laughter because Goldsmith admired the skill with which the little
fishes in the fable were made to talk in character. "Why, Dr. Johnson,
this is not so easy as you seem to think," was the retort, "for if you
were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."

In spite of sundry little sparrings, Johnson fully appreciated
Goldsmith's genius. Possibly his authority hastened the spread of public
appreciation, as he seemed to claim, whilst repudiating Boswell's too
flattering theory that it had materially raised Goldsmith's position.
When Reynolds quoted the authority of Fox in favour of the _Traveller_,
saying that his friends might suspect that they had been too partial,
Johnson replied very truly that the _Traveller_ was beyond the need of
Fox's praise, and that the partiality of Goldsmith's friends had always
been against him. They would hardly give him a hearing. "Goldsmith," he
added, "was a man who, whatever he wrote, always did it better than any
other man could do." Johnson's settled opinion in fact was that embodied
in the famous epitaph with its "nihil tetigit quod non ornavit," and,
though dedications are perhaps the only literary product more generally
insincere than epitaphs, we may believe that Goldsmith too meant what he
said in the dedication of _She Stoops to Conquer_. "It may do me some
honour to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy
with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them that
the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most
unaffected piety."

Though Johnson was thus rich in friendship, two connexions have still
to be noticed which had an exceptional bearing upon his fame and
happiness. In January, 1765, he made the acquaintance of the Thrales.
Mr. Thrale was the proprietor of the brewery which afterwards became
that of Barclay and Perkins. He was married in 1763 to a Miss Hester