He enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry.  I mentioned to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composition, when I studied under him in the College of Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion strenuously, and I repeated some of his arguments.  Johnson.  ’Sir, I was once in company with Smith, and we did not take to each other; but had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have hugged him.’

’Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study.  I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together.  A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.  A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge.’

To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked of the numerous reflections which had been thrown out against him on account of his having accepted a pension from his present Majesty.  ’Why, Sir, (said he, with a hearty laugh,) it is a mighty foolish noise that they make.* I have accepted of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my literary merit; and now that I have this pension, I am the same man in every respect that I have ever been; I retain the same principles.  It is true, that I cannot now curse (smiling) the House of Hanover; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James’s health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for.  But, Sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover, and drinking King James’s health, are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year.’

* When I mentioned the same idle clamour to him several years afterwards, he said, with a smile, ’I wish my pension were twice as large, that they might make twice as much noise.’—­Boswell.

There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more Jacobitism than he really had.  Yet there is no doubt that at earlier periods he was wont often to exercise both his pleasantry and ingenuity in talking Jacobitism.  My much respected friend, Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, has favoured me with the following admirable instance from his Lordship’s own recollection.  One day, when dining at old Mr. Langton’s where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, ‘My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.’  Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece?  ’Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment.  A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings.  He that believes in the divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity.  A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops.  He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion.  Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist.  That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle.’*