[245] My note of this is much too short. Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. [’I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.’  FRANCIS.  Horace, Ars Poet. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved that the very Journal which Dr. Johnson read, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in the writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine Journal.  One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect passage above was probably as follows:  ’In his book we have an accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and the modes of ancient theft are described.’  BOSWELL.  ’One of the best criticks is, I believe, Malone, who had ’perused the original manuscript.’  See ante, p. 1; and post, Oct. 26, and under Nov. 11.

[246] It was in the Parliament-house that ’the ordinary Lords of Session,’ the Scotch Judges, that is to say, held their courts. Ante, p. 39.

[247] Dr. Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer so much as he wished he had done.  But this conversation shews how well he was acquainted with the Maeonian bard; and he has shewn it still more in his criticism upon Pope’s Homer, in his Life of that Poet.  My excellent friend, Mr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the comparative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides.  Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer.  BOSWELL.  Johnson told Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey in the original.  Windham’s Diary, p. 17.  See ante, iii. 193, and May 1, 1783.

[248] Johnson ten years earlier told Boswell that he loved most ’the biographical part of literature.’ Ante, i. 425.  Goldsmith said of biography:—­’It furnishes us with an opportunity of giving advice freely and without offence....  Counsels as well as compliments are best conveyed in an indirect and oblique manner, and this renders biography as well as fable a most convenient vehicle for instruction.  An ingenious gentleman was asked what was the best lesson for youth; he answered, “The life of a good man.”  Being again asked what was the next best, he replied, “The life of a bad one."’ Prior’s Goldsmith, i. 395.

[249] See ante, p. 57.

[250] Ten years later he said:—­’There is now a great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is universally diffused.’ Ante, April 29,1783.  Windham (Diary, p. 17) records ’Johnson’s opinion that I could not name above five of my college acquaintances who read Latin with sufficient ease to make it pleasurable.’

[251] See ante, ii. 352.