" Chamier
once asked him, what he meant by slow, the last word in the first line
of The Traveller,
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."
Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something
without consideration, answered, "Yes." I was sitting by, and said,
"No, Sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that
sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude." Chamier
believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me
write it. Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whatever he wrote, did
it better than any other man could do. He deserved a place in
Westminster-Abbey, and every year he lived, would have deserved
it better. He had, indeed, been at no pains to fill his mind with
knowledge. He transplanted it from one place to another; and it did not
settle in his mind; so he could not tell what was in his own books.'
We talked of living in the country. JOHNSON. 'No wise man will go to
live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better
done in the country.
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