We spoke of Rolt, to whose Dictionary of Commerce Dr. Johnson wrote the Preface.  Johnson.  ’Old Gardner the bookseller employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany, called The Universal Visitor.  There was a formal written contract, which Allen the printer saw.  Gardner thought as you do of the Judge.  They were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of this sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years.  I wish I had thought of giving this to Thurlow, in the cause about Literary Property.  What an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression of booksellers towards poor authours!’ (smiling.) Davies, zealous for the honour of the trade, said, Gardner was not properly a bookseller.  Johnson.  ’Nay, Sir; he certainly was a bookseller.  He had served his time regularly, was a member of the Stationers’ company, kept a shop in the face of mankind, purchased copyright, and was a bibliopole, Sir, in every sense.  I wrote for some months in The Universal Visitor, for poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing him good.  I hoped his wits would soon return to him.  Mine returned to me, and I wrote in The Universal Visitor no longer.

Friday, April 7, I dined with him at a Tavern, with a numerous company.

One of the company suggested an internal objection to the antiquity of the poetry said to be Ossian’s, that we do not find the wolf in it, which must have been the case had it been of that age.

The mention of the wolf had led Johnson to think of other wild beasts; and while Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Langton were carrying on a dialogue about something which engaged them earnestly, he, in the midst of it, broke out, ‘Pennant tells of Bears—­’ [what he added, I have forgotten.] They went on, which he being dull of hearing, did not perceive, or, if he did, was not willing to break off his talk; so he continued to vociferate his remarks, and bear (’like a word in a catch’ as Beauclerk said,) was repeatedly heard at intervals, which coming from him who, by those who did not know him, had been so often assimilated to that ferocious animal, while we who were sitting around could hardly stifle laughter, produced a very ludicrous effect.  Silence having ensued, he proceeded:  ’We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.’  Mr. Gibbon muttered, in a low tone of voice, ‘I should not like to trust myself with you.’  This piece of sarcastick pleasantry was a prudent resolution, if applied to a competition of abilities.

Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start:  ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’  But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.