9. The date is established by Boswell’s description of the dinner, for which see Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle, eds., Boswell in Search of a Wife, 1766–1769 (New York, [1956]), p. 167. The conversation was lively, ranging from Popery and preaching to the bone that Boswell and Johnson so often picked, the cultural comparison of England and Scotland. This dinner, nevertheless, is the only authenticated meeting between BF and Boswell except for chance encounters at a club, for which see Verner W. Crane, “The Club of Honest Whigs: Friends of Science and Liberty,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., XXIII (1966), 227–30.