Goldsmith.  ’But, Sir, 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.’  Johnson. (with a loud voice,) ’Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point:  I am only saying that I could do it.  You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid.’

Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a natural history, and, that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings, at a farmer’s house, near to the six milestone, on the Edgeware road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises.  He said, he believed the farmer’s family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children:  he was The Gentleman.  Mr. Mickle, the translator of The Lusiad, and I went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards.  He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall with a black lead pencil.

On Saturday, April 11, he appointed me to come to him in the evening, when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defence of Hastie, the schoolmaster of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the house of Lords.  When I came, I found him unwilling to exert himself.  I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject.  He said, ‘There’s no occasion for my writing.  I’ll talk to you.’ . . .

Of our friend, Goldsmith, he said, ’Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company.’  Boswell.  ‘Yes, he stands forward.’  Johnson.  ’True, Sir; but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an aukward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule.’  Boswell.  ’For my part, I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly.’  Johnson.  ’Why yes, Sir; but he should not like to hear himself.’ . . .

On Tuesday, April 14, the decree of the Court of Session in the schoolmaster’s cause was reversed in the House of Lords, after a very eloquent speech by Lord Mansfield, who shewed himself an adept in school discipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client.  On the evening of the next day I supped with Dr. Johnson, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, in company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning.