I drank tea at Davises in Russell Street and about seven came in the great Mr. Samuel Johnson,

whom I have so long wished to see. Mr. Davis introduced me to him.

As I knew his mortal antipathy of the Scotch, I cried to Davis,

Don't tell where I come from.

However, he said, from Scotland.

Mr. Johnson, said I. Indeed I come from Scotland, but I canna help it?'

"'Sir,' replied he,

"'that I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.'

Mr. Johnson is a man of a most dreadful appearance.

He's a very big man, his troubled with sore eyes, the palsy, and the king's evil.

He's very slovenly in his dress and speaks with the most uncouth voice.

Yet his great knowledge and strength of expression command vast respect, and they render him

very excellent company.

He has great humour, and he's a worthy man.

But his dogmatical roughness of manners is disagreeable.

So that is arguably the most famous meeting in British literary history, perhaps all literary

history. It took place in Thomas Davis's bookshop off Covent Garden in London on the 16th of May 1763.

Now, one of these people was then unknown, but the other one was already a celebrity. This was

the great Mr. Samuel Johnson. He was a 53-year-old poet. He was a biographer. He was a critic. He was a great essayist on morals,

and he was what's called a lexicographer, which means somebody who basically write down the

definition of words and compiled dictionaries. And Mr. Samuel Johnson had lived for decades

in obscurity and indeed in relative poverty. But in recent years before this meeting in

...