nelle, leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the court,
without his hat.

At dinner, Mrs. Thrale expressed a wish to go and see Scotland. JOHNSON.
'Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing
the flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk. Seeing the Hebrides,
indeed, is seeing quite a different scene.'

On Thursday, April 9, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with
the Bishop of St. Asaph, (Dr. Shipley,) Mr. Allan Ramsay, Mr. Gibbon,
Mr. Cambridge, and Mr. Langton.

Goldsmith being mentioned, Johnson observed, that it was long before
his merit came to be acknowledged. That he once complained to him, in
ludicrous terms of distress, 'Whenever I write any thing, the publick
MAKE A POINT to know nothing about it:' but that his Traveller brought
him into high reputation. LANGTON. 'There is not one bad line in that
poem; not one of Dryden's careless verses. SIR JOSHUA. 'I was glad to
hear Charles Fox say, it was one of the finest poems in the English
language.' LANGTON. 'Why was you glad? You surely had no doubt of
this before.' JOHNSON. 'No; the merit of The Traveller is so well
established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure
diminish it.' SIR JOSHUA. 'But his friends may suspect they had too
great a partiality for him.' JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, the partiality of his
friends was always against him. It was with difficulty we could give
him a hearing. Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so
he talked always at random. It seemed to be his intention to blurt out
whatever was in his mind, and see what would become of it. He was angry
too, when catched in an absurdity; but it did not prevent him from
falling into another the next minute. I remember Chamier, after talking
with him for some time, said, "Well, I do believe he wrote this poem
himself: and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal." Chamier
once asked him, what he meant by slow, the last word in the first line
of The Traveller,

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."

Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something
without consideration, answered, "Yes." I was sitting by, and said,
"No, Sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that
sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude." Chamier
believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me
write it. Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whatever he wrote, did
it bette