Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me ’You have now lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well.’  ’Alas, Sir, (said I,) I fear not.  Do I know history?  Do I know mathematicks?  Do I know law?’ Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, though you may know no science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profession.’  I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding block-heads.  Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a plodding block-head may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it a plodding block-head can never excel.’

I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it.  Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them.  You may be prudently attached to great men and yet independent.  You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not pay too dear for what you get.  You must not give a shilling’s worth of court for six-pence worth of good.  But if you can get a shilling’s worth of good for six-pence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court.’

I talked to him a great deal of what I had seen in Corsica, and of my intention to publish an account of it.  He encouraged me by saying, ’You cannot go to the bottom of the subject; but all that you tell us will be new to us.  Give us as many anecdotes as you can.’

Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge.  I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rousseau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said (sarcastically,) ’It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad, Rousseau and Wilkes!’ Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a smile, ’My dear Sir, you don’t call Rousseau bad company.  Do you really think him a bad man?’ Johnson.  ’Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don’t talk with you.  If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been.  Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.’  Boswell.  ’I don’t deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, that will not do.  We cannot prove any man’s intention to be bad.  You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you