CHAP, xii.] NEWS FOR THE CLUE.

certain gloom of spirits, and disquietude of health, which 1766.
were just now stealing over the latter, even his interest in iu
the stage appeared to have passed away.

"I think, Mr. Johnson," said Goldsmith, as they sat
talking together one evening in February, " you don't go
" near the theatres now. You give yourself no more
" concern about a new play, than if you had never had
" anything to do with the stage." Johnson avoided the
question, * and his friend shifted the subject. He spoke of
the public claim and expectation that the author of Irene
should give them "something in some other way;" on
which Johnson began to talk of making verses, and said
(very truly) that the great difficulty was to know when you

* It is worth adding the entire conversation, for in it Johnson offers his excuse
for the comparative scantiness of his writings in the kter years of his life: JOHNSON :
" Why, sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle,
" and the old man does not care for the young man's whore." GOLDSMITH : "Nay,
" sir; tut your Muse was not a whore." JOHNSON : "Sir, I do not think she was.
"But as we advance in the journey of life, we drop some of the things which have
'' pleased us; whether it be that we are fatigued and don't choose to carry so
"many things any farther, or that we find other things which we like better."
BOSWELL : " But, sir, why don't you give us something in some other way ?"
GOLDSMITH : "Ay, sir, we have a claim upon you." JOHNSON : "No, sir, I am
" not obliged to do anymore. No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A
"man is to have part of his life to himself. If a soldier has fought a good many
'' campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity. A physi-
"cian, who has practised long in a great city, may be excused if he retires to a
" small town, and takes less practice. Now, sir, the good I can do by my con-
" versation bears the same proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that
'' the practice of a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great
"city." BOSWELL : "But I wonder, sir, you have not more pleasure in writing
" than in not writing." JOHNSON; " Sir, you may wonder." Soswdl, ii. 318-9.
Seven years later the same subject was resumed, when Johnson, less disposed
to be tolerant of himself than in the present instance, told Boswell that he had
been trying to cure his laziness all his life, and could not do it; upon which
Boswell, with broad allusion to the great achievement of ^Dictionary, interposed
the remark, that if a man does in a. shorter time what might be the labour
of a life, there was nothing to be said against him ; and elicited from Johnson
this admirable and noble reply : "Suppose that flattery to be true, the conse-
"quence would be that the world would have no right to censure a man; but
" that mil not, justify Mm TO HIMSELF," Bosioell, iv. 251.