Mr. Davies, who sat next to Dr. Percy, having after this had some conversation aside with him, made a discovery which, in his zeal to pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from the foot of the table: 'O, Sir, I have found out a very good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or talk bawdy; for he tells me, he never saw him but at the Duke of Northumberland's table.' 'And so, Sir (said Johnson loudly, to Dr. Percy), you would shield this man from the charge of swearing and talking bawdy, because he did not do so at the Duke of Northumberland's table....' Dr. Percy seemed to be displeased, and soon afterwards left the company.
Later, in the course of conversation, Johnson denied any merit to Swift for writing 'The Conduct of the Allies'; then
_recollecting that Mr. Davies, by acting as an informer, had been the occasion of his talking somewhat too harshly to his friend Dr. Percy, for which, probably, when the first ebullition was over, he felt some compunction_,[6] he took an opportunity to give him a hit; so added, with a preparatory laugh, 'Why, Sir, Tom Davies might have written "The Conduct of the Allies."' Poor Tom being thus suddenly dragged into ludicrous notice in presence of the Scottish doctors, to whom he was ambitious of appearing to advantage, was grievously mortified.
The compunction, however, on this occasion seems to have had a short duration, for Boswell goes on to say:
When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening: 'Well (said he), we had good talk.' _Boswell_: 'Yes, Sir, you tossed and gored several persons.'
Boswell seems to have had the power of picking out all that was characteristic and important, of ruthlessly discarding unnecessary details and presenting only the salient points, of seeing a scene as a whole, with its more vivid colours flashing out as it were from a dull background, so that the whole impression is complete and clear. The smallest conversations, as we saw, were dealt with in this way. And as he 'Johnsonised' the talk which he had himself taken down, and 'Johnsonised' the stories given to him by Mr. Langton, he 'Johnsonised' in the same way these larger scenes. While retaining most of the words used by Johnson himself, Boswell seems to have added here and there a characteristic expression to make the whole more pointed, and to have compressed it all till it preserved nothing but the true Johnsonian flavour.