Vansittart], who, in the course of
conversation, wished to inform us of this simple fact, that the
council upon the circuit of Shrewsbury were much bitten by fleas,
took, I suppose, seven or eight minutes in relating it
circumstantially. He in a plenitude of phrase told us, that large
bales of woollen cloth were lodged in the town-hall; that by reason
of this, fleas nestled there in prodigious numbers; that the lodgings
of the council were near the town-hall; and that those little animals
moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in
great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious
narrative, and then burst out (playfully however), 'It is a pity,
Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a
time, that a lion must have served you a twelve-month.'"
He complains in a note that Mrs. Piozzi, to whom he told the
anecdote, has related it "as if the gentleman had given the natural
history of the mouse." But, in a letter to Johnson she tells _him_ "I
have seen the man that saw the mouse," and he replies "Poor V----, he
is a good man, &c.;" so that her version of the story is the best
authenticated. Opposite Boswell's aggressive paragraph she has
written: "I saw old Mitchell of Brighthelmstone affront him (Johnson)
terribly once about fleas. Johnson, being tired of the subject,
expressed his impatience of it with coarseness. 'Why, Sir,' said the
old man, 'why should not Flea bite o'me be treated as Phlebotomy? It
empties the capillary vessels.
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