saluting him; but the tutor stopped, and inquired, not roughly neither,
what he had been doing? "Sliding on the ice," was the reply, and so turned
away with disdain. He laughed very heartily at the recollection of his own
insolence, and said they endured it from him with wonderful acquiescence,
and a gentleness that, whenever he thought of it, astonished himself. He
told me, too, that when he made his first declamation, he wrote over but
one copy, and that coarsely; and having given it into the hand of the
tutor, who stood to receive it as he passed, was obliged to begin by chance
and continue on how he could, for he had got but little of it by heart; so
fairly trusting to his present powers for immediate supply, he finished by
adding astonishment to the applause of all who knew how little was owing to
study. A prodigious risk, however, said some one. "Not at all!" exclaims
Johnson. "No man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not
know how to swim."

I doubt not but this story will be told by many of his biographers, and
said so to him when he told it me on the 18th of July, 1773. "And who will
be my biographer," said he, "do you think?" "Goldsmith, no doubt," replied
I, "and he will do it the best among us." "The dog would write it best, to
be sure," replied he; "but his particular malice towards me, and general
disregard for truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to
my character." "Oh! as to that," said I, "we should all fasten upon him,
and force him to do you justice; but the worst is, the Doctor does not KNOW
your life; nor can I tell indeed who does, except Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne."
"Why, Taylor," said he, "is better acquainted with my HEART than any man or
woman now alive; and the history of my Oxford exploits lies all between him
and Adams; but Dr. James knows my very early days better than he. After my
coming to London to drive the world about a little, you must all go to Jack
Hawkesworth for anecdotes. I lived in great familiarity with him (though I
think there was not much affection) from the year 1753 till the time Mr.