On Friday, April 30, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk’s, where were Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some more members of the literary club, whom he had obligingly invited to meet me, as I was this evening to be balloted for as candidate for admission into that distinguished society.  Johnson had done me the honour to propose me, and Beauclerk was very zealous for me.

Goldsmith being mentioned; Johnson.  ’It is amazing how little Goldsmith knows.  He seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else.’  Sir Joshua Reynolds.  ’Yet there is no man whose company is more liked.’  Johnson.  ’To be sure, Sir.  When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer, their inferiour while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.  What Goldsmith comically says of himself is very true,—­he always gets the better when he argues alone; meaning, that he is master of a subject in his study, and can write well upon it; but when he comes into company, grows confused, and unable to talk.  Take him as a poet, his Traveller is a very fine performance; ay, and so is his Deserted Village, were it not sometimes too much the echo of his Traveller.  Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet,—­as a comick writer,—­or as an historian, he stands in the first class.’  Boswell.  ’An historian!  My dear Sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians of this age?’ Johnson.  ‘Why, who are before him?’ Boswell.  ‘Hume,—­Robertson,—­Lord Lyttelton.’  Johnson (his antipathy to the Scotch beginning to rise).  ’I have not read Hume; but, doubtless, Goldsmith’s History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple.’  Boswell.  ’Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose History we find such penetration—­such painting?’ Johnson.  ’Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting are employed.  It is not history, it is imagination.  He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy.  Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces in a history-piece:  he imagines an heroic countenance.  You must look upon Robertson’s work as romance, and try it by that standard.  History it is not.  Besides, Sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold.  Goldsmith has done this in his History.  Now Robertson might have put twice as much into his book.  Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool:  the wool takes up more room than the gold.  No, Sir; I always thought Robertson would be crushed by his own weight,—­would be buried under his own ornaments.  Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know:  Robertson detains you a great deal too long.  No man will read Robertson’s cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith’s plain narrative will please again and again.  I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college