It is true that Johnson was sometimes not less austere in condemning a great work of art for its bad morality.

The only time when he was really angry with Hannah More was on his finding that she had read _Tom Jones_--that vicious book, he called it; he hardly knew a more corrupt work.
Burke's tendency towards severity of moral judgment, however, never impaired the geniality and tenderness of his relations with those whom he loved.

Bennet Langton gave Boswell an affecting account of Burke's last interview with Johnson.

A few days before the old man's death, Burke and four or five other friends were sitting round his bedside.
"Mr.Burke said to him, 'I am afraid, sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.' 'No, sir,' said Johnson, 'it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state indeed when your company is not a delight to me.' Mr.Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, 'My dear sir, you have always been too good to me.' Immediately afterwards he went away.

This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men." One of Burke's strongest political intimacies was only less interesting and significant than his friendship with Johnson.
William Dowdeswell had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the short Rockingham administration of 1765.