comes where he is not more ignorant than any one elle." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Yet there is no man whofe company is more liked." JOHNSON. "To be fure, Sir. When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer, their inferiour while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldfmith comically fays of himfelf 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 confufed, and unable to talk. Take him as a poet, his 'Traveller' is a very fine performance; aye, and fo is hisDeferted 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 hiftorian, he stands in the first class." BOSWELL. "An hiftorian! My dear Sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History 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, Goldsmith's History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." BOSWELL. "Will you not admit the fuperiority of Robertson, in whose History we find fuch penetration-fuch painting?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you must confider how that penetration and that painting are employed. It is not hiftory, it is imagination. He who defcribes what he never faw, draws from fancy. Robertfon 1773. Ætat. 64. 1773. Etat. 64. nance. Robertfon paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces in a history-piece: he imagines an heroick counteYou must look upon Robertfon's work as romance, and try it by that ftandard. History it is not. Besides, Sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldfimith has done this in his History. Now Robertfon might have put twice as much into his book. Robertfon 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. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know: Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No Iman will read Robertfon's cumbrous detail a fecond time; but Goldfmith's plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertfon what an old tutor of a college faid to one of his pupils: Read over your compofitions, and whereever you meet with a paffage which you think is particularly fine, ftrike it out.' Goldsmith'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." I cannot dismiss the prefent topick without obferving, that it is probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned owned that he often "talked for victory," rather 1773. urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertfon's ex- Atat. 64. cellent historical works, in the ardour of contest, than expreffed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to fuppofe, that he fhould fo widely dif fer from the rest of the literary world. JOHNSON. "I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster-abbey. While we furveyed the Poets' Corner, I said to him, • Forfitan et noftrum nomen mifcebitur iftis"." When we got to Temple-bar he ftopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and flily whispered me, Forfitan et noftrum nomen mifcebitur ISTIS." Johnfon praised John Bunyan highly. "His 'Pilgrim's Progrefs' has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the ftory; and it has had the beft 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 tranflation 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 7 Ovid. de Art. Amand. i. iii. v. 13. B In allufion to Dr. Johnson's fuppofed political principles, and perhaps his own. VOL. II. H asked, 1773. Etat. 64. afked, who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody fuggested Pope. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholick, I would not have his to be firft. I think Milton's rather fhould 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 reafons affigned for this, one of which would be very fufficient. He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his religious counfels would have lefs weight when known to come from a man whofe profeffion was Theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not fuitable to his principles, fo 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 felf-denial, fo 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. I fat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely diffipate. In a fhort time I received the agreeable intelligence 9 Here is another inftance of his high admiration of Milton as a Poet, notwithstanding his just abhorrence of that four Republican's political principles. His candour and discrimination are equally confpicuous. Let us hear no more of his " injustice to Milton." that I was chofen. I haftened to the place of 1773. meeting, and was introduced to fuch a fociety as Etat. 64 can feldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then faw for the firft time, and whofe fplendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (now Sir William,) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club. Goldsmith produced fome very abfurd verses which had been publickly recited to an audience for money. JOHNSON. "I can match this nonsense. There was a poem called "Eugenio,' which came out fome years ago, and concludes thus: And now, ye trifling felf-affuming elves, Dr. Johnfon's memory here was not perfectly accurate i "Eugenio" does not conclude thus. There are eight more lines after the laft of thofe quoted by him; and the paffage which he meant to recite is as follows: "Say now ye fluttering, poor affuming elves, "Behold Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, H 2 Mr. |