" Once he was beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the
loud voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did
not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and
his argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a
bitter tone, "_Take it._"
Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Johnson
uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to
Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own _envy and spleen_
under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, "the
gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear
him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have
felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir,"
said he sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving
him a signal of my attention. Sir, _you are impertinent_." Goldsmith
made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.
That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the
club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith,
which he thought would just then be acceptable to the great lexicographer.
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