in Johnson's Court, Fleet-street[9], in which he had accommodated Miss
Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett
occupied his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still
attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of
our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him
that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and
Dryden thus:--'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat
trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir,
the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are
either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot[10].' He
said of Goldsmith's _Traveller_, which had been published in my absence,
'There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time.'

And here it is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has
long floated in publick report, as to Johnson's being himself the
authour of a considerable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the
sentiments and expression, were derived from conversation with him; and
it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year
1783, he, at my request, marked with a pencil the lines which he had
furnished, which are only line 420th,

'To stop too fearful, and too faint to go;'

and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I
distinguish by the Italick character:

'How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which kings or laws[11] can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find[12];