"' See _post_, under June 16, 1784, note. Boswell, in his _Letter
to the People of Scotland_ (p. 95), boasts that he too is 'a very
universal man.' 'I can drink, I can laugh, I can converse in perfect
humour with Whigs, with republicans, with dissenters, with Independents,
with Quakers, with Moravians, with Jews. But I would vote with Tories
and pray with a Dean and Chapter.'
[1135] 'Finding that the best things remained to be said on the wrong
side, I resolved to write a book that should be wholly new. I therefore
drest up three paradoxes with some ingenuity. They were false, indeed,
but they were new.' _Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. xx. See _ante_, i. 441,
where Johnson says:--'When I was a boy, I used always to choose the
wrong side of a debate, because most ingenious things, that is to say,
most new things, could be said upon it.' In the _Present State of Polite
Learning_ (ch. vii.), Goldsmith says:--'Nothing can be a more certain
sign that genius is in the wane than its being obliged to fly to paradox
for support, and attempting to be erroneously agreeable.'
[1136] The whole night spent in playing at cards (see next page) may
account for part of his negligence.
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