" When she some time
afterwards mentioned this to him, he said, with equal truth and
politeness, "Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have
said it."
He did not come off so well on another occasion, when the presence of
women he respected might be expected to operate as a cheek. Talking,
at Mrs. Garrick's, of a very respectable author, he told us, says
Boswell, "a curious circumstance in his life, which was that he had
married a printer's devil. _Reynolds_. 'A printer's devil, Sir! why,
I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in
rags.' _Johnson_. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed,
and put clean clothes on her.' Then, looking very serious, and very
earnest. 'And she did not disgrace him;--the woman had a bottom of
good sense.' The word _bottom_ thus introduced was so ludicrous when
contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear
tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of
Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss
Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the
same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of
his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it: he therefore
resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly
around, and called out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?'
Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he
could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still
more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say the _woman_ was
_fundamentally_ sensible;' as if he had said, Hear this now, and
laugh if you dare.
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