He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield; for he was educated in England.  ’Much (said he,) may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.’

He said, ’I am very unwilling to read the manuscripts of authours, and give them my opinion.  If the authours who apply to me have money, I bid them boldly print without a name; if they have written in order to get money, I tell them to go to the booksellers, and make the best bargain they can.’  Boswell.  ’But, Sir, if a bookseller should bring you a manuscript to look at?’ Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, I would desire the bookseller to take it away.’

I mentioned a friend of mine who had resided long in Spain, and was unwilling to return to Britain.  Johnson.  ’Sir, he is attached to some woman.’  Boswell.  ’I rather believe, Sir, it is the fine climate which keeps him there.’  Johnson.  ’Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?  What is climate to happiness?  Place me in the heart of Asia, should I not be exiled?  What proportion does climate bear to the complex system of human life?  You may advise me to go to live at Bologna to eat sausages.  The sausages there are the best in the world; they lose much by being carried.’

On Saturday, May 9, Mr. Dempster and I had agreed to dine by ourselves at the British Coffee-house.  Johnson, on whom I happened to call in the morning, said he would join us, which he did, and we spent a very agreeable day, though I recollect but little of what passed.

He said, ’Walpole was a minister given by the King to the people:  Pitt was a minister given by the people to the King,—­as an adjunct.’

’The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this:  he goes on without knowing how he is to get off.  His genius is great, but his knowledge is small.  As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing.  He would not keep his knowledge to himself.’

1773:  AETAT. 64.]—­In 1773 his only publication was an edition of his folio Dictionary, with additions and corrections; nor did he, so far as is known, furnish any productions of his fertile pen to any of his numerous friends or dependants, except the Preface to his old amanuensis Macbean’s Dictionary of Ancient Geography.

’To James Boswell, Esq.

’Dear sir,—­ . . .  A new edition of my great Dictionary is printed, from a copy which I was persuaded to revise; but having made no preparation, I was able to do very little.  Some superfluities I have expunged, and some faults I have corrected, and here and there have scattered a remark; but the main fabrick of the work remains as it was.  I had looked very little into it since I wrote it, and, I think, I found it full as often better, as worse, than I expected.

’Baretti and Davies have had a furious quarrel; a quarrel, I think, irreconcileable.  Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy, which is expected in the spring.  No name is yet given it.  The chief diversion arises from a stratagem by which a lover is made to mistake his future father-in-law’s house for an inn.  This, you see, borders upon farce.  The dialogue is quick and gay, and the incidents are so prepared as not to seem improbable. . . .