expresses his approval of "the pretty little things;" but
profoundly observes that one must eat a good many of them before being
satisfied. "Ay, but how many of them," asks Goldsmith, "would reach to
the moon?" The sage professes his ignorance; and, indeed, remarks that
that would exceed even Goldsmith's calculations; when the practical
joker observes, "Why, _one_, sir, if it were long enough." Johnson was
completely beaten on this occasion. "Well, sir, I have deserved it. I
should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question."

It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story of Goldsmith and
himself being in Poets' Corner; of his saying to Goldsmith

"Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,"

and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation when, having
walked towards Fleet Street, they were confronted by the heads on
Temple Bar. Even when Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson's
contradiction was in a manner gentle. "If you put a tub full of blood
into a stable, the horses are like to go mad," observed Goldsmith. "I
doubt that," was Johnson's reply. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well
authenticated." Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith
should have the experiment tried in the stable; but Johnson merely
said that, if Goldsmith began making these experiments, he would never
get his book written at all. Occasionally, of course, Goldsmith was
tossed and gored just like another. "But, sir," he had ventured to
say, in opposition to Johnson, "when people live together who have
something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they
will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, 'You may
look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest
inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." Here,
according to Boswell, Johnson answered in a loud voice, "Sir, I am not
saying that _you_ could live in friendship with a man from whom you
differ as to one point; I am only saying that _I_ could do it." But
then again he could easily obtain pardon from the gentle Goldsmith for
any occasional rudeness. One evening they had a sharp passage of arms
at dinner; and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where
Goldsmith sate silent and depressed. "Johnson perceived this," says
Boswell, "and said aside to some of us, 'I'll make Goldsmith forgive
me'; and then called to him in a loud voice, 'Dr. Goldsmith, something
passed to-