was deified. Præsens Divus habebitur Augustus.' he comes into company, grows confused, and unAnd as to meanness (rising into warmth), how able to talk. Take him as a poet, his Traveller is is it mean in a player-a showman-a fellow a very fine performance; aye, and so is his Deserted who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his Village, were it not sometimes too much the echo Queen? The attempt, indeed, was dangerous; of his Traveller. Whether, indeed, we take him for if it had missed, what became of Garrick, as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian, he and what became of the Queen? As Sir William stands in the first class.' BOSWELL: 'An hisTemple says of a great general, it is necessary torian? My dear sir, you surely will not rank not only that his designs be formed in a mas- his compilation of the Roman History with the terly manner, but that they should be attended works of other historians of this age?' JOHNwith success. Sir, it is right, at a time when SON Why, who are before him?' BOSWELL : the royal family is not generally liked, to let Hume, Robertson, Lord Lyttelton.' JOHNSON it be seen that the people like at least one (his antipathy to the Scotch beginning to rise): of them.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: 'I do not 'I have not read Hume; but doubtless, Goldperceive why the profession of a player should smith's history is better than the verbiage of be despised; for the great and ultimate end of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple.' Bosall the employments of mankind is to produce WELL: Will you not admit the superiority of amusement. Garrick produces more amusement Robertson, in whose history we find such than anybody.' BOSWELL: 'You say, Dr. John- penetration-such painting?' JOHNSON: 'Sir, son, that Garrick exhibits himself for a shilling. you must consider how that penetration and In this respect he is only on a footing with a that painting are employed. It is not history, lawyer who exhibits himself for his fee, and it is imagination. He who describes what he even will maintain any nonsense or absurdity, never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints if the case require it. Garrick refuses a play or minds as Sir Joshua paints faces in a history a part which he does not like: a lawyer never piece: he imagines an heroic countenance. You refuses.' JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, what does this must look upon Robertson's work as romance, prove? only that a lawyer is worse. Boswell is and try it by that standard. History it is not. now like "Jack" in the Tale of a Tub, who, when Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer he is puzzled by an argument, hangs himself. to put into his book as much as his book will He thinks I shall cut him down, but I'll let him hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. hang (laughing vociferously). SIR JOSHUA Now, Robertson might have put twice as much REYNOLDS: Mr. Boswell thinks that the pro- in his book. Robertson is like a man who has fession of a lawyer being unquestionably hon-packed gold in wool; the wool takes up more ourable, if he can show the profession of a player to be more honourable, he proves his argument.' CHAPTER XXVII. 1773. On Friday, April 30, I dined with Johnson at Mr. Beauclerk's, where were Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some more members of the LITERARY CLUB, whom he had obligingly invited to meet me, as I was this evening to be balloted for as candidate for admission into that distinguished society. Johnson had done me the honour to propose me, and Beauclerk was very zealous for me. Goldsmith being mentioned,-JOHNSON: 'It is amazing how little Goldsmith knows. He seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS : 'Yet there is no man whose company is more liked.' JOHNSON: To be sure, sir. When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldsmith comically says of himself is very true he always gets the better when he argues alone; meaning, that he is master of a subject in his study, and can write well upon it; but when room than the gold. No, sir; I always thought Robertson would be crushed by his own weight -would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils: "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." Goldsmith's abridgment is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the Roman History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and he will make it as entertaining as a Persian Tale.' I cannot dismiss the present topic without observing that it is probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned that he often talked for victory,' rather urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertson's excellent historical works, in the ardour of contest, than expressed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to suppose that he should so widely differ from the rest of the literary world. JOHNSON: I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. While we surveyed the Poets' Corner I said to him, "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 1 When we got to Temple Bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered ¡ me, "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur ISTIS."'2 Johnson praised John Bunyan highly: 'His Pilgrim's Progress has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had I read Spenser.' A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's Church as well as in Westminster Abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody suggested Pope. JOHNSON: Why, sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should have the precedence. I think more highly of him now than I did at twenty. There is more thinking in him and in Butler, than in any of our poets.' Some of the company expressed a wonder why the author of so excellent a book as The Whole Duty of Man should conceal himself." JOHNSON: There may be different reasons assigned for this, any one of which would be very sufficient. He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his religious counsels would have less weight when known to come from a man whose profession was theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not suitable to his principles, so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he hai written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future state." The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received the agree able intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place of meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, and whose splendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club. Goldsmith produced some very absurd verses which had been publicly recited to an audience for money. JOHNSON: I can match this nonsense. There was a poem called Eugenio, which came out some years ago, and concludes thus:"And now, ye trifling, self-assuming elves, Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves, Survey Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, and be no more." 1 'Nay, Dryden, in his poem on the Royal Society, has these lines: "Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry.' Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that species of wit, deigned to allow that there was one good pun in Menagiana, I think on the word corps.2 1 Dr. Johnson's memory here was not perfectly accurate; Eugenio does not conclude thus. There are eight more lines after the last of those quoted by him; and the passage which he meant to recite is as follows: 'Say now, ye fluttering, poor assuming elves, Then sink into yourselves, and be no more.' Mr. Reed informs me that the author of Eugenio, Thomas Beech, a wine merchant, at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, soon after its publication, viz., 17th May 1737, cut his own throat; and that it appears by Swift's works, that the poem had been shown to him, and received some of his corrections. Johnson had read Eugenio on his first coming to town, for we see it mentioned in one of his letters to Mr. Cave, which has been inserted in this work.-BoswELL. 2 I formerly thought that I had perhaps mistaken the word, and imagined it to be Corps, from its similarity of sound to the real one. For an accurate and shrewd unknown gentleman, to whom I am indebted for some remark on my work, observes on this passage Q. If not on the word, Fort? A vociferous French preacher said of Bourdaloue, "Il prêche fort bien, et avoided; and in questions of simple unperplexed morality, conscience is very often a guide that may be trusted. But before conscience can determine, the state of the question is supposed to be completely known. In questions of law, or of fact, conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man; they must be known by rational investigation, or historical inquiry. Opinion, which he that holds it may call his conscience, may teach some men that religion would be promoted and quiet preserved by granting to the people universally the choice of their ministers. But it is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man for the convenience of another. Religion cannot be promoted by injustice; and it was never yet found that a popular election was very quietly transacted. Much pleasant conversation passed, which Johnson relished with great good humour. But his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work. On Saturday, May 1, we dined by ourselves at our old rendezvous, the Mitre Tavern. He was placid, but not much disposed to talk. He observed, that The Irish mix better with the English than the Scotch do; their language is nearer to English; as a proof of which, they succeed very well as players, which Scotchmen do not. Then, sir, they have not that extreme nationality which we find in the Scotch. I will do you, Boswell, the justice to say, that you are the most unscottified of your countrymen. You are almost the only instance of a Scotchman that I have known, who did not at every other sentence bring in some other Scotchman.' We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I introduced a question which has been much agitated in the Church of Scotland, whether the claim of lay patrons to present ministers to parishes be well founded; and supposing it to be well founded, whether it ought to be exercised without the concurrence of the people? That Church is composed of a series of judicatures;-in times of ignorance, and established only by a Presbytery, a Synod, and finally a General Assembly; before all of which this matter may be contended: and in some cases the Presbytery having refused to induct or settle, as they call it, the person presented by the patron, it has been found necessary to appeal to the General Assembly. He said I might see the subject well treated in The Defence of Pluralities; and although he thought that a patron should exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right. Then supposing the question to be pleaded before the General Assembly, he dictated to me what follows: 'Against the right of patrons is commonly opposed, by the inferior judicatures, the plea of conscience. Their conscience tells them that the people ought to choose their pastor; their conscience tells them that they ought not to impose upon a congregation a minister ungrateful and unacceptable to his auditors. Conscience is nothing more than a conviction felt by ourselves of something to be done, or something to be "That justice would be violated by transferring to the people the right of patronage, is appa rent to all who know whenee that right had its original. The right of patronage was not at first a privilege torn by power from unresisting poverty. It is not an authority at first usurped succession and by precedents. It is not a grant moi bien fort."'—Menaglana. See also Anecdotes 'We hear it sometimes urged that this original right is passed out of memory, and is obliterated and obscured by many translations of property | and changes of government; that scarce any church is now in the hands of the heirs of the builders; and that the present persons have entered subsequently upon the pretended rights by a thousand accidental and unknown causes. Much of this, perhaps, is true. But how is the right of patronage extinguished? If the right followed the lands, it is possessed by the same equity by which the lands are possessed. It is, in effect, part of the manor, and protected by the same laws with every other privilege. Let us suppose an estate forfeited by treason, and granted by the Crown to a new family. With the lands were forfeited all the rights appendant to those lands; by the same power that grants the lands, the rights also are granted. The right lost to the patron falls not to the people, but is either retained by the Crown, or what to the people is the same thing, is by the Crown given away. Let it change hands ever so often, it is possessed by him that receives it with the same right as it was conveyed. It may, indeed, like all our possessions, be forcibly seized or fraudulently obtained: but no injury is still done to the people; for what they never had, they have never lost. Caius may usurp the right of Titius, but neither Caius nor Titius injure the people; and no man's conscience, however tender or however active, can prompt him to restore what may be proved to have been never taken away. Supposing, what I think cannot be proved, that a popular election of ministers were to be desired, our desires are not the treasures of equity. It were to be desired that power should be only in the hands of the merciful, and riches in the possession of the generous; but the law must leave both riches and power where it finds them, and must often leave riches with the covetous, and power with the cruel. Convenience may be a rule in little things, where no other rule has been established. But as the great end of government is to give every man his own, no inconvenience is greater than that of making right uncertain. Nor is any man more an enemy to public peace, than be who fills weak heads with imaginary claims, and breaks the series of civil subordination by inciting the lower classes of mankind to encroach upon the higher. 'Having thus shown that the right of patronage, being originally purchased, may be legally transferred, and that it is now in the hands of lawful possessors, at least as certainly as any other right,-we have left to the advocates of the people no other plea than that of convenience. Let us, therefore, now consider what the people would really gain by a general abolition of the right of patronage. What is most to be desired by such a change is, that the country should be supplied with better ministers. But why should we suppose that the parish will make a wiser choice than the patron? If We suppose mankind actuated by interest, the patron is more likely to choose with caution, because he will suffer more by choosing wrong. By the deficiencies of his minister, or by his Vices, he is equally offended with the rest of the congregation; but he will have this reason more to lament them, that they will be imputed to his absurdity or corruption. The qualifications of a minister are well known to be learning and piety. Of his learning the patron is probably the only judge in the parish, and of his piety not less a judge than others; and is more likely to inquire minutely and diligently before he gives a presentation, than one of the parochial rabble, who can give nothing but a vote. It may be urged that though the parish might not choose better ministers, they would at least choose ministers whom they like better, and who therefore officiate with greater efficacy. That ignorance and perverseness should always obtain what they like, was never considered as the end of government; of which it is the great and standing benefit, that the wise see for the simple, and the regular act for the capricious. But that this argument supposes the people capable of judging, and resolute to act according to their best judgments, though this be sufficiently absurd, it is not all its absurdity. It supposes not only wisdom, but unanimity in those who, upon no other occasions, are unanimous or wise. If by some strange concurrence all the voices of a parish should unite in the choice of any single man, though I could not charge the patron with injustice for presenting a minister, I should censure him as unkind and injudicious. But it is evident, that as in all other popular elections, there will be contrariety of judgment and acrimony of passion, a parish upon every vacancy would break into factions, and the contest for the choice of a minister would set neighbours at variance, and bring discord into families. The minister would be taught all the arts of a candidate, would flatter some, and bribe others; and the electors, as in all other cases, would call for holidays, and ale, and break the heads of each other during the jollity of the canvass. The time must, however, come at last, when one of the factions must prevail, and one of the ministers get possession of the church. On what terms does he enter upon his ministry but those of enmity with half his parish? By what prudence or what diligence can he hope to conciliate the affections of that party by whose defeat he has obtained his living? Every man who voted against him will enter the church with hanging head and downcast eyes, afraid to encounter that neighbour by whose vote and influence he has been overpowered. He will hate his neighbour for opposing him, and his minister for having prospered by the opposition; and as he will never see him but with pain, he will never see him but with hatred. Of a minister presented by the patron, the parish has seldom any worse to say than that they do not know him. Of a minister chosen by a popular contest, all those who do not favour him have nursed up in their bosoms principles of hatred and reasons of rejection. Anger is excited principally by pride. The pride of a common man is very little exasperated by the supposed usurpation of an acknowledged superior. He bears only his little share of a general evil, and suffers in common with the whole parish; but when the contest is between equals, the defeat has many aggravations; and he that is defeated by his next neighbour is seldom satisfied without some revenge; and it is hard to say what bitterness of malignity would prevail in a parish where these elections should happen to be frequent, and the enmity of opposition should be rekindled before it had cooled.' Though I present to my readers Dr. Johnson's masterly thoughts on the subject, I think it proper to declare that, notwithstanding I am myself a lay patron, I do not entirely subscribe to his opinion. On Friday, May 7, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavoured as well as I could to apologise for a lady who had been divorced from her husband by Act of Parliament. I said that he had used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she could not continue to live with him without having her delicacy contaminated that all affection for him was thus destroyed; that the essence of conjugal union being gone, there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and that the gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check: My dear sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and there's an end on't.' He described the father of one of his friends thus Sir, he was so exuberant a talker at public meetings, that the gentlemen of his county were afraid of him. No business could be done for his declamation.' He did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I had carried on a short conversation by signs with some Esquimaux, who were then in London, particularly with one of them who was a priest. He thought I could not make them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to particular facts which were at all extraordinary; and therefore no man was more scrupulously inquisitive, in order to discover the truth. I dined with him this day at the house of my friends, Messrs. Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry: there were present, their elder brother, Mr. Dilly of Bedfordshire, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Langton, Mr. Claxton, Reverend Dr. Mayo, a dissenting minister, the Reverend Mr. Toplady, and my friend the Reverend Mr. Temple. Hawkesworth's compilation of the voyages to the South Sea being mentioned ;-JOHNSON : 'Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, it will be gainful; if as a book that is to increase human knowledge, I believe there will not be much of that. Hawkesworth can tell only what the voyagers have told him; and they have found very little, only one new animal, I think.' BosWELL: 'But many insects, sir.' JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, as to insects, Ray reckons of British insects twenty thousand species. They might have stayed at home and discovered enough in that way.' Talking of birds, I mentioned Mr. Daines Barrington's ingenious essay against the received notion of their migration. JOHNSON: 'I think we have as good evidence for the migration of woodcocks as can be desired. We find they disappear at a certain time of the year, and appear again at a certain time of the year; and some of them, when weary in their flight, have been known to alight on the rigging of ships far out at sea.' One of the company observed, that there had been instances of some of them found in summer in Essex. JOHNSON: 'Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. Some being found, shows that, if all remained, many would be found. A few sick or lame ones may be found.' GOLDSMITH: "There is a partial migration of the swallows; the stronger ones migrate, the others do not.' BOSWELL: 'I am well assured that the people of Otaheite, who have the bread tree, the fruit of which serves them for bread, laughed heartily when they were informed of the tedious process necessary with us to have bread-ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, threshing, grinding, baking.' JOHNSON: Why, sir, all ignorant savages will laugh when they are told of the advantages of civilised life. Were you to tell men who life without houses, how we pile brick upon brick, and rafter upon rafter, and then after a house is raised to a certain height, a man tumbles off a scaffold and breaks his neck, he would laugh heartily at our folly in building; but it does not follow that men are better without houses. No, sir (holding up a slice of a good loaf), this is better than the bread tree.' He repeated an argument which is to be found in his Rambler against the notion that the brute creation is endowed with the faculty of reason: 'Birds build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build.' GOLDSMITH: Yet we see if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, that is because at first she has full time and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention she is |