April 11, being Easter-Sunday, after having attended Divine Service at St. Paul’s, I repaired to Dr. Johnson’s.  I had gratified my curiosity much in dining with Jean Jaques Rousseau, while he lived in the wilds of Neufchatel:  I had as great a curiosity to dine with Dr. Samuel Johnson, in the dusky recess of a court in Fleet-street.  I supposed we should scarcely have knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth, ill-drest dish:  but I found every thing in very good order.  We had no other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know.  As a dinner here was considered as a singular phaenomenon, and as I was frequently interrogated on the subject, my readers may perhaps be desirous to know our bill of fare.  Foote, I remember, in allusion to Francis, the negro, was willing to suppose that our repast was black broth.  But the fact was, that we had a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spinach, a veal pye, and a rice pudding.

He owned that he thought Hawkesworth was one of his imitators, but he did not think Goldsmith was.  Goldsmith, he said, had great merit.  Boswell.  ’But, Sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the publick estimation.’  Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, he has perhaps got sooner to it by his intimacy with me.’

Goldsmith, though his vanity often excited him to occasional competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he at this time expressed in the strongest manner in the Dedication of his comedy, entitled, She Stoops to Conquer.

He told me that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a journal of his life, but never could persevere.  He advised me to do it.  ’The great thing to be recorded, (said he,) is the state of your own mind; and you should write down every thing that you remember, for you cannot judge at first what is good or bad; and write immediately while the impression is fresh, for it will not be the same a week afterwards.’

I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early life.  He said, ’You shall have them all for two-pence.  I hope you shall know a great deal more of me before you write my Life.’  He mentioned to me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home, and have interwoven in the former part of this narrative.

On Tuesday, April 13, he and Dr. Goldsmith and I dined at General Oglethorpe’s.  Goldsmith expatiated on the common topick, that the race of our people was degenerated, and that this was owing to luxury.  Johnson.  ’Sir, in the first place, I doubt the fact.  I believe there are as many tall men in England now, as ever there were.  But, secondly, supposing the stature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing to luxury; for, Sir, consider to how very small a proportion of our people luxury can reach.  Our soldiery, surely, are not luxurious, who live on sixpence a day; and the same