Aetat. 67.]

Omai.

9

and adventure, and felt a strong inclination to go with him on his next voyage. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, a man does feel so, till he considers how very little he can learn from such voyages.' BOSWELL. 'But one is carried away with the general grand and indistinct notion of A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, but a man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general.' I said I was certain that a great part of what we are told by the travellers to the South Sea must be conjecture, because they had not enough of the language of those countries to understand so much as they have related. Objects falling under the observation of the senses might be clearly known; but every thing intellectual, every thing abstract — politicks, morals, and religion, must be darkly guessed. Dr. Johnson was of the same opinion. He upon another occasion, when a friend mentioned to him several extraordinary facts, as communicated to him by the circumnavigators, slily observed, 'Sir, I never before knew how much I was respected by these gentlemen; they told me none of these things.'

He had been in company with Omai, a native of one of the South Sea Islands, after he had been some time in this country. He was struck with the elegance of his behaviour, and accounted for it thus: 'Sir, he had passed his time, while in England, only in the best company; so that all that he had acquired of our manners was genteel. As a proof of this, Sir, Lord Mulgrave and he dined one day at Streatham; they sat with their backs to the light fronting me, so that I could not see distinctly; and there was so little of the savage in Omai, that I was afraid to speak to either, lest I should mistake one for the other'.'

.

Johnson had had some desire to go upon Captain Cook's expedition in 1772. Ante, March 21, 1772.

1

'Mme. D'Arblay (Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 284) describes the perfect ease with which Omai managed a sword which he had received from the King, and which he had that day put on for the first time in order to go to the House of Lords.' He is the 'gentle savage' in Cowper's Task, i. 632.

We

ΙΟ

The character of a soldier.

[A.D. 1776. We agreed to dine to-day at the Mitre - tavern, after the rising of the House of Lords, where a branch of the litigation concerning the Douglas estate', in which I was one of the counsel, was to come on. I brought with me Mr. Murray, Solicitor-General of Scotland, now one of the Judges of the Court of Session, with the title of Lord Henderland. I mentioned Mr. Solicitor's relation, Lord Charles Hay', with whom I knew Dr. Johnson had been acquainted. JOHNSON. 'I wrote something for Lord Charles; and I thought he had nothing to fear from a court-martial. I suffered a great loss when he died; he was a mighty pleasing man in conversation, and a reading man. The character of a soldier is high. They who stand forth the foremost in danger, for the community, have the respect of mankind. An officer is much more respected than any other man who has as little money. In a commercial country, money will always purchase respect. But you find, an officer, who has, properly speaking, no money, is every where well received and treated with attention. The character of a soldier always stands him in stead'.'

1 See ante, ii. 57.

" Voltaire (Siècle de Louis XV, ch. xv.), in his account of the battle of Fontenoy, thus mentions him :-' On était à cinquante pas de distance. ... Les officiers anglais saluèrent les Français en ôtant leurs chapeaux.... Les officiers des gardes françaises leur rendirent le salut. Mylord Charles Hay, capitaine aux gardes anglaises, cria :—Messieurs des gardes françaises, tirez. Le comte d'Auteroche leur dit à voix haute:- Messieurs, nous ne tirons jamais les premiers; tirez vous

mêmes.'

3 See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. Hay was third in command in the expedition to North America in 1757. It was reported that he said that 'the nation's wealth was expended in making shamfights and planting cabbages.' He was put under arrest and sent home to be tried. Gent. Mag. 1758, p. 170. Mr. Croker says that 'the real state of the case was that he had gone mad, and was in that state sent home.' He died before the sentence of the court-martial was promulgated. Croker's Boswell, p. 497.

• In Thoughts on the Coronation of George III (Works, v. 458) he expressed himself differently, if indeed the passage is of his writing (see ante, i. 418). He says:-'It cannot but offend every Englishman

BOSWELL.

Aetat. 67.]

The character of a soldier.

ΙΙ

BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, I think that common soldiers are worse thought of than other men in the same rank of life; such as labourers.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, a common soldier is usually a very gross man', and any quality which procures respect may be overwhelmed by grossness. A man of learning may be so vicious or so ridiculous that you cannot respect him. A common soldier too, generally eats more than he can pay for. But when a common soldier is civil in his quarters, his red coat procures him a degree of respect'.' The peculiar respect paid to the military character in France was mentioned. BOSWELL. 'I should think that where military men are so numerous, they would be less valued as not being

to see troops of soldiers placed between him and his sovereign, as if they were the most honourable of the people, or the King required guards to secure his person from his subjects. As their station makes them think themselves important, their insolence is always such as may be expected from servile authority.' In his Journey to the Hebrides (ib. ix. 30) he speaks of 'that courtesy which is so closely connected with the military character.' See post, April 10, 1778.

''It is not in the power even of God to make a polite soldier.' Menander; quoted by Hume, Essays, Part i. 20, note.

* In Johnson's Debates for 1741 (Works, x. 387) is one on the quartering of soldiers. By the Mutiny Act the innkeeper was required to find each foot-soldier lodging, diet, and small beer for fourpence a day. By the Act as amended that year if he furnished salt, vinegar, smallbeer, candles, fire, and utensils to dress their victuals, without payment, he had not to supply diet except on a march. Ib. pp. 416, 420. The allowance of small-beer was fixed at five pints a day, though it was maintained that it should be six. Lord Baltimore, according to Johnson, said that 'as every gentleman's servants each consumed daily six pints, it surely is not to be required that a soldier should live in a perpetual state of warfare with his constitution.' Ib. p. 418. Burke, writing in 1794, says :-'In quarters the innkeepers are obliged to find for the soldiers lodging, fire, candle - light, small - beer, salt and vinegar gratis.' Burke's Corres. iv. 258. Johnson wrote in 1758 (Works, vi. 150): The manner in which the soldiers are dispersed in quarters over the country during times of peace naturally produces laxity of discipline; they are very little in sight of their officers; and when they are not engaged in the slight duty of the guard are suffered to live every man his own way.' Fielding, in Tom Jones, bk. ix. ch. 6, humorously describes an innkeeper's grievances.

rare.'

12

Good humour in disputations.

[A.D. 1776.

rare.' JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, wherever a particular character or profession is high in the estimation of a people, those who are of it will be valued above other men. We value an Englishman highly in this country, and yet Englishmen are not rare in it.'

Mr. Murray praised the ancient philosophers for the candour and good humour with which those of different sects disputed with each other. JOHNSON. 'Sir, they disputed with good humour, because they were not in earnest as to religion. Had the ancients been serious in their belief, we should not have had their Gods exhibited in the manner we find them represented in the Poets. The people would not have suffered it. They disputed with good humour upon their fanciful theories, because they were not interested in the truth of them: when a man has nothing to lose, he may be in good humour with his opponent. Accordingly you see in Lucian, the Epicurean, who argues only negatively, keeps his temper; the Stoick, who has something positive to preserve, grows angry'. Being angry with one who controverts an opinion which you value, is a necessary consequence of the uneasiness which you feel. Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy'. Those only who believed in

1 This alludes to the pleadings of a Stoic and an Epicurean for and against the existence of the Divinity in Lucian's Jupiter the Tragic. CROKER.

2.There is a time when every man is weary of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest.' Johnson's Works, vi. 497. See ante, May 7, 1773, and post, April 3, 1779, where he says, 'Sir, you are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe.' Hume, in his Essay Of Parties in General, had written :— 'Such is the nature of the human mind, that it always takes hold of every mind that approaches it; and as it is wonderfully fortified and corroborated by an unanimity of sentiments, so is it shocked and disturbed by any contrariety.' 'Carlyle was fond of quoting a sentence of Novalis :-" My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it." Saturday Review, No. 1538, p. 521. 'The revelation

Aetat. 67.]

Attacks on a man's belief.

13

revelation have been angry at having their faith called in question; because they only had something upon which they could rest as matter of fact.' MURRAY. 'It seems to me that we are not angry at a man for controverting an opinion which we believe and value; we rather pity him.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir; to be sure when you wish a man to have that belief which you think is of infinite advantage, you wish well to him; but your primary consideration is your own. quiet. If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards. No, Sir; every man will dispute with great good humour upon a subject in which he is not interested. I will dispute very calmly upon the probability of another man's son being hanged; but if a man zealously enforces the probability that my own son will be hanged, I shall certainly not be in a very good humour with him.' I added this illustration, 'If a man endeavours to convince me that my wife, whom I love very much, and in whom I place great confidence, is a disagreeable woman, and is even unfaithful to me, I shall be very angry, for he is putting me in fear of being unhappy.' MURRAY. 'But, Sir, truth will always bear an examination.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, but it is painful to be forced to defend it. Consider, Sir, how should you like, though conscious of your innocence, to be tried before a jury for a capital crime, once a week.'

We talked of education at great schools; the advantages and disadvantages of which Johnson displayed in a luminous manner; but his arguments preponderated so much in favour of the benefit which a boy of good parts' might

introducing of new doctrines,' said Bacon, 'is an affectation of tyranny over the understandings and beliefs of men.' Bacon's Nat. Hist., Experiment 1000.

''We must own,' said Johnson, 'that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great school as at a private one.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22, 1773. See ante, under Dec. 5, 1775. On June 16,

receive