As it
reaches Mr. Shepherd it comes from Garrick through Wilkes. Garrick, no
doubt, as Johnson says (_ante_, v. 391), was, as a companion, 'restrained
by some principle,' and had 'some delicacy of feeling.' Nevertheless,
in his stories, he was, we may be sure, no more on oath than a man is
in lapidary inscriptions (_ante_, ii. 407). It is possible that he
reported Johnson's very words to Hume, and that Hume did not change
them in reporting them to Boswell. Whatever they were, they were spoken
in 1749 and published in 1791, when Johnson had been dead six years,
Garrick twelve years, and Hume fourteen years. It is idle to dream that
they can now be conjecturally emended. But it is worse than idle to
bring in as evidence John Wilkes. What entered his ear as purity itself
might issue from his mouth as the grossest obscenity. He had no delicacy
of feeling. No principle restrained him. When he comes to bear testimony,
and aims a shaft at any man's character, the bow that he draws is drawn
with the weakness of the hand of a worn-out and shameless profligate.
Mr. Shepherd quotes an unpublished letter of Boswell to Wilkes, dated
Rome, April 22, 1765, to show 'that the two men had become familiars,
not only long before Wilkes's famous meeting with Dr. Johnson was brought
about, but before even the friendship of Boswell himself with Johnson
had been consolidated.' It needs no unpublished letters to show that.
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