238 



TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



comes into company, he grows con- 

 fused, and unable to talk. Take 

 Mm as a poet, his Traveller is a 

 very fine performance ; ay, and so 

 is his Deserted Village, were it not 

 sometimes too much the echo of his 

 Traveller. Whether, indeed, we 

 take him as a poet, as a comic 

 writer, or as an historian, he stands 

 in the first class." Boswell: "An 

 historian! my dear sir, you will not 

 surely rank his compilation of the 

 Roman History with the works of 

 other historians of this age ?" 

 Johnson: "Why, who are before 

 him ?" Boswell : " Hume, Robert- 

 son, Lord Lyttelton." Johnson: 

 (His antipathy to the Scotch begin- 

 ning to rise.) "I have not read 

 Hume; but doubtless, Goldsmith's 

 History is better than the verbiage 

 of Robertson, or the foppery of 

 Dalrymple." Boswell: "Will you 

 not admit the superiority of Robert- 

 son, in whose history we find such 

 penetration such painting ?" John- 

 son : " Sir, you must consider how 

 that penetration and that painting 

 are employed ; it is not history, it 

 is imagination. He who describes 

 what he never saw, draws from 

 fancy. Robertson paints minds, as 

 Sir Joshua paints faces in a history 

 piece ; he imagines an heroic coun- 

 tenance. You must look upon 

 Robertson's work as romance, and 

 try it by that standard : history it 

 is not." 



Johnson praised John Bunyan 

 highly. "His Pilgrim's Progress 

 has great merit both for invention, 

 imagination, and the conduct of the 

 story; and it has had the best evi- 

 dence of its merit, the general and 

 continued approbation of mankind: 

 few books, I believe, have had a 

 more extensive sale. It is remark- 

 able, that it begins very much like 

 the poem of Dante; yet there was 

 no translation of Dante when Bun- 

 yan wrote. There is reason to 

 think that he had read Spenser." 



He talked of Izaak Walton's 



Lives, which was one of his most 

 favourite books . Dr. Donne's Life, 

 lie said, was the most perfect of 

 them. He observed, that " it was 

 wonderful that Walton, who was in 

 a very low situation in life, should 

 have been familiarly received by 

 so many great men, and that at a 

 time when the ranks of society were 

 kept more separate than they are 

 now." 



Johnson praised the Spectator, 

 particularly the character of Sir 

 Roger de Coverley. He said, " Sir 

 Roger did not die a violent death, 

 as has generally been fancied: he 

 was not killed; he died only because 

 others were to die, and because his 

 death afforded an opportunity to 

 Addison of some very fine writing. 

 We have the example of Cervantes 

 making Don Quixote die. I never 

 could see why Sir Roger is repre- 

 sented as a little cracked. It ap- 

 pears to me, that the story of the 

 widow was intended to have some- 

 thing superinduced upon it; but 

 the superstructure did not come." 



Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 

 he said, was the only book that 

 ever took him out of bed two hours 

 sooner than he wished to rise. 



Goldsmith, to divert the tedious 

 minutes, while waiting for one of 

 the guests at a dinner-party, strut- 

 ted about, bragging of his dress, 

 and appeared seriously vain of it 

 (for his mind was wonderfully 

 prone to such expressions): "Come, 

 come," said Garrick, " talk no more 

 of that : you are, perhaps, the worst 

 eh, eh !" Goldsmith was eagerly 

 attempting to interrupt him, when 

 Garrick went on laughing ironi- 

 cally, "Nay, you will always look 

 like a gentleman ; but I am talking 

 of being well or ill dressed." " Well, 

 let me tell you," said Goldsmith, 

 "when my tailor brought h6me my 

 blossom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, 

 I have a favour to beg of you : 

 when anybody asks you who made 

 your clothes, be pleased to mention 



