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1773.

Etat. 64.

Goldsmith, however, was often very fortunate in his witty contests, even: when he entered the lifts with Johnson himself. Sir Joshua Reynolds was in company with them one day, when Goldsmith said, `that he thought he could write a good fable, mentioned the fimplicity which that kind of compofition requires, and obferved, that in moft fables the animals introduced feldom talk in character. "For inftance, (faid he,) the fable of the little fishes, who faw birds fly over their heads, and envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill (continued he,) confifts in making them talk like little fishes." While he indulged himfelf in this fanciful reverie, he observed Johnson fhaking his fides, and laughing. Upon which he smartly proceeded,. Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not fo eafy as you feem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES."

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Johnfon, though remarkable for his great variety of compofition, never exercised his talents in fable, except we allow his beautiful tale published in Mrs. Williams's Mifcellanies to be of that fpecies. I have, however, found among his manufcript collections the following fketch of one:

"Glow-worm lying in the garden faw a candle in a neighbouring palace,— and complained of the littleness of his own light ;-another obferved-wait a little ;—soon dark ;—have outlasted oλa [many] of these glaring lights which only are brighter as they hafte to nothing."

On Thursday, April 29, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, and Mr. Thrale. I was very defirous to get Dr. Johnson abfolutely fixed in his refolution to go with me to the Hebrides this year; and I told him that I had received a letter from Dr. Robertfon the hiftorian upon the fubject,, with which he was much pleased, and now talked in fuch a manner of his long-intended tour, that I was fatisfied he meant to fulfil his engagement.

The cuftom of eating dogs at Otaheite being mentioned, Goldsmith obferved, that this was also a cuftom in China; that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher; and that when he walks abroad. all the dogs fall on him. JOHNSON. "That is not owing to his killing dogs, Sir. I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived, always attacked. It is the fmell of carnage which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may." GOLDSMITH. "Yes, there is a general abhorrence in animals at the signs of maffacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a ftable, the horfes are like to go mad." JOHNSON. "I doubt that." GOLDSMITH. "Nay, Sir, it is a fact well authenticated." THRALE. You had better prove it before you put it into your book on natural history.

You:

1773.

You may do it in my stable if you will." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, Etat. 64, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes experiments for fo comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them; his erroneous affertions would then fall upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular."

The character of Mallet having been introduced, and spoken of flightingly by Goldsmith; JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, Mallet had talents enough to keep his literary reputation alive as long as he himself lived; and that, let me tell you, is a good deal." GOLDSMITH. "But I cannot agree that it was fo. His literary reputation was dead long before his natural death. I confider an authour's literary reputation to be alive only while his name will ensure a good price for his copy from the bookfellers. I will get you (to Johnson,) a hundred guineas for any thing whatever that you shall write, if you put your name to it." Dr. Goldsmith's new play, "She ftoops to conquer," being mentioned; JOHNSON. "I know of no comedy for many years that has fo much exhilarated an audience, that has anfwered fo much the great end of comedy,making an audience merry.”

Goldfmith having faid, that Garrick's compliment to the Queen, which he introduced into the play of The Chances,' which he had altered and revised this year, was mean and grofs flattery;-JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I would not write, I would not give folemnly under my hand a character beyond what I thought really true; but a speech on the stage,. let it flatter ever fo extravagantly, is formular. It has always been formular to flatter Kings and Queens; so much so, that even in our church-service we have our most religious King,' used indifcriminately, whoever is King. Nay, they even flatter themselves;—' we have been graciously pleafed to grant.?-No modern flattery, however, is fo grofs as that of the Auguftan age, where the Emperour was deified.. Præfens Divus habebitur Auguftus.' And as to meannefs, (rifing into warmth,) how is it mean in a player,—a fhowman,-a fellow who exhibits himself for a fhilling, to flatter his Queen? The attempt, indeed, was dangerous; for if it had miffed, what became of Garrick, and what became of the Queen? As Sir William Temple fays of a great General, it is neceffary not only that his designs should be formed in a masterly manner, but that they should be attended with fuccefs. Sir, it is right, at a time when the Royal Family is not generally liked, to let it be feen that the people like at least one of them." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "I do not perceive why the profeffion of a

player

1773.

Etat. 64.

player should be despised; for the great and ultimate end of all the employments of mankind is to produce amusement. Garrick produces more amusement than any body." BOSWELL. "You fay, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick exhibits himself for a fhilling. In this respect he is only on a footing with a lawyer who exhibits himself for his fee, and even will maintain any nonsense or abfurdity, if the cafe requires it. Garrick refuses a play or a part which he does not like; a lawyer never refufes.", JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, what does this prove? only that a lawyer is worse. Bofwell is now like Jack in The Tale of a Tub,' who, when he is puzzled by an argument, hangs himself. He thinks I fhall cut him down, but I'll let him hang," (laughing vociferously.) SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Mr. Bofwell thinks that the profeffion of a lawyer being unquestionably honourable, if he can fhew the profeffion of a player to be more honourable, he proves his argument."

On Friday, April 30, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk's, where were Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and fome more members of the Literary Club, whom he had obligingly invited to meet me, as I was this evening to be balloted for as candidate for admission into that distinguished fociety. Johnfon had done me the honour to propofe me, and Beauclerk was very zealous for me.

Goldsmith being mentioned;-JOHNSON. "It is amazing how little Goldfinith knows. He feldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Yet there is no man whose company is more liked.” JOHNSON. "To be fure, Sir. When people find a man of the most distinguifhed abilities as a writer, their inferiour while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldsmith comically fays of himself is very true, he always gets the better when he argues alone;-meaning, that he is mafter of a fubject in his study, and can write well upon it; but when he comes into company, grows confused, and unable to talk. Take him as a poet, his Traveller' is a very fine performance; aye, and fo is his Deserted Village,' were it not fometimes too much the echo of his Traveller.' Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet,-as a comick writer,—or as an historian, he stands in the first clafs." BOSWELL. "An hiftorian! My dear Sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman Hiftory with the works of other hiftorians of this age?" JOHNSON. "Why, who are before him?" BOSWELL."Hume,-Robertfon,-Lord Lyttelton." JOHNSON. (His antipathy to the Scotch beginning to rife,) "I have not read Hume; but, doubtlefs, Goldfmith's Hiftory is better than the verbiage of Robertfon, or the foppery of Dalrymple." BOSWELL. "Will you not admit the fuperiority of Robertson,

1773.

in whofe History we find fuch penetration,-such painting?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you must confider how that penetration and that painting are employed. Etat. 64. It is not history, it is imagination. He who defcribes what he never faw, draws from fancy. Robertfon paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces in a hiftory-piece he imagines an heroick countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Befides, Sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldfmith has done this in his History. Now Robertfon might have put twice as much into his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool: the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, Sir; I always thought Robertfon would be crushed by his own. weight, would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldfmith tells you fhortly all you want to know: Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertfon's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's plain narrative will please again and again. I would fay to Robertfon what an old tutor of a College faid to one of his pupils: Read over your compofitions, and wherever you meet with a paffage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.' Goldfmith's abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to fay, that if you compare him with Vertot, in the fame places of the Roman History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of faying every thing he has to fay in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Perfian Tale."

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I cannot difmifs the prefent topick without obferving, that it is probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned that he often "talked for victory," rather urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertson's excellent historical works, in the ardour of conteft, than expreffed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to fuppofe, that he fhould fo widely differ from the rest of the literary world. JOHNSON. "I remember once being with Goldfmith in Westminster-abbey.. While we furveyed the Poets' Corner, I faid to him,

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Forfitan et noftrum nomen mifcebitur iftis".

When we got to Temple-bar he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and flily whispered me,

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* In allufion to Dr. Johnson's supposed political principles, and perhaps his own.

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Johnfon

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1773.

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Johnfon praised John Bunyan highly. "His Pilgrim's Progrefs' has Etat. 64. great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extenfive fale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spencer."

A propofition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent perfons fhould, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's church as well as in Westminster-abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked, who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody fuggefted Pope. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholick, I would not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should have the precedence. I think more highly of him now than I did at twenty. There is more thinking in him and in Butler than in any of our poets.'

Some of the company expreffed a wonder why the authour of fo excellent a book as "The whole Duty of Man" fhould conceal himself. JOHNSON. "There may be different reasons affigned for this, any one of which would be very fufficient. fufficient. He He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his religious counsels would have less weight when known to come from a man whose profeffion was Theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not fuitable to his principles; so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future ftate."

The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's till the fate of my election fhould be announced to me. In a fhort time I received the agreeable intelligence that I was chofen. I hastened to the place of meeting, and was introduced to fuch a fociety as can feldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then faw for the first time, and whofe fplendid talents had long made me ardently with for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldfmith, Mr. (now Sir William,) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnfon placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a defk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club.

Goldfmith produced fome very abfurd verfes which had been publickly recited to an audience for money. JOHNSON. "I can match this nonsense.

There

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