OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES.

1762. of getting his great friend to come, his great friend had found
.ffit.34. other matters to attend to. James Boswell was not yet to see
Samuel Johnson. He saw only Oliver Goldsmith, and was
doubtless much disappointed.

Perhaps the feeling was mutual, if Oliver gave a thought
to this new acquaintance; and strange enough the dinner
must have been. As Goldsmith discussed poetry with
Dodsley, Davies, mouthing his words and rolling his head at
Boswell, delighted that eager and social gentleman with
imitations of Johnson; while, as the bottle emptied itself
more freely, sudden loquacity, conceited coxcombry, and
officious airs of consequence, came as freely pouring forth
from the youthful Scot. He had to tell them all he had seen
in London, and all that had seen him. How Wilkes had
said " how d'ye do " to him, and Churchill had shaken hands
with him, Scotchman though he was ; how he had been to
the Bedford to see that comical fellow Foote, and heard him
clashing away at everybody and everything (" Have you had
" good success in Dublin, Mr. Foote ? " " Poh! damn 'em !
" There was not a shilling in the country, except what the
" Duke of Bedford, and I, and Mr. Eigby have brought
" away"*); how he had seen Garrick in the new farce of
the Farmer's Return, and gone and peeped over Hogarth's
shoulder as he sketched little David in the Farmer; and
how, above all, he had on another night attracted general
attention and given prodigious entertainment in the Drury
Lane pit, by extempore imitations of the lowing of a cow.
" The universal cry of the galleries," said he, gravely
describing the incident some few years afterwards, " was,

" 'dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now
see Mm. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in nature.' 'So,' said he,
I allowed Mm all Ms own merit.'" Life, ii. 240.

* Garrick Correspondence, i. 116.

el ie few imitations that have all the ease