' Dr. Taylor thought him in the wrong, and spoke to
him privately of it; but I afterwards acknowledged to Johnson that I was
to blame, for I candidly owned, that I meant to express a desire to see
a contest between Mrs. Macaulay and him; but then I knew how the contest
would end; so that I was to see him triumph. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you cannot
be sure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two
people in a dispute by which their passions may be inflamed, and they
may part with bitter resentment against each other. I would sooner keep
company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man
who contrives to bring me into a dispute with somebody that he may hear
it. This is the great fault of ----[524], (naming one of our friends)
endeavouring to introduce a subject upon which he knows two people in
the company differ.' BOSWELL. 'But he told me, Sir, he does it for
instruction.' JOHNSON. 'Whatever the motive be, Sir, the man who does
so, does very wrong. He has no more right to instruct himself at such
risk, than he has to make two people fight a duel, that he may learn how
to defend himself.'
He found great fault with a gentleman of our acquaintance for keeping a
bad table[525].
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