If, indeed, the cause of our grief is occasioned by
our own misconduct, if grief is mingled with remorse of conscience, it
should be lasting.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, we do not approve of a man who
very soon forgets the loss of a wife or a friend.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we
disapprove of him, not because he soon forgets his grief, for the sooner
it is forgotten the better, but because we suppose, that if he forgets
his wife or his friend soon, he has not had much affection for them.'
I was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English
Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an
undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and
Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do
this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir,
and SAY he was a dunce.' My friend seemed now not much to relish talking
of this edition.
After breakfast,* Johnson carried me to see the garden belonging to the
school of Ashbourne, which is very prettily formed upon a bank, rising
gradually behind the house.
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