"I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me fuch general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle other people." I faid, his principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good man. JOHNSON. "We can have no dependance upon that instinctive, that constitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you that fuch a man may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive him placed in fuch a fituation that he is not much tempted to deviate from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue when there is not fome strong incitement to tranfgrefs its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But if fuch a man stood in need of money, I fhould not like to truft him; and I fhould certainly not truft him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford fufficient food to their vanity; fo they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield fuch people no more milk, and fo they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had paffed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon pofitive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is fo limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must certainly be true." 1763. Ætat. 54 I mentioned Hume's argument against the belief of miracles, that it is more probable that the witneffes to the truth of them are mistaken, or speak falfely, than that the miracles fhould be true. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, the great difficulty of proving miracles should make us very cautious in believing them. But let us confider; although GOD has made Nature to operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to think that he may suspend those laws, in order to establish a system highly advantageous to mankind. Now the Christian religion is a most beneficial fyftem, as it gives us light and certainty where we were before in darkness and doubt. The miracles which prove it are attested by men who had no intereft in deceiving us; but who, on the contrary, were told that they should fuffer perfecution, and did actually lay down their lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts which they afferted. Indeed, for fome centuries the heathens did not pretend to deny the miracles; but faid they were performed by the aid of evil spirits. This 1763. Etat. 54. is a circumstance of great weight. Then, Sir, when we take the proofs derived from prophecies which have been fo exactly fulfilled, we have most satisfactory evidence. Supposing a miracle poffible, as to which, in my opinion, there can be no doubt, we have as ftrong evidence for the miracles in fupport of Christianity, as the nature of the thing admits." At night, Mr. Johnson and I fupped in a private room at the Turk's Head coffee-house, in the Strand. "I encourage this house (said he); for the mistrefs of it is a good civil woman, and has not much business." "Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I don't like to think myfelf growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do laft; and then, Sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous fentiments in every respect. I love the young dogs of this age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not fo good fcholars. Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a fad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now. My judgement, to be fure, was not fo good; but, I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman faid to me, Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task." This account of his reading, given by himself in plain words, fufficiently confirms what I have already advanced upon the difputed question as to his application. It reconciles any feeming inconfiftency in his way of talking upon it at different times; and fhews that idleness and reading hard were with him relative terms, the import of which, as used by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what scholars of different degrees of ardour and affiduity have been known to do. And let it be remembered, that he was now talking fpontaneously, and expreffing his genuine fentiments; whereas at other times he might be induced from his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of argumentative conteft, to fpeak lightly of his own application to ftudy. It is pleasing to confider that the old gentleman's gloomy prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, was so far from being verified in Johnson, that his ardour for literature never failed, and his laft writings had more ease and vivacity than any of his earlier productions. He mentioned to me now, for the first time, that he had been distrest by melancholy, and for that reason had been obliged to fly from study and medi tation, 1763. tation, to the diffipating variety of life. Against melancholy he recommended ' « Sir, He again infifted on the duty of maintaining fubordination of rank. I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect, than of his money. I confider myself as acting a part in the great fystem of fociety, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to a nobleman as I fhould expect he would behave to me, were I a nobleman and he Sam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay' in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and faid to her, Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I defire that he may be allowed to fit down and dine with us.' I thus, Sir, fhewed her the abfurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me fince. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.. They would all have fome people under them; why not then have some people above them ?" I mentioned a certain authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by fhewing no deference to noblemen into whofe company he was admitted. JOHNSON. "Suppose a fhoemaker should claim an equality with him as he does with a Lord; how would he stare. "Why, Sir, do you ftare? (fays the fhoemaker,) I do great service to fociety. 'Tis true, I am paid for doing it; but fo are you, Sir: and I am forry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing fomething not fo neceffary. For mankind could do better without your books, than without my fhoes.' Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the diftinction of rank, which creates no jealoufy, as it is allowed to be accidental." He faid, Dr. Jofeph Warton was a very agreeable man, and his "Effay on the Genius and Writings of Pope," a very pleafing book. I wondered that he delayed fo long to give us the continuation of it. JOHNSON. "Why, * This ene Mrs. Macaulay was the fame personage who afterwards made herself so much known as "the celebrated female hiftorian." 1763. Ætat. 54. Sir, I fuppofe he finds himself a little disappointed, in not having been able to perfuade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope." We have now been favoured with the concluding volume, in which, to use a parliamentary expression, he has explained, so as not to appear quite so adverse to the opinion of the world concerning Pope, as was at first thought; and we must all agree, that his work is a most valuable acceffion to English literature. A writer of deferved eminence being mentioned, Johnfon faid, Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being originally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, as to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in as many ways as you talk; and furely every way of talking that is practised cannot be esteemed." I fpoke of Sir James Macdonald as a young man of moft diftinguished merit, who united the highest reputation at Eton and Oxford, with the patriarchal spirit of a great Highland Chieftain. I mentioned that Sir James had faid to me, that he had never seen Mr. Johnson, but he had a great respect for him, though at the fame time it was mixed with fome degree of terrour.. JOHNSON. "Sir, if he were to be acquainted with me, it might leffen both." The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the Western Islands of Scotland, to vifit which he expreffed a wish that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards realized. He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of thofe islands into his hands. when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly ftruck with the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his attention. He faid, he would go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned from my travels, unless fome very good companion. fhould offer when I was abfent, which he did not think probable; adding, "There are few people to whom I take fo much to as you." And when I talked of my leaving England, he said, with a very affectionate air, "My dear Boswell, I fhould be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again."-I cannot too often remind my readers, that although fuch instances of his kindness are doubtlefs very flattering to me, yet I hope my recording them will be afcribed to a better motive than to vanity; for they afford unquestionable evidence of his tenderness and complacency, which fome, while they were forced to acknowledge his great powers, have been fo strenuous to deny. He 1763. He maintained, that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings. I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, that a man Ætat. 54. is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and fufferings which are endured at school. JOHNSON. "Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hifs of the world against him. Men have a folicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of lofing it." I filently asked myself, "Is it poffible that the great Samuel Johnson really entertains any fuch apprehenfion, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established upon a foundation never to be shaken?" He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David Dalrymple, as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit.—“ I have (faid he) never heard of him except from you; but let him know my opinion of him: for as he does not fhew himself much in the world, he fhould have the praise of the few who hear of him." On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnfon alone. It was a very wet day, and I again complained of the difagreeable effects of fuch weather. JOHNSON. "Sir, this is all imagination, which physicians encourage; for man lives in air, as a fish lives in water; fo that if the atmosphere prefs heavy from above, there is an equal refiftance from below. To be fure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be abroad; and men cannot labour fo well in the open air in bad weather, as in good: but, Sir, a fmith or a tailor, whofe work is within doors, will furely do as much in rainy weather as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may be affected by wet weather, but not common conftitutions.” We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought was beft to teach them firft. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you fhall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand difputing which is beft to put in firft, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are confidering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both." On Thursday, July 28, we again fupped in private at the Turk's Head coffee-house. JOHNSON. "Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves. His excellence is ftrong fenfe; for his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. I doubt whether the Tale of a Tub' be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner‘. 699 This opinion was given by him more at large at a fubfequent period. See " Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit. p. 32. Journal of a "Thomson, |