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However, as Johnson observed, we saw the Pantheon in time of mourning, when there was a dull uniformity; whereas we had seen Ranelagh when the view was enlivened with a gay profusion of colours. Mrs. Bosville', of Gunthwait, in Yorkshire, joined us, and entered into conversation with us. Johnson said to me afterwards, "Sir, this is a mighty intelligent lady."

I said there was not half a guinea's worth of pleasure in seeing this place. JOHNSON. "But, sir, there is half a guinea's worth of inferiority to other people in not having seen it." BOSWELL. "I doubt, sir, whether there are many happy people here." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them."

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Happening to meet Sir Adam Ferguson, I presented him to Dr. Johnson. Sir Adam expressed some apprehension that the Pantheon would encourage luxury. Sir," said Johnson, "I am a great friend to publick amusements; for they keep people from vice. You now (addressing himself to me) would have been with a wench, had you not been here. O! I forgot you were married."

Sir Adam suggested, that luxury corrupts a people, and destroys the spirit of liberty. JOHNSON. "Sir, that is all visionary. I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. What Frenchman is

1 [Diana Wentworth, wife of Godfrey Bosville, Esq. of Gunthwait, whose daughter had married, in 1768, Sir Alexander, afterwards created Lord, Macdonald.-ED.]

2

? [Sir Adam Ferguson of Kelkerran, Bart. member of parliament for Ayr shire from 1774 to 1780.-ED.]

prevented from passing his life as he pleases1?" SIR ADAM. "But, sir, in the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown." JOHNSON. "Sir, I perceive you are a vile whig. Why all this childish jealousy of the power of the crown? The crown has not power enough. When I say that all governments are alike, I consider that in no government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. If a sovereign oppresses his people to a great degree, they will rise and cut off his head. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government. Had not the people of France thought themselves honoured in sharing in the brilliant actions of Louis XIV., they would not have endured him; and we may say the same of the King of Prussia's people." Sir Adam introduced the ancient Greeks and Romans. JOHNSON." Sir, the mass of both of them were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing, and consequently knowledge is not generally diffused. Knowledge is diffused among our people by the newspapers." Sir Adam mentioned the orators, poets, and artists of Greece. JOHNSON. "Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people. We see even what the boasted Athenians were. The little effect which Demosthenes's orations had upon them, shows that they were barbarians."

Sir Adam was unlucky in his topicks; for he sug

[This is sad "laxity of talk." If a Frenchman had written any thing like Johnson's Norfolk Prophecy, or talked of Louis XV. as Johnson did of George the Second, he would have been either forced to fly, or would have expiated his indiscretion in the Bastille: poor Marmontel was, we know, sent to the Bastille for repeating the parody of a few lines in a play, at which a lord of the bedchamber happened to be offended.-ED.]

[These words must have been accompanied and softened by some jocular expression of countenance or intonation of voice, for, rude as Johnson often was, it is hardly conceivable that he should have seriously said such a thing to a gentleman whom he saw for the first time.-ED.]

gested a doubt of the propriety of bishops having seats in the house of lords. JOHNSON. "How so, sir? Who is more proper for having the dignity of a peer than a bishop, provided a bishop be what he ought to be; and if improper bishops be made, that is not the fault of the bishops, but of those who make them."

On Sunday, April 5, after attending divine service at St. Paul's church, I found him alone. Of a schoolmaster1 of his acquaintance, a native of Scotland, he said, "He has a great deal of good about him; but he is also very defective in some respects. His inner part is good, but his outer part is mighty awkward. You in Scotland do not attain that nice critical skill in languages, which we get in our schools in England. I would not put a boy to him, whom I intended for a man of learning. But for the sons of citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals, and then go to trade, he may do very well."

I mentioned a cause in which I had appeared as counsel at the bar of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, where a probationer (as one licensed to preach, but not yet ordained, is called) was opposed in his application to be inducted, because it was alleged that he had been guilty of fornication five years before. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, if he has repented, it is not a sufficient objection. A man who is good enough to go to heaven, is good enough to be a clergyman." This was a humane and liberal sentiment. But the character of a clergyman is more sacred than that of an ordinary christian. As he is to instruct with authority, he should be regarded with reverence, as one upon whom divine truth has had the effect to set him above such transgressions, as men, less exalted by spiritual habits and

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yet upon the whole not to be excluded from heaven, have been betrayed into by the predominance of passion. That clergymen may be considered as sinners in general, as all men are, cannot be denied; but this reflection will not counteract their good precepts so much, as the absolute knowledge of their having been guilty of certain specific immoral acts. I told him, that by the rules of the church of Scotland, in their "Book of Discipline," if a scandal, as it is called, is not prosecuted for five years, it cannot afterwards be proceeded upon, "unless it be of a heinous nature, or again become flagrant ;" and that hence a question arose, whether fornication was a sin of a heinous nature; and that I had maintained, that it did not deserve. that epithet, in as much as it was not one of those sins which argue very great depravity of heart: in short, was not, in the general acceptation of mankind, a heinous sin. JOHNSON. "No, sir, it is not a heinous sin. A heinous sin is that for which a man is punished with death or banishment." BOSWELL. "But, sir, after I had argued that it was not a heinous sin, an old clergyman rose up, and repeating the text of scripture denouncing judgment against whoremongers, asked, whether, considering this, there could be any doubt of fornication being a heinous sin." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, observe the word whoremonger. Every sin, if persisted in, will become heinous. Whoremonger is a dealer in whores, as ironmonger is a dealer in iron. But as you don't call a man an ironmonger for buying and selling a penknife; so you don't call a man a whoremonger for getting one wench with child 1."

I spoke of the inequality of the livings of the clergy in England, and the scanty provisions of some of the

It must not be presumed that Dr. Johnson meant to give any countenance to licentiousness, though in the character of an advocate he made a just and subtle distinction between occasional and habitual transgression.-BosWELL.

curates.

JOHNSON. "Why yes, sir; but it cannot be helped. You must consider, that the revenues of the clergy are not at the disposal of the state, like the pay of the army. Different men have founded different churches; and some are better endowed, some worse. The state cannot interfere, and make an equal division of what has been particularly appropriated. Now when a clergyman has but a small living, or even two small livings, he can afford very little to the curate."

He said he went more frequently to church when there were prayers only, than when there was also a sermon, as the people required more an example for the one than the other; it being much easier for them to hear a sermon, than to fix their minds on prayer.

On Monday, April 6, I dined with him at Sir Alexander Macdonald's, where was a young officer in the regimentals of the Scots Royal, who talked with a vivacity, fluency, and precision so uncommon, that he attracted particular attention. He proved to be the Hon. Thomas Erskine, youngest brother to the Earl of Buchan, who has since risen into such brilliant reputation at the bar in Westminster-hall '.

Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, "He was a blockhead;" and upon my expressing my astonishment at so strange an assertion, he said, "What I mean by his being a blockhead is, that he was a barren rascal." BOSWELL. BOSWELL."Will you not allow, sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human

[Born in 1748; entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764, and the army as an ensign in the royals in 1768. He was called to the bar in 1779; appointed a king's council in 1783, and, in 1806, lord chancellor of England, and created a baron by the tide of Lord Erskine. He died in 1823. Neither his conversation, (though, even to the last, remarkable for fluency and vivacity,) nor his parliamentary speeches, ever bore any proportion to the extraordinary force and brilliancy of his forensic eloquence. Those who only knew him in private, or in the house of commons, had some difficulty in believing the effect he produced at the bar. During the last years of his life, his conduct was eccentric to a degree that justified a suspicion, and even a hope, that his understanding was impaired.-ED.]

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