No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence, without
an intention to read it.'
He said, 'Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in
conversation: he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when
he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of
chance, a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of
his wit. Now Goldsmith's putting himself against another, is like a man
laying a hundred to one who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a
man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one, unless he can easily
spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him: he can get but a
guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he
contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a
man of his literary reputation: if he does not get the better, he is
miserably vexed.'
Johnson's own superlative powers of wit set him above any risk of
such uneasiness. Garrick had remarked to me of him, a few days before,
'Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with him.
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