his raillery.

6

Describe it, sir? Why it was so bad that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!'

After Dr. Johnson's return to London, I was several times with him at his house, where I occasionally slept in the room that had been assigned for me. I dined with him at Dr. Taylor's, at General Oglethorpe's, and at General Paoli's. To avoid a tedious minuteness, I shall group together what I have preserved of his conversation during this period also, without specifying each scene where it passed, except one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very particular relation. Where the place or the persons do not contribute to the zest of the conversation, it is unnecessary to encumber my page with mentioning them. To know of what vintage our wine is, enables us to judge of its value, and to drink it with more relish; but to have the produce of each vine of one vineyard, in the same year, kept separate, would serve no purpose. To know that our wine (to use an advertising phrase) is ' of the stock of an ambassador lately deceased,' heightens its flavour; but it signifies nothing to know the bin where each bottle was once de posited.

'Garrick,' he observed, 'does not play the part of Archer in The Beaux Stratagem well. The gentleman should break through the footman, which is not the case as he does it.'

'Where there is no education, as in savage countries, men will have the upper hand of women. Bodily strength no doubt contributes to this; but it would be so, exclusive of that; for it is mind that always governs. When it comes to dry understanding, man has the better.'

66

'The little volumes entitled Respublica,' which are very well done, were a bookseller's work.'

"There is much talk of the misery which we cause to the brute creation; but they are recompensed by existence. If they were not useful to man, and therefore protected by him, they would not be nearly so numerous.' This argument is to be found in the able and benignant Hutchinson's Moral Philosophy. But the question is, whether the animals who endure such sufferings of various kinds for the service and entertainment of man, would accept of existence upon the terms on which they have it. Madame de Sevigné, who, though she had many enjoyments, felt with delicate sensibility the prevalence of misery, complains of the task of existence having been imposed upon her without her consent.

'That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.'

Though many men are nominally entrusted

with the administration of hospitals and other public institutions, almost all the good is done by one man, by whom the rest are driven on ; owing to confidence in him and indolence in them.'

'Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, I think, might be made a very pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put in the hands of every young gentleman. An elegant manner and easiness of behaviour are acquired gradually and imperceptibly. No man can say "I'll be genteel." There are ten genteel women for one genteel man, because they are more restrained. A man without some degree of restraint is insufferable: but we are all less restrained than women. Were a woman sitting in company to put out her legs before her as most men do, we should be tempted to kick them in.' No man was a more attentive and nice observer of behaviour in those in whose company he happened to be than Johnson; or, however strange it may seem to many, had a higher estimation of its refinements. Lord Eliot informs me that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner in a gentleman's house in London, upon Lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson surprised the company by this sentence: 'Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal than accused of deficiency in the graces.' Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint manner tapping his box, addressed her thus: 'Don't you think, madam (looking towards Johnson), that among all your acquaintance you could find one exception?' The lady smiled, and seemed to acquiesce.

'I read,' said he, Sharpe's Letters on Italy over again, when I was at Bath. There is a great deal of matter in them.'

'Mrs. Williams was angry that Thrale's family did not send regularly to her every time they heard from me while I was in the Hebrides. Little people are apt to be jealous: but they should not be jealous, for they ought to consider that superior attention will necessarily be paid to superior fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and on that account may have an equal claim to attention; but one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may have a double claim.'

Talking of his notes on Shakspeare, he said, I despise those who do not see that I am right in the passage where as is repeated, and asses of great charge" introduced. That on

66

'Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. One of these is the cry against the evil of luxury. Now the truth is, that luxury produces much good. Take the luxury of buildings in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and elegance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of industry? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in gaol. It is plain they are in gaol, not for building; for rents are not fallen. A man gives half a guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? how many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market keep in employment? You will hear it said very gravely, "Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal!" Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the idle poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity. Suppose the ancient luxury of a dish of peacock's brains were to be revived; how many carcases would be left to the poor at a cheap rate! and as to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors in gaol; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too!'

too

The uncommon vivacity of General Oglethorpe's mind, and variety of knowledge, having sometimes made his conversation seem desultory, Johnson observed, Oglethorpe, sir, never completes what he has to say.'

He on the same account made a similar remark on Patrick Lord Elibank: Sir, there is nothing conclusive in his talk.'

When I complained of having dined at a splendid table without hearing one sentence of conversation worthy of being remembered, he said, 'Sir, there seldom is any such conversation.' BOSWELL: Why then meet at table?' JOHNSON: Why, to eat and drink together, and to promote kindness; and, sir, this is better done where there is no solid conversation; for when there is, people differ in opinion and get into bad humour, or some of the company who are not capable of such conversation are left out, and feel themselves uneasy. It was for this reason Sir Robert Walpole said he always talked bawdy at his table, because in that all could join.'

Being irritated by hearing a gentleman ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions concerning him when he was sitting by, he broke out, 'Sir,

am sick of both. A man,' said he, 'should not talk of himself, nor much of any particular person. He should take care not to be made a proverb; and therefore should avoid having any one topic of which people can say, "We shall hear him upon it." There was a Dr. Oldfield, who was always talking of the Duke of Marlborough. He came into a coffeehouse one day, and told that his Grace had spoken in the House of Lords for half an hour. "Did he indeed speak for half an hour?" said Belchier, the surgeon." Yes."-" And what did he say of Dr. Oldfield?"-" Nothing. "-"Why, then, sir, he was very ungrateful; for Dr. Oldfield could not have spoken for a quarter of an hour without saying something of him."'

'Every man is to take existence on the terms on which it is given to him. To some men it is given on condition of not taking liberties which other men may take without much harm. One may drink wine and be nothing the worse for it on another wine may have effects so inflammatory as to injure him both in body and mind, and perhaps make him commit something for which he may deserve to be hanged.'

'Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland have not that painted form which is the taste of this age; but it is a book which will always sell, it has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation. I never before read Scotch history with certainty.'

I asked him whether he would advise me to read the Bible with a commentary, and what commentaries he would recommend. JOHNSON: "To be sure, sir, I would have you read the Bible with a commentary; and I would recommend Lowth and Patrick on the Old Testament, and Hammond on the New.'

During my stay in London this spring, I solicited his attention to another law case in which I was engaged. In the course of a contested election for the borough of Dunfermline, which I attended as one of my friend Colonel (afterwards Sir Archibald) Campbell's counsel, one of his political agents, who was charged with having been unfaithful to his employer, and having deserted to the opposite party for a pecuniary reward, attacked very rudely in a newspaper the Rev. Mr. James Thomson, one of the ministers of that place, on account of a supposed allusion to him in one of his sermons. Upon this the minister, on a subsequent Sunday, arraigned him by name from the pulpit with some severity; and the agent, after the sermon was over, rose up, and asked the minister aloud, What bribe he had received for telling so many lies from the chair of verity?' I was present at this very extraordinary scene. The person arraigned, and his father and brother, who also had a share both of the reproof from the pulpit and in the retaliation, brought an action against Mr. Thomson in the Court of Session for defa

not its power from the civil authority is likewise certain, because civil authority was at that time its enemy.

"The hour came at length when, after three hundred years of struggle and distress, truth took possession of imperial power, and the civil laws lent their aid to the ecclesiastical constitutions. The magistrate from that time co

'Of the censure pronounced from the pulpit, our determination must be formed, as in other cases, by a consideration of the act itself and the particular circumstances with which it is invested.

"The right of censure and rebuke seems necessarily appendant to the pastoral office. He, to whom the care of a congregation is entrusted, is considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as the father of a family. As a shepherd, tending not his own sheep, but those of his Master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not authority to

restrain.

'As a teacher giving instruction for wages, and liable to reproach, if those whom he undertakes to inform make no proficiency, he must have the power of enforcing attendance, of awakening negligence, and repressing contradiction.

'As a father, he possesses the paternal authority of admonition, rebuke, and punishment. He cannot, without reducing his office to an empty name, be hindered from the exercise of any practice necessary to stimulate the idle, to reform the vicious, to check the petulant, and correct the stubborn.

'If we inquire into the practice of the primitive Church, we shall, I believe, find the ministers of the Word exercising the whole authority of this complicated character. We shall find them not only encouraging the good by exhortation, but terrifying the wicked by reproof and denunciation. In the earliest ages of the Church, while religion was yet pure from secular advantages, the punishment of sinners was public censure and open penance; penalties inflicted merely by ecclesiastical authority, at a time while the Church had yet no help from the civil power, while the hand of the magistrate lifted only the rod of persecution, and when governors were ready to afford a refuge to all those who fled from clerical authority.

'That the Church therefore had once a power of public censure is evident, because that power was frequently exercised. That it borrowed

But

were made efficacious by secular force. the State, when it came to the assistance of the Church, had no intention to diminish its authority. Those rebukes and those censures which were lawful before were lawful still. But they had hitherto operated only upon voluntary submission. The refractory and contemptuous were at first in no danger of temporal severities, except what they might suffer from the reproaches of conscience, or the detestation of their fellow-Christians. When religion obtained the support of law, if admonition and censures had no effect, they were seconded by the magistrates with coercion and punishment.

'It therefore appears from ecclesiastical history, that the right of inflicting shame by public censure has been always considered as inherent in the Church; and that this right was not conferred by the civil power, for it was exercised when the civil power operated against it. By the civil power it was never taken away; for the Christian magistrate interposed his office, not to rescue sinners from censure, but to supply more powerful means of reformation; to add pain where shame was insufficient; and when men were proclaimed unworthy of the society of the faithful, to restrain them by imprisonment fron spreading abroad the contagion of wickedness.

'It is not improbable that from this acknowledged power of public censure, grew in time the practice of auricular confession. Those who dreaded the blast of public reprehension were willing to submit themselves to the priest, by a private accusation of themselves, and to obtain a reconciliation with the Church by a kind of clandestine absolution and invisible penance; conditions with which the priest would, in times of ignorance and corruption, easily comply, as they increased his influence by adding the knowledge of secret sins to that of notorious offences, and enlarged his authority by making him the sole arbiter of the terms of reconcilement.

force upon him, it is still his duty to use, for the benefit of his flock. A father who lives near a wicked neighbour may forbid his son to frequent his company. A minister who has in his congregation a man of open and scandalous wickedness may warn his parishioners to shun his conversation. To warn them is not only lawful, but not to warn them would be criminal. He may warn them one by one in friendly converse, or by a parochial visitation. But if he may warn each man singly, what shall forbid him to warn them all together?. Of that which is to be made known to all, how is there any difference whether it be communicated to each singly or to all together? What is known to all must necessarily be public. Whether it shall be public at once, or public by degrees, is the only question. And of a sudden and solemn publication the impression is deeper, and the warning more effectual.

'It may easily be urged, if a minister be thus left at liberty to delate sinners from the pulpit, and to publish at will the crimes of a parishioner, he may often blast the innocent and distress the timorous. He may be suspicious and condemn without evidence; he may be rash, and judge without examination; he may be severe, and treat slight offences with too much harshness; he may be malignant and partial, and gratify his private interest or resentment under the shelter of his pastoral character.

'Of all this there is possibility, and of all this there is danger. But if possibility of evil be to exclude good, no good ever can be done. If nothing is to be attempted in which there is danger, we must all sink into hopeless inactivity. The evils that may be feared from this practice arise not from any defect in the institution, but from the infirmities of human nature. Power, in whatever hands it is placed, will be sometimes improperly exerted; yet courts of law must judge, though they will sometimes judge amiss. A father must instruct his children, though he himself may often want instruction. A minister must censure sinners, though his censure may be sometimes erroneous by want of judgment, and sometimes unjust by want of honesty.

'If we examine the circumstances of the present case, we shall find the sentence neither erroneous nor unjust; we shall find no breach of private confidence, no intrusion into secret transactions. The fact was notorious and indubitable; so easy to be proved that no proof was desired. The act was base and treacherous, the perpetration insolent and open, and the example naturally mischievous. The minister, however, being retired and recluse, had not yet heard what was publicly known throughout the parish; and on occasion of a public election, warned his people, according to his duty, against the crimes which public elections frequently produce. His warning was

felt by one of his parishioners as pointed particularly at himself. But instead of producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his minister in a public paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood. The minister thus reproached had his own character to vindicate, upon which his pastoral authority must necessarily depend. To be charged with a defamatory lie, is an injury which no man patiently endures in common life. To be charged with polluting the pastoral office with scandal and falschood, was a violation of character still more atrocious, as it affected not only his personal but his clerical veracity. His indignation naturally rose in proportion to his honesty, and with all the fortitude of injured honesty he dared his calumniator in the church, and at once exonerated himself from censure, and rescued his flock from deception and from danger. The man whom he accuses pretends not to be innocent; or at least only pretends; for he declines a trial. The crime of which he is accused has frequent opportunities and strong temptations. It has already spread far, with much depravation of private morals and much injury to public happiness. To warn the people, therefore, against it was not wanton and officious, but necessary and pastoral.

'What then is the fault with which this worthy minister is charged? He has usurped no dominion over conscience. He has exerted no authority in support of doubtful and controverted opinions. He has not dragged into light a bashful and corrigible sinner. His censure was directed against a breach of morality, against an act which no man justifies. The man who appropriated this censure to himself is evidently and notoriously guilty. His consciousness of his own wickedness incited him to attack his faithful reprover with open insolence and printed accusations. Such an attack made defence necessary; and we hope it will be at last decided that the means of defence were just and lawful.'

When I read this to Mr. Burke, he was highly pleased, and exclaimed, 'Well, he does his work in a workmanlike manner. 21

Mr. Thomson wished to bring the cause by appeal before the House of Lords, but was dissuaded by the advice of the noble person who lately presided so ably in that Most Honourable House, and who was then Attorney-General. As my readers will no doubt be glad also to read the opinion of this eminent man

1 As a proof of Dr. Johnson's extraordinary powers of composition, it appears from the original manuscript of this excellent dissertation, of which he dictated the first eight paragraphs on the 10th of May, and the remainder on the 13th, that there are in the whole only seven corrections, or rather variations, and those not considerable. Such were at once the vigorous and accurate emanations of his mind.-BOSWELL.

it.

CASE.

'There is herewith laid before you,

'1. Petition for the Reverend Mr. James

Thomson, minister of Dunfermline.

2. Answers thereto.

4. Notes of the opinions of the judges, being reasons upon which their decree is grounded.

be much to his credit.

My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every description, had made me much about the same time obtain an introduction to

'Whether there is a probability of the above decree of the Court of Session being reversed, if Mr. Thomson should appeal from the same?'

'I don't think the appeal advisable; not only because the value of the judgment is in no degree adequate to the expense, but because there are many chances that, upon the general complexion of the case, the impression will be taken to the disadvantage of the appellant.

Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person.

Sir John Pringle, 'mine own friend and my father's friend,' between whom and Dr. Johnson I in vain wished to establish an acquaintance, as I respected and lived in intimacy with both of them, observed to me once very ingeni

1

Upon the matter, however, I agree with them in condemning the behaviour of the minister; and in thinking it a subject fit for ecclesiastical censure; and even for an action, if any individual could qualify a wrong, and a damage arising from it. But this I doubt. The circumstance of publishing the reproach in a pulpit, though extremely indecent and culpable in another view, does not constitute a different sort of wrong, or any other rule of law than would have obtained if the same words had been pronounced elsewhere. I don't know whether there be any difference in the law of Scotland in the definition of slander, before the Commissaries or the Court of Session. The common law of England does not give way to actions for every reproachful word. An action cannot be brought for general damages upon any words which import less than an offence cognizable by law; consequently, no action could have been brought here for the words in question. Both laws admit the truth to be a justification in action for words; and the law of England does the same in actions for libels.

It is curious to observe that Lord Thurlow has here, perhaps in compliment to North Britain, made use of a term of the Scotch Law, which to an English reader may require explanation. To qualify a wrong is to point out and establish it.-BOSWELL.

where two things, each equal to a third, are equal between themselves. You agree with Johnson as a middle quality; and you agree with me as a middle quality; but Johnson and I should not agree.' Sir John was not sufficiently flexible-so I desisted; knowing, indeed, that the repulsion was equally strong on the part of Johnson; who, I know not from what cause, unless his being a Scotchman, had formed a very erroneous opinion of Sir John. But I conceived an irresistible wish, if possible, to bring Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes together. How to manage it was a nice and difficult matter.

My worthy booksellers and friends, Messieurs Dilly in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well-covered table I have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other, except that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, had invited me to meet Mr. Wilkes and some other gentlemen, on Wednesday, May 15. 'Pray,' said I, 'let us have Dr. Johnson.'-'What, with Mr. Wilkes? Not for the world,' said Mr. Edward Dilly; 'Dr. Johnson would never forgive me.'--' Come,' said I, 'if you'll let me negotiate for you, I will be answerable that all shall go well.' Dilly: Nay, if you will take it upon you, I am sure I shall be very happy to see them both here.'

Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain my point. I was persuaded that if I had come upon him with a direct proposal, 'Sir, will you dine in company with Jack Wilkes?' he would have flown into a passion,

U