In conversation with some one who called Boswell a Scotch cur, Goldsmith remarked—“Not so—he is only a Scotch bur: Tom Davies (the publisher) threw him at Johnson and he sticks to him.” A saying which, of course, found its way to the _bur’s_ ears. All these things are sufficient to account for the animus palpably exhibited against Goldsmith in Boswell’s Life of Johnson. When his book appeared, he was sharply and universally condemned for his treatment of the dead writer. Lord Charlemont expressed his indignant astonishment how James Boswell could affect to undervalue a man of such genius and popularity. Burke said to Lady Crewe, on the subject—“What sympathy could you expect to find, my dear madam, between an Irish poet and a Scotch lawyer?” Wilkes swore two such characters were moral antipodes. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who knew Goldsmith like a brother, and who had heard from report how Boswell meant to depict the poet, remonstrated earnestly with him on the subject before the biography of Johnson came out. Bishop Percy, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Malone and others denied that Goldsmith was guilty of the fooleries and grimaces and unworthy feelings attributed to him by Boswell, and protested against the low estimate he had made of Oliver’s genius and character. And yet with all Boswell’s earnestness in the attempt to lessen Goldsmith, it is remarkable how little he is really able to injure him in the long run. He has created an unfavorable impression of the poet’s manners it is true; but this is wearing away; and the fact is, that, not only the silly Boswell himself, but the austere doctor whom he delighted to honor, and wrote every thing to glorify, seems to be more reflected on than Goldsmith, in most things that have been recorded to the disparagement of the latter in connection with Johnson.