JOHNSON. " Very true, Sir. Therefore the man,
who is asked by an authour, what he thinks of his
work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to
speak the truth; so that what he says is not consi-
dered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot
retract it; and this authour, when mankind are hunt-
ing him with a cannister at his tail, can say, 'I would
not have published, had not Johnson, or Reynolds,
or Musgrave, or some other good judge commended
the work. Yet I consider it as a very difficult ques-
tion in conscience, whether one should advise a man
not to publish a work, if profit be his object; for the
man may say, Had it not been for you, I should
have had the money.' Now you cannot be sure;
for you have only your own opinion, and the publick
may think very differently.
very differently." SIR JOSHUA Reynolds.
"You must upon such an occasion have two judge-
ments; one as to the real value of the work, the
other as to what may please the general taste at the
time."
JOHNSON." But you can be sure of neither;
and therefore I should scruple much to give a sup-
pressive vote. Both Goldsmith's comedies were
once refused; his first by Garrick, his second by
Colman, who was prevailed on at last by much soli-
citation, nay, a kind of force, to bring it on. His
• Vicar of Wakefield' I myself did not think would
have had much success. It was written and sold to

a bookseller, before his Traveller;' but published after; so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after the Traveller,' he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty guineas was no mean price. The bookseller had the advantage of Goldsmith's reputation from The

1778.

Ætat. 69.

Ætat. 69.

1778. Traveller' in the sale, though Goldsmith had it not in selling the copy." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "The Beggar's Opera affords a proof how strangely people will differ in opinion about a literary performance. Burke thinks it has no merit." JOHNSON. "It was refused by one of the houses; but I should have thought it would succeed, not from any great excellence in the writing, but from the novelty, and the general spirit and gaiety of the piece, which keeps the audience always attentive, and dismisses them in good humour.

We went to the drawing-room, where was a considerable increase of company. Several of us got round Dr. Johnson, and complained that he would not give us an exact catalogue of his works, that there might be a complete edition. He smiled, and evaded our entreaties. That he intended to do it, I have no doubt, because I have heard him say so; and I have in my possession an imperfect list, fairly written out, which he entitles Historia Studiorum. I once got from one of his friends a list, which there was pretty good reason to suppose was accurate, for it was written down in his presence by this friend, who enumerated each article aloud, and had some of them mentioned to him by Mr. Levett, in concert with whom it was made out; and Johnson, who heard all this, did not contradict it. But when I shewed a copy of this list to him, and mentioned the evidence for its exactness, he laughed and said, "I was willing to let them go on as they pleased, and never interfered. " Upon which I read it to him, article by article, and got him positively to own or refuse; and then, having obtained certainty so far, I got some

other articles confirmed by him directly, and afterwards, from time to time, made additions under his sanction.

His friend, Edward Cave, having been mentioned, he told us, "Cave used to sell ten thousand of The Gentleman's Magazine;' yet such was then his minute attention and anxiety that the sale should not suffer the smallest decrease, that he would name a particular person who he heard had talked of leaving off the Magazine, and would say, Let us have something good next month."

It was observed, that avarice was inherent in some dispositions. JOHNSON. "No man was born a miser, because no man was born to possession. Every man is born cupidus-desirous of getting; but not avarus -desirous of keeping. BOSWELL. " I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man; a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving." JOHNSON. "That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable. No, Sir, a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.'

The conversation having turned on Bon-Mots, he quoted, from one of the Ana, an exquisite instance of flattery in a maid of honour in France, who being asked by the Queen what o'clock it was, answered, "What your Majesty pleases." He admitted that Mr. Burke's classical pun upon Mr. Wilkes's being carried on the shoulders of the mob,

1778.

Ætat. 69.

Ætat. 69.

1778. was admirable; and though he was strangely unwilling to allow to that extraordinary man the talent of wit," he also laughed with approbation at another of his playful conceits; which was, that "Horace has in one line given a description of a good desirable

manour:

Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines;"

that is to say, a modus as to the tithes, and certain fines."

'I

He observed, "A man cannot with propriety speak of himself, except he relates simple facts; as, I was at Richmond:' or what depends on mensuration; as, I am six feet high.' He is sure he has been at Richmond; he is sure he is six feet high: but he cannot be sure he is wise, or that he has any other excellence. Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he

See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," edit. 3, p. 21, et seq. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito, I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with "I find since the former edition," is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.

7 [This, as both Mr. Bindley and Dr. Kearney have observed to me, is the motto to " An Enquiry into Customary Estates and Tenant's Rights, &c.-with some considerations for restraining excessive fines." By Everard Fleetwood, Esq. 8vo. 1731. But it is, probably, a mere coincidence. Mr. Burke perhaps never saw that pamphlet. MALONE.]

Ætat. 69.

can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, 1778. and all the reproach of falsehood." BOSWELL. "Sometimes it may proceed from a man's strong consciousness of his faults being observed. He knows that others would throw him down, and therefore he had better lie down softly of his own accord."

On Tuesday, April 28, he was engaged to dine at General Paoli's, where, as I have already observed, I was still entertained in elegant hospitality, and with all the ease and comfort of a home. I called on him, and accompanied him in a hackney-coach. We stopped first at the bottom of Hedge-lane, into which he went to leave a letter, "with good news for a poor man in distress," as he told me. I did not question him particularly as to this. He himself often resembled Lady Bolingbroke's lively description of Pope that "he was un politique aux choux et aux raves." He would say, "I dine to-day in Grosvenor-square; this might be with a Duke; or, perhaps, "I dine to-day at the other end of the town;" or, "A gentleman of great eminence called on me yesterday."-He loved thus to keep things floating in conjecture: Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. I believe I ventured to dissipate the cloud, to unveil the mystery, more freely and frequently than any of his friends. We stopped again at Wirgman's, the well-known toy-shop, in St. James'sStreet, at the corner of St. James's-Place, to which he had been directed, but not clearly, for he searched about some time, and could not find it at first; and said, "To direct one only to a corner shop is toying with one." I supposed he meant this as a play upon the word toy; it was the first time that I knew him