I should think it a great honour to see Dr. Johnson here.  Will you allow me to send for him?’ Availing myself of this opening, I said that ’I would go myself and bring him, when he had drunk tea; he knew nothing of my calling here.’  Having been thus successful, I hastened back to the inn, and informed Dr. Johnson that ’Mr. Young, son of Dr. Young, the authour of Night Thoughts, whom I had just left, desired to have the honour of seeing him at the house where his father lived.’  Dr. Johnson luckily made no inquiry how this invitation had arisen, but agreed to go, and when we entered Mr. Young’s parlour, he addressed him with a very polite bow, ’Sir, I had a curiosity to come and see this place.  I had the honour to know that great man[385], your father.’  We went into the garden, where we found a gravel walk, on each side of which was a row of trees, planted by Dr. Young, which formed a handsome Gothick arch; Dr. Johnson called it a fine grove.  I beheld it with reverence.

We sat some time in the summer-house, on the outside wall of which was inscribed, ’Ambulantes in horto audiebant vocem Dei[386];’ and in reference to a brook by which it is situated, ’Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam[387],’ &c.  I said to Mr. Young, that I had been told his father was cheerful[388].  ’Sir, (said he) he was too well-bred a man not to be cheerful in company; but he was gloomy when alone.  He never was cheerful after my mother’s death, and he had met with many disappointments.’  Dr. Johnson observed to me afterwards, ’That this was no favourable account of Dr. Young; for it is not becoming in a man to have so little acquiescence in the ways of Providence, as to be gloomy because he has not obtained as much preferment as he expected[389]; nor to continue gloomy for the loss of his wife.  Grief has its time[390].’  The last part of this censure was theoretically made.  Practically, we know that grief for the loss of a wife may be continued very long, in proportion as affection has been sincere.  No man knew this better than Dr. Johnson.

We went into the church, and looked at the monument erected by Mr. Young to his father.  Mr. Young mentioned an anecdote, that his father had received several thousand pounds of subscription-money for his Universal Passion, but had lost it in the South-Sea[391].  Dr. Johnson thought this must be a mistake; for he had never seen a subscription-book.

Upon the road we talked of the uncertainty of profit with which authours and booksellers engage in the publication of literary works.  JOHNSON.  ‘My judgement I have found is no certain rule as to the sale of a book.’  BOSWELL.  ’Pray, Sir, have you been much plagued with authours sending you their works to revise?’ JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir; I have been thought a sour, surly fellow.’  BOSWELL.  ’Very lucky for you, Sir,—­in that respect.’  I must however observe, that notwithstanding what he now said, which he no doubt imagined at the time to be the fact, there was, perhaps, no man who more frequently yielded to the solicitations even of very obscure authours, to read their manuscripts, or more liberally assisted them with advice and correction[392].