Some Wit of Dr. Johnson's

As I am busy with finals, I can only provide you, dear reader, with the fruit of another man's mind.

Samuel Johnson on Rousseau (from Boswell's Life):

Boswell: My dear sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company. Do you really think him a bad man?
Johnson: Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.
Boswell: I don't deny, sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.
Johnson: Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.
Boswell: Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?
Johnson: Why, sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.

On Swift

Swift having been mentioned, Johnson, as usual, treated him with little respect as an author. Some of us endeavored to support the Dean of St. Patrick's, by various arguments. One in particular praised his "Conduct of the Allies." Johnson: "Sir, his 'Conduct of the Allies' is a performance of very little ability." "Surely, sir (said Dr. Douglas), you must allow it has strong facts." Johnson: "Why, yes, sir; but what is that to the merit of the composition? In the Sessions-paper of the Old Bailey there are strong facts. Housebreaking is a strong fact; robbery is a strong fact; and murder is a mighty strong fact; but is great praise due to the historian to those strong facts? No, sir; Swift has told what he had to tell, distinctly enough, but that is all. He had to count ten, and he has counted it right." 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 [the sting of Johnson's wit, given an opening by a comment of Mr. Davies, had compelled Dr. Percy to leave the dinner], for which, probably, when the first ebullition was over, he felt some compunction, 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. Nor did his punishment rest here; for upon subsequent occasions, whenever he, "statesman all over," assumed a strutting importance, I used to hail him "the Author of the Conduct of the Allies."

When I called upon Dr. Johnson the 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."