On Tuesday, April 27, Mr. Beauclerk and I called on him in the morning.  As we walked up Johnson’s-court, I said, ’I have a veneration for this court;’ and was glad to find that Beauclerk had the same reverential enthusiasm.  We found him alone.  We talked of Mr. Andrew Stuart’s elegant and plausible Letters to Lord Mansfield:  a copy of which had been sent by the authour to Dr. Johnson.  Johnson.  ’They have not answered the end.  They have not been talked of; I have never heard of them.  This is owing to their not being sold.  People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given.  The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price.  No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence, without an intention to read it.’

He said, ’Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation:  he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails.  Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance, a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit.  Now Goldsmith’s putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one who cannot spare the hundred.  It is not worth a man’s while.  A man should not lay a hundred to one, unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him:  he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred.  Goldsmith is in this state.  When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation:  if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed.’

Johnson’s own superlative powers of wit set him above any risk of such uneasiness.  Garrick had remarked to me of him, a few days before, ’Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with him.  You may be diverted by them; but Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.’

Goldsmith, however, was often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the lists with Johnson himself.  Sir Joshua Reynolds was in company with them one day, when Goldsmith said, that he thought he could write a good fable, mentioned the simplicity which that kind of composition requires, and observed, that in most fables the animals introduced seldom talk in character.  ’For instance, (said he,) the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds.  The skill (continued he,) consists in making them talk like little fishes.’  While he indulged himself in this fanciful reverie, he observed Johnson shaking his sides, and laughing.  Upon which he smartly proceeded, ’Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.’

On Thursday, April 29, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe’s, where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, and Mr. Thrale.  I was very desirous to get Dr. Johnson absolutely fixed in his resolution to go with me to the Hebrides this year; and I told him that I had received a letter from Dr. Robertson the historian, upon the subject, with which he was much pleased; and now talked in such a manner of his long-intended tour, that I was satisfied he meant to fulfil his engagement.