nd. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive
sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante;
yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason
to think that he had read Spenser.'

A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons
should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's church as well
as in Westminster-abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked, who should be
honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody suggested
Pope. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholick, I would
not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should 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.'

The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's
till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state
of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk
could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received the agreeable
intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place of meeting,
and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund
Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, and whose splendid talents
had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr.
Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards 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 some very absurd 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 some years ago, and
concludes thus:

"And now, ye trifling, self-assuming elves,
Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves,
Survey Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er,
Then sink into yourselves, and be no more."

Nay, Dryden in his poem on the Royal Society, has these lines:

"Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,
And see the ocean leaning on the sky;
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry."'

Much pleasant conversation passed, which Johnson relished with great
good humour. But his co