OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [Boo* ill.
1764< " what do you mean by the last word in the first line of your
jBfc36. " Traveller?
1 Eemote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.'
" Do you mean tardiness of locomotion ? " Johnson, who
was near them, took part in what followed, and has related
it. " Goldsmith, who would say something without consider-
" ation, answered ' Yes.' I was sitting by, and said, ' No,
" ' sir, you did not mean tardiness of locomotion: you mean
" ' that sluggishness of mind which conies upon a man in
" ' solitude.' ' Ah !' exclaimed Goldsmith, ' that was what
" CI meant.' Chamier," Johnson adds, " believed then that
" I had written the line, as much as if he had seen me write
" it." Yet it might be, if Burke had happened to be present,
.that Johnson would not have been permitted, so obviously to
the satisfaction of every one in the room, dictatorially to lay
down thus expressly what the poet meant. For who can doubt
that he also meant slowness of motion ? The first point of
the picture is that. The poet is moving slowly, his tardiness
of gait measuring the heaviness of heart, the pensive spirit,
the melancholy, of which it is the outward expression and
sign. Goldsmith ought to have added to Johnson's remark
that he meant all it said, and the other too ; but no doubt he
fell into one of his old flurries when he heard the general
' aye ! aye ! that saluted the great chain's authoritative
version. While he saw that superficially he had been wrong,
he must have felt that properly explained his answer was
substantially right; but he had no address to say so, the pen
not being in his hand.
The lines which Johnson really contributed he pointed out
himself to Boswell, when laughing at the notion that he had
taken any more important part in it. They were the line