It seemed to be his intention to blurt out whatever was in his mind, and see what would become of it.  He was angry too, when catched in an absurdity; but it did not prevent him from falling into another the next minute.  I remember Chamier, after talking with him for some time, said, “Well, I do believe he wrote this poem himself:  and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal.”  Chamier once asked him, what he meant by slow, the last word in the first line of The Traveller,

“Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.”

Did he mean tardiness of locomotion?  Goldsmith, who would say something without consideration, answered, “Yes.”  I was sitting by, and said, “No, Sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.”  Chamier believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me write it.  Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.  He deserved a place in Westminster-Abbey, and every year he lived, would have deserved it better.  He had, indeed, been at no pains to fill his mind with knowledge.  He transplanted it from one place to another; and it did not settle in his mind; so he could not tell what was in his own books.’

We talked of living in the country.  Johnson.  ’No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country.  For instance:  if he is to shut himself up for a year to study a science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall.  Then, if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again:  but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he shall walk in again.  A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life; and “The proper study of mankind is man,” as Pope observes.’  Boswell.  ’I fancy London is the best place for society; though I have heard that the very first society of Paris is still beyond any thing that we have here.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, I question if in Paris such a company as is sitting round this table could be got together in less than half a year.  They talk in France of the felicity of men and women living together:  the truth is, that there the men are not higher than the women, they know no more than the women do, and they are not held down in their conversation by the presence of women.’

We talked of old age.  Johnson (now in his seventieth year,) said, ’It is a man’s own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.’  The Bishop asked, if an old man does not lose faster than he gets.  Johnson.  ‘I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself.’  One of the company rashly observed, that he thought it was happy for an old man that insensibility comes upon him.  Johnson. (with a noble elevation and disdain,) ‘No, Sir, I should never be happy by being less rational.’  Bishop of st. Asaph.  ‘Your wish then, Sir, is [Greek text omitted].’  Johnson.  ‘Yes, my Lord.’