MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON • BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. By James Boswell, Esq. IN THREE VOLS.- VOL. II. MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 1912 THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. On Saturday, April 3, the day after my arrival in . London this year, I went to his house late in the evening, and sat with Mrs. Williams till he came home. I found in the “ London Chronicle,” Dr. Goldsmith's apology to the public for beating Evans, a bookseller, on account of a paragraph in a newspaper published by him, which Goldsmith thought impertinent to him and to a lady of his acquaintance. The apology was written so much in Dr. Johnson's manner, that both Mrs. Williams and I supposed it to be his ; but when he came home, he soon undeceived us. When he said to Mrs. Williams, “ Well, Dr. Goldsmith's manifesto has got into your paper ;” I asked him if Dr. Goldsmith had written it, with an air that made him see I suspected it was his, though subscribed by Goldsmith. JOHNSON : “Sir, Dr. Goldsmith would no more have asked me to write such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked me to feed him with a spoon, or to do any thing else that denoted his imbecility. I as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shewn it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, done it very well ; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the 1 See Forster's Life of Goldsmith, pp. 420–22, sixth edition. B |
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