very different.' JOHNSON. 'Garrick, Sir, was not in earnest in what he
said; for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety[101]: and,
perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted
by somebody else, as he could do it.' BOSWELL. 'Why then, Sir, did he
talk so?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did.' BOSWELL.
'I don't know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the
reflection.' JOHNSON. 'He had not far to dip, Sir: he said the same
thing, probably, twenty times before.'

Of a nobleman raised at a very early period to high office, he said,
'His parts, Sir, are pretty well for a Lord; but would not be
distinguished in a man who had nothing else but his parts[102]'.

A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts[103]. He said, 'A man who has
not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not
having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of
travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores
were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the
Grecian, and the Roman.--All our religion, almost all our law, almost
all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from
the shores of the Mediterranean.' The General observed, that 'THE
MEDITERRANEAN would be a noble subject for a poem[104].'

We talked of translation. I said, I could not define it, nor could I
think of a similitude to illustrate it; but that it appeared to me the
translation of poetry could be only imitation. JOHNSON. 'You may
translate books of science exactly. You may also translate history, in
so far as it is not embellished with oratory[105], which is poetical.
Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets
that preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a