ntellectual vigour and skill[360]; and to
this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and
brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his
eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this
eminent friend, he once addressed him thus:-'----, we now have been
several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I
envied you.'

He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended
to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr.
Shaw, the great traveller[361], who Mr. Daines Barrington[362] told me,
used to say, 'I hate a _cui bono_ man.' Upon being asked by a
friend[363] what he should think of a man who was apt to say _non est
tanti_;-'That he's a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would
these _tanti_ men be doing the while?' When I in a low-spirited fit, was
talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage
us in a course of action, and inquiring a _reason_ for taking so much
trouble; 'Sir (said he, in an animated tone) it is driving on the
system of life.'

He told me, that he was glad that I had, by General Oglethorpe's means,
become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed that gentleman, whatever
objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the
class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a
respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable _Letters
on the English Nation_, under the name of 'Battista Angeloni, a
Jesuit[364].'

Johnson and Shebbeare[365] were frequently named together, as having in
former reigns had no predilection for the family of Hanover. The authour
of the celebrated _Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers_, introduces
them in one line, in a list of those 'who tasted the sweets of his
present Majesty's reign[366].' Such was Johnson's candid relish of the
merit of that satire, that he allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to
read it to him from beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to
its execution[367].

Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and
escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a
project for having a third Theatre in London, solely for the exhibition
of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of
managers, Johnson treated it slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said,
'Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shel