Not that he is
alone; but the young man beside him laughs only in politeness and is
inwardly puzzled, even shocked. Boswell has a keen, an exquisitely
keen, scent for comedy, for the fun that is latent in fine shades of
character; but imaginative burlesque, anything that borders on lovely
nonsense, he was not formed to savour. All the more does one revel in
his account of what led up to the moment when Johnson `to support
himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot
pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that in the silence of the
night his voice seemed to resound from Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch.'
No evening ever had an unlikelier ending. The omens were all for
gloom. Johnson had gone to dine at General Paoli's, but was so ill
that he had to leave before the meal was over. Later he managed to go
to Mr. Chambers' rooms in the Temple. `He continued to be very ill'
there, but gradually felt better, and `talked with a noble enthusiasm
of keeping up the representation of respectable families,' and was
great on `the dignity and propriety of male succession.' Among his
listeners, as it happened, was a gentleman for whom Mr. Chambers had
that day drawn up a will devising his estate to his three sisters. The
news of this might have been expected to make Johnson violent in
wrath.
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