JAMES BOSWELL 39
Talking of the great difficulty of obtaining authen-
tick information for biography, Johnson told us, 'When
I was a young fellow I wanted to write the Life of
Dryden, and in order to get materials, I applied to the
only two persons then alive who had seen him; these
were old Swinney, and old Gibber. Swinney's informa-
tion was no more than this, "That at Will's coffee-
house Dryden had a particular chair for himself, which
was set by the fire in winter, and was then called his
winter-chair; and that it was carried out for him to
the balcony in summer, and was then called his summer-
chair." Gibber could tell no more but "That he re-
membered him a decent old man, arbiter of critical
disputes at Will's." You are to consider that Gibber
was then at a great distance from Dryden, had perhaps
one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the
other.' BOSWELL. 'Yet Gibber was a man of observa-
tion?' JOHNSON. * I think not/ BOSWELL. * You will
allow his Apology to be well done.' JOHNSON. 'Very
well done, to be sure, Sir. That book is a striking proof
of the justice of Pope's remark :
44 Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand."'
BOSWELL. ' And his plays are good.' JOHNSON. 'Yes;
but that was his trade; resprit du corps: he had been
all his life among players and play-writers. I wondered
that he had so little to say in conversation, for he had
kept the best company, and learnt all that can be got
by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then shewed
me an Ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a
linnet soar on^n^eagle'jjwing. I told him that when
"EEe ancients" made a simile7T3iey always made it like
something real.*