lived in a large place:  but what is got by books and thinking is preserved in a narrow place as well as in a large place.  A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca.’  Boswell.  ’I don’t know, Sir:  if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are.’  Johnson.  ’Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twenty-five to thirty-five.’  Boswell.  ’I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour.  I can talk twice as much in London as any where else.’

Of Goldsmith he said, ’He was not an agreeable companion, for he talked always for fame.  A man who does so never can be pleasing.  The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.  An eminent friend of ours is not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge would otherwise make him, because he talks partly from ostentation.’

Soon after our arrival at Thrale’s, I heard one of the maids calling eagerly on another, to go to Dr. Johnson.  I wondered what this could mean.  I afterwards learnt, that it was to give her a Bible, which he had brought from London as a present to her.

He was for a considerable time occupied in reading Memoires de Fontenelle, leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the court, without his hat.

At dinner, Mrs. Thrale expressed a wish to go and see Scotland.  Johnson.  ’Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England.  It is seeing the flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk.  Seeing the Hebrides, indeed, is seeing quite a different scene.’

On Thursday, April 9, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, with the Bishop of St. Asaph, (Dr. Shipley,) Mr. Allan Ramsay, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Cambridge, and Mr. Langton.

Goldsmith being mentioned, Johnson observed, that it was long before his merit came to be acknowledged.  That he once complained to him, in ludicrous terms of distress, ’Whenever I write any thing, the publick make A point to know nothing about it:’  but that his Traveller brought him into high reputation.  Langton.  ’There is not one bad line in that poem; not one of Dryden’s careless verses.  Sir Joshua.  ’I was glad to hear Charles Fox say, it was one of the finest poems in the English language.’  Langton.  ’Why was you glad?  You surely had no doubt of this before.’  Johnson.  ’No; the merit of The Traveller is so well established, that Mr. Fox’s praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it.’  Sir Joshua.  ’But his friends may suspect they had too great a partiality for him.’  Johnson.  Nay, Sir, the partiality of his friends was always against him.  It was with difficulty we could give him a hearing.  Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so he talked always at random.