Life of Johnson.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20280, 14 April 1934, Page 8

Life of Johnson.

QN SATURDAY, April 3, the day after my arrival in London this year. I went to his house late in the evening, and sat with Mrs Williams till he came home. I found in the “ London Chronicle,” Dr Goldsmith’s apology to the ptiblick for beating Evans, a bookseller, on account of a paragraph in a newspaper published by him, which Goldsmith thought impertinent to him and to a lady of liis acquaintance. The apology was written so much in Dr Johnson’s manner, that both Mrs Williams and I supposed it to be his; but when he came home, he soon undeceived us. When he said to Mrs Williams, “ Well, Dr Goldsmith’s manifesto has got into your paper”; I asked him if Dr Goldsmith had written it, with an air that made him see I suspected it was his, though subscribed by Goldsmith. Johnson. “ Sir, Dr Goldsmith Would no more have asked me to write such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked me to feed him with a spoon, or to do anything else that denoted his imbecility. las much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shewn it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that he has thought every tfiing that concerned him must be of importance to the publick.”