peep through. Shiels, who compiled _Cibber's Lives of the Poets_[109], was
one day sitting with me. I took down Thomson, and read aloud a large
portion of him, and then asked,--Is not this fine? Shiels having
expressed the highest admiration. Well, Sir, (said I,) I have omitted
every other line.'[110]

I related a dispute between Goldsmith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, one day
when they and I were dining at Tom Davies's, in 1762. Goldsmith
asserted, that there was no poetry produced in this age. Dodsley
appealed to his own _Collection_[111], and maintained, that though you
could not find a palace like Dryden's _Ode on St. Cecilia's Day_, you
had villages composed of very pretty houses; and he mentioned
particularly _The Spleen_[112]. JOHNSON. 'I think Dodsley gave up the
question. He and Goldsmith said the same thing; only he said it in a
softer manner than Goldsmith did; for he acknowledged that there was no
poetry, nothing that towered above the common mark. You may find wit and
humour in verse, and yet no poetry. _Hudibras_ has a profusion of these;
yet it is not to be reckoned a poem. _The Spleen_, in Dodsley's
_Collection_, on which you say he chiefly rested, is not poetry[113].'
BOSWELL. 'Does not Gray's poetry, Sir, tower above the common mark?'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but we must attend to the difference between what
men in general cannot do if they would, and what every man may do if he
would. Sixteen-string Jack[114] towered above the common mark.' BOSWELL.
'Then, Sir, what is poetry?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is much easier to
say what it is not. We all _know_ what light is; but it is not easy to
_tell_ what it is.'

On Friday, April 12, I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's, where
we met Mr. Cradock, of Leicestershire, authour of _Zobeide_, a
tragedy[115]; a very pleasing gentleman, to whom my friend Dr. Farmer's