When we got to Dr. Johnson’s house, and were seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably.  Edwards.  ’Sir, I remember you would not let us say prodigious at College.  For even then, Sir, (turning to me,) he was delicate in language, and we all feared him.’* Johnson. (to Edwards,) ’From your having practised the law long, Sir, I presume you must be rich.’  Edwards.  ’No, Sir; I got a good deal of money; but I had a number of poor relations to whom I gave a great part of it.’  Johnson.  ‘Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of the word.’  Edwards.  ‘But I shall not die rich.’  Johnson.  ’Nay, sure, Sir, it is better to live rich than to die rich.’  Edwards.  ’I wish I had continued at College.’  Johnson.  ‘Why do you wish that, Sir?’ Edwards.  ’Because I think I should have had a much easier life than mine has been.  I should have been a parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam and several others, and lived comfortably.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy.  I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain.  I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.  No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman’s life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.’  Here taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, ’O!  Mr. Edwards!  I’ll convince you that I recollect you.  Do you remember our drinking together at an alehouse near Pembroke gate?  At that time, you told me of the Eton boy, who, when verses on our saviour’s turning water into wine were prescribed as an exercise, brought up a single line, which was highly admired,—­

“Vidit et erubuit lympha pudica DEUM,”

and I told you of another fine line in Camden’s Remains, an eulogy upon one of our Kings, who was succeeded by his son, a prince of equal merit:—­

“Mira cano, Sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est."’

* Johnson said to me afterwards, ’Sir, they respected me for my literature:  and yet it was not great but by comparison.  Sir, it is amazing how little literature there is in the world.’—­Boswell

Edwards.  ’You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson.  I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don’t know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.’—­Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character.  The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety.

Edwards.  ’I have been twice married, Doctor.  You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faultering tone) I have known what it was to lose A wife.—­It had almost broke my heart.’