For at
a great school there are always boys enough to do well easily, who are
sufficient to keep up the credit of the school; and after whipping being
tried to no purpose, the dull or idle boys are left at the end of a
class, having the appearance of going through the course, but learning
nothing at all[268]. Such boys may do good at a private school, where
constant attention is paid to them, and they are watched. So that the
question of publick or private education is not properly a general one;
but whether one or the other is best for _my son_.' We were told the
present Mr. Waller was a plain country gentleman; and his son would be
such another. I observed, a family could not expect a poet but in a
hundred generations. 'Nay, (said Dr. Johnson,) not one family in a
hundred can expect a poet in a hundred generations.' He then repeated
Dryden's celebrated lines,
'Three poets in three distant ages born,' &c.
and a part of a Latin translation of it done at Oxford[269]: he did not
then say by whom.
He received a card from Sir Alexander Gordon, who had been his
acquaintance twenty years ago in London, and who, 'if forgiven for not
answering a line from him,' would come in the afternoon. Dr. Johnson
rejoiced to hear of him, and begged he would come and dine with us. I
was much pleased to see the kindness with which Dr.
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