JOHNSON. 'You are right, Sir. We
may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for
there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be
observed, that men, who from being engaged in business, or from their
course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care
much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child
of my own.' MRS. THRALE. 'Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?' JOHNSON. 'At
least, I never wished to have a child.'
He talked of Lord Lyttelton's extreme anxiety as an authour; observing,
that 'he was thirty years in preparing his History, and that he employed
a man to point it for him; as if (laughing) another man could point his
sense better than himself.' Mr. Murphy said, he understood his history
was kept back several years for fear of Smollet. JOHNSON. 'This seems
strange to Murphy and me, who never felt that anxiety, but sent what we
wrote to the press, and let it take its chance.' MRS. THRALE.
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