After the evening service, he said, ’Come, you shall go home with me, and sit just an hour.’  But he was better than his word; for after we had drunk tea with Mrs. Williams, he asked me to go up to his study with him, where we sat a long while together in a serene undisturbed frame of mind, sometimes in silence, and sometimes conversing, as we felt ourselves inclined, or more properly speaking, as he was inclined; for during all the course of my long intimacy with him, my respectful attention never abated, and my wish to hear him was such, that I constantly watched every dawning of communication from that great and illuminated mind.

He again advised me to keep a journal fully and minutely, but not to mention such trifles as, that meat was too much or too little done, or that the weather was fair or rainy.  He had, till very near his death, a contempt for the notion that the weather affects the human frame.

I told him that our friend Goldsmith had said to me, that he had come too late into the world, for that Pope and other poets had taken up the places in the Temple of Fame; so that, as but a few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it.  Johnson.  ’That is one of the most sensible things I have ever heard of Goldsmith.  It is difficult to get literary fame, and it is every day growing more difficult.  Ah, Sir, that should make a man think of securing happiness in another world, which all who try sincerely for it may attain.  In comparison of that, how little are all other things!  The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it.’  I said, it appeared to me that some people had not the least notion of immortality; and I mentioned a distinguished gentleman of our acquaintance.  Johnson.  ’Sir, if it were not for the notion of immortality, he would cut a throat to fill his pockets.’  When I quoted this to Beauclerk, who knew much more of the gentleman than we did, he said, in his acid manner, ’He would cut a throat to fill his pockets, if it were not for fear of being hanged.’

He was pleased to say, ’If you come to settle here, we will have one day in the week on which we will meet by ourselves.  That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.’  In his private register this evening is thus marked, ‘Boswell sat with me till night; we had some serious talk.’  It also appears from the same record, that after I left him he was occupied in religious duties, in ’giving Francis, his servant, some directions for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and resolving on better conduct.’  The humility and piety which he discovers on such occasions, is truely edifying.  No saint, however, in the course of his religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves, than Johnson.  He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, ‘Sir Hell is paved with good intentions.’