He was perhaps unusually dissipated
this visit.
[1137] See _ante_, ii. 135.
[1138] 'Three men,' writes Horace Walpole, 'were especially suspected,
Wilkes, Edmund Burke, and W. G. Hamilton. Hamilton was most generally
suspected.' _Memoirs of George III_, iii. 401. According to Dr. T.
Campbell (_Diary_, p. 35) Johnson in 1775 'said that he looked upon
Burke to be the author of _Junius_, and that though he would not take
him _contra mundum_, yet he would take him against any man.'
[1139] Sargeant Bettersworth, enraged at Swift's lines on him,
'demanded whether he was the author of that poem. "Mr. Bettesworth,"
answered he, "I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers, who
knowing my disposition to satire advised me that if any scoundrel or
blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, _Are you the author of this
paper_? I should tell him that I was not the author; and therefore I
tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of these lines."'
Johnson's Works, viii. 216. See _post_, June 13, 1784.
[1140] Mr. S. Whyte (_Miscellanea Nova_, p. 27) says that Johnson
mistook the nature of the compliment. Sheridan had fled to France from
his debtors.
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