"In his Lordship's dressing-room lay Johnson's small _Dictionary_[34]:
he shewed it to me, with some eagerness, saying 'Look'ye! _Quae terra
nostri non plena laboris._' He observed, also, Goldsmith's _Animated
Nature_; and said, 'Here's our friend! The poor Doctor would have been
happy to hear of this.' In our way, Johnson strongly expressed his
love of driving fast in a post-chaise. 'If (said he) I had no duties,
and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly
in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could
understand me, and would add something to the conversation.'"
In the year following this visit to Ashbourne, 1778, there was fear of
invasion. Our army was fully occupied in the war with America and it
was thought that France and Spain might seize the opportunity to make
an attack upon England. The militia was called out and Bennet Langton
was stationed with the Lincolns at Warley Camp. He invited Johnson to
visit him there, and Johnson staid about a week, shewing, as he had
done at Fort George, a keen interest in military matters:
"He sate, with a patient degree of attention, to observe the
proceedings of a regimental court-martial, that happened to be called,
in the time of his stay with us; and one night, as late as eleven
o'clock, he accompanied the Major of the regiment in going what are
styled the _Rounds_, where he might observe the forms of visiting the
guards, for the seeing that they and their sentries are ready in their
duty.... On one occasion, when the regiment were going through their
exercise, he went quite close to the men at one of the extremities of
it, and watched all their practices attentively; and, when he came
away, his remark was, 'The men indeed do load their muskets and fire
with wonderful celerity.'"
At the age of 69 he slept in a tent, and enjoyed himself both at the
regimental mess and at dinner with the General.
"A camp" he wrote to Mrs Thrale "however familiarly we may speak of
it, is one of the great scenes of human life. War and peace divide the
business of the world. Camps are the habitations of those who conquer
kingdoms, or defend them."
Finally, we must not omit a special journey to Uttoxeter. Johnson had a
long memory, even for his own failings:
"Once," said he "I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter-market.
Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was
painful.... I desired to atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in
very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the
rain, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. In contrition
I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory."