"He had all his life," says Boswell, "habituated himself to
consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had
disciplined himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to
impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in,
so that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expression to
escape him, he had attained an extraordinary accuracy and command of
language."
His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir Joshua Reynolds,
was such as to secure him universal attention, something above the usual
colloquial style being always expected from him.
"I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, "on what subject
Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than anybody. He either
gives you new thoughts or a new coloring."
A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. Percy. "The
conversation of Johnson," says he, "is strong and clear, and may be
compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and
clear."
Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's celebrity and his
habits of intimacy brought him into continual comparison; can we wonder
that he should appear to disadvantage? Conversation grave, discursive, and
disputatious, such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a
severe task, and he never was good at a task of any kind.
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