1 66 Anecdotes.
��do you think ? ' Goldsmith, no doubt, replied I, and he will do it the best among us. ' The dog would write it best to be sure, replied he ; but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard for truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to my character.' Oh ! as to that, said I, we should all fasten upon him, and force him to do you justice x ; but the worst is, the Doctor does not know your life ; nor can I tell indeed who does, except Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne. * Why Taylor (said he) is better acquainted with my heart than any man or woman now alive ; and the history of my Oxford exploits lies all between him and Adams ; but Dr. James 2 knows my very early days better than he. After my coming to London to drive the world about a little, you must all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anec dotes 3 : I lived in great familiarity with him (though I think there was not much affection) from the year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you took me up 4 . I intend, however, to dis appoint the rogues, and either make you write the life, with Taylor's intelligence ; or, which is better, do it myself, after out living you all. I am now (added he), keeping a diary, in hopes of using it for that purpose some time V Here the conversation stopped, from my accidentally looking in an old magazine of the year I768 6 , where I saw the following lines with his name to them, and asked if they were his.
and, if I survive him, I shall be one 3 For the sense in which Johnson
who will most faithfully do honour used the word anecdote see ib. ii. u,
to his memory.' Life, v. 312. n. i.
' Johnson found in James Boswell 4 The Adventurer, which Hawkes- such a biographer as no man but worth edited and to which Johnson himself ever had, or ever deserved contributed, was published in the to have. ... His Life of Johnson years 1753-4. In the Life of Swift may be termed without exception Johnson, mentioning Hawkesworth, the best parlour-window book that speaks of ' the intimacy of our friend- was ever written.' Scott's Misc. ship.' Works, viii. 192. TheThrales Works, ed. 1834, iii. 260. 'took Johnson up' in 1765. Life,
1 See Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 380, i. 490, 520.
for Forster's criticism of this pas- 5 The greater part of this 'was
sage. consigned by him to the flames a
2 The inventor of the powder few days before his death.' Ib. i. 25 ; which bears his name. He had iv. 405.
been at school with Johnson. Life, 6 Gentleman's Magazine, 1768, p. i. 8 1 ; iii. 4. 439-
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