Dilly. The subject of Scotland again gave cause for merriment, chiefly at the expense of Boswell and Dr. Beattie of Aberdeen, author of "The Minstrel." Boswell was asked how much an advocate could make at the Scottish bar. He answered, about £2000. Wilkes asked, "How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?" On which Johnson interposed with what he said was a harder question, "If one man in Scotland gets possession of £2000, what could remain for the rest of the nation?" Wilkes said, "You know in the last war the immense booty which Thurot

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carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and sixpence !"

All this seems now rather small talk, but the simplicity of Boswell in putting this raillery on record is highly amusing. The same may be said about the familiar jokes as to oats being the food of horses in England and of men in Scotland; the loss of Johnson's stick in the Isle of Mull past all recovering, considering the value of such a piece of timber there ;" and many such jests, in spite of all which every Scotchman delights in Johnson's Scottish Tour.

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LUXURY HAS BENEFITS.

MANY cry out against the evil of

luxury. Now, the truth is that

luxury produces much good. A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? How many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market keep in employment? You will hear it said gravely, "Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal? Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor. You are much surer that you are doing

good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity.

GRATIFICATION AT SEEING ONE'S WORKS.

WHEN viewing Keddlestone, the

seat of Lord Scarsdale, during his Derbyshire tour, the Doctor espied the small edition of the Dictionary in his lordship's dressing-room. He showed it to Boswell with some eagerness, saying, "Look ye, Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?" Observing also Goldsmith's "Animated Nature," he said, "Here's our friend! The poor doctor would have been happy to hear of this!"

GOLDSMITH'S WISH FOR NEW MEMBERS AT THE CLUB.

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OLDSMITH once said that he wished they had some new members at the Club to give variety, "for,"

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