on Eleanor's words. But another question intrudes itself in this
connection: Is there a link between the two arrests and _Idler_ No. 22,
"Imprisonment of Debtors," which Johnson substituted for the original
essay when the periodical was republished in 1761? I am not prepared to
answer these questions; I can only raise them.

I cannot forbear another excursion into the region of Johnsonian
autobiography (or pseudo-autobiography) even at the increased risk of
committing a scholarly sin against which I have myself protested. In my
own defense I can say that I know the highly conjectural nature of what
I am doing. Johnson's pride may have suffered when he was arrested for
debt in the presence of unsympathetic onlookers. This is sheer
hypothesizing. But when, in _Henry IV_, Worcester speaks the following
words:

For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in
our debt; And think, we deem ourselves unsatisfy'd, Till he hath found a
time to pay us home. (I.iii.285-8) and Johnson comments: "This is a
natural description of the state of mind between those who have
conferred, and those that have received, obligations too great to be
satisfied," we may protest that such a reaction is by no means
universal. The suspicion that Johnson is speaking for himself is
strengthened by an observation made by Sir Joshua Reynolds and recorded
by his biographer, Junes Northcote. Reynolds remarks "that if any drew
[Johnson] into a state of obligation without his own consent, that man
was the first he would affront, by way of clearing off the account"
(see Boswell's _Life_, III, 345, n.l). Johnson's note may nov be looked
upon as a possible personal confession. Other conjectures are justified,
I believe, by still other notes, but it may be preferable to list,
without comment, some of the topics upon which Johnson has his say in