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 3 1912 893485 COPYRIGHT First Edition "Library of English Classics," 1900 RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, 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.1 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. |