Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or dispraised
things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of the author and the work,
in a conversation with Boswell, to the great astonishment of the latter.
"Whether we take Goldsmith," said he, "as a poet, as a comic writer, or as
a historian, he stands in the first class." Boswell.--"A historian! My dear
sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the
works of other historians of this age." Johnson.--"Why, who are before
him?" Boswell.--"Hume--Robertson--Lord Lyttelton." Johnson (his antipathy
against the Scotch beginning to rise).--"I have not read Hume; but
doubtless Goldsmith's History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or
the foppery of Dalrymple." Boswell.--"Will you not admit the superiority of
Robertson, in whose history we find such penetration, such painting?"
Johnson.--"Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting
are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what
he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints
faces, in a history-piece; he imagines a heroic countenance. You must look
upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard.
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