neither equity nor compassion operate against it. A useful, a necessary law is broken, not only without a reasonable motive, but with all the inducements to obedience that can be derived from safety and facility. ed. Of general happiness, the produc of general | he can c so easily, and that which he knows to confidence, there is yet no thought. Men continue be required by the law? If temptation were rare. to prosecute their own advantages by the nearest a penal law might be deemed unnecessary. If way; and the utmost severity of the civil law is the duty enjoined by the law were of difficult pernecessary to restrain individuals from plundering formance, omission, though it could not be justieach other. The restraints then necessary are re-fied, might be pitied. But in the present case straints from plunder, from acts of public violence, and undisguised oppression. The ferocity of our ancestors, as of all other nations, produced not fraud, but rapine. They had not yet learned to cheat, and attempted only to rob. As manners grow more polished, with the knowledge of good, men attain likewise dexterity in evil. Open rapine becomes less frequent, and violence gives way to cunning. Those who before invaded pastures and stormed houses, now begin to enrich themselves by unequal contracts and fraudulent intromissions. It is not against the violence of ferocity, but the circumventions of deceit, that this law was framed; and I am afraid the increase of commerce, and the incessant struggle for riches which commerce excites, gives us no prospect of an end speedily to be expected of artifice and fraud. It therefore seems to be no very conclusive reasoning, which connects those two propositions :- the nation is become less ferocious, and therefore the laws against fraud and covin shall be relaxed.' "Whatever reason may have influenced the judges to a relaxation of the law, it was not that the nation was grown less fierce; and, I am afraid, it cannot be affirmed, that it is grown less fraudulent. "Since this law has been represented as rigorously and unreasonably penal, it seems not improper to consider what are the conditions and qualities that make the justice or propriety of a penal law. "To make a penal law reasonable and just, two conditions are necessary, and two proper. It is necessary that the law should be adequate to its end; that, if it be observed, it shall prevent the evil against which it is directed. It is, secondly, necessary that the end of the law be of such importance as to deserve the security of a penal sanction. The other conditions of a penal law, which, though not absolutely necessary, are to a very high degree fit, are, that to the moral violation of the law there are many temptations, and that of the physical observance there is great facility. "All these conditions apparently concur to justify the law which we are now considering. Its end is the security of property; and property very often of great value. The method by which it effects the security is efficacious, because it admits, in its original rigour, no gradations of injury; but keeps guilt and innocence apart, by a distinct and definite limitation. He that intromits, is criminal; he that intromits not, is innocent. Of the two secondary considerations it cannot be denied that both are in our favour, The temptation to intromit is frequent and strong; so strong and so frequent, as to require the utmost activity of justice, and vigilance of caution, to withstand its prevalence; and the method by which a man may entitle himself to legal intromission is so open and so facile, that to neglect it is a proof of fraudulent intention; for why should a man omit to do (but for reasons which he will not confess) that which "I therefore return to my original position, that a law, to have its effects, must be permanent and stable. It may be said in the language of the schools, Lex non recipit majus et minus,—we may have a law, or we may have no law, but we cannot have half a law We must either have a rule of action, or be permitted to act by discretion and by chance. Deviations from the law must be uniformly punished, or no man can be certain when he shall be safe. "That from the rigour of the original institution this court has sometimes departed cannot be denied. But, as it is evident that such deviations, as they make law uncertain, make life unsafe, I hope, that of departing from it there will now be an end; that the wisdom of our ancestors will be treated with due reverence; and that consistent and steady decisions will furnish the people with a rule of action, and leave fraud and fraudulent intromissions no future hope of impunity or es cape. No. VII. [ARGUMENT by Dr. Johnson in defence of lay patronage, referred to (sub 1st May, 1773), p. 316.] "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 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 i!l 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. "That justice would be violated by transferring to the people the right of patronage is apparent to all who know whence that right had its original. The right of patronage was not at first a privilege | power where it find them; and must often leave torn by power from unresisting poverty. It is not riches with the covetous, and power with the cruan authority at first usurped in times of ignorance, el. Convenience may be a rule in little things, and established only by succession and by prece- where no other rule has been established. But af dents. It is not a grant capriciously made from a the great end of government is to give every man higher tyrant to a lower. It is a right dearly pur- his own, no inconvenience is greater than that of chased by the first possessors, and justly inherited making right uncertain. Nor is any mar more an by those that succeeded them. When Christianity enemy to public peace, than he who fills weak was established in this island, a regular mode of heads with imaginary claims, and breaks the sepublic worship was prescribed. Public worship ries of civil subordination, by inciting the lower requires a public place; and the proprietors of classes of mankind to encroach upon the higher. lands, as they were converted, built churches for "Having thus shown that the right of patrontheir families and their vassals. For the main- age, being originally purchased, may be legally tenance of ministers, they settled a certain portion transferred, and that it is now in the hands of lawof their lands; and a district, through which each ful possessors, at least as certainly as any other minister was required to extend his care, was, by right;-we have left to the advocates of the peothat circumscription, constituted a parish. This ple no other plea than that of convenience. Let is a position so generally received in England, that us, therefore, now consider what the people would the extent of a manor and of a parish are regular- really gain by a general abolition of the right of ly received for each other. The churches which patronage. What is most to be desired by such the proprietors of lands had thus built and thus en- a change is, that the country should be supplied dowed, they justly thought themselves entitled to with better ministers. But why should we supprovide with ministers; and where the episcopal pose that the parish will make a wiser choice than government prevails, the bishop has no power to the patron? If we suppose mankind actuated by reject a man nominated by the patron, but for some interest, the patron is more likely to choose with crime that might exclude him from the priesthood. caution, because he will suffer more by choosing For the endowment of the church being the gift of wrong. By the deficiencies of his minister, or by the landlord, he was consequently át liberty to give his vices, he is equally offended with the rest of it, according to his choice, to any man capable of the congregation; but he will have this reason performing the holy offices. The people did not more to lament them, that they will be imputed choose him, because the people did not pay him. to his absurdity or corruption. The qualifications "We hear it sometimes urged, that this origi- of a minister are well known to be learning and nal right is passed out of memory, and is oblite- piety. Of his learning the patron is probably the rated and obscured by many translations of pro- only judge in the parish; and of his piety not less perty and changes of government; that scarce any a judge than others; and is more likely to inquire church is now in the hands of the heirs of the minutely and diligently before he gives a presenbuilders; and that the present persons have enter- tation, than one of the parochial rabble, who can ed subsequently upon the pretended rights by a give nothing but a vote. It may be urged, that thousand accidental and unknown causes. Much though the parish might not choose better minisof this, perhaps, is true. But how is the right of ters, they would at least choose ministers whom patronage extinguished? If the right followed the they like better, and who would therefore officiate lands, it is possessed by the same equity by which with greater efficacy. That ignorance and perthe lands are possessed. It is, in effect, part of verseness should always obtain what they like, was the manor, and protected by the same laws with never considered as the end of government; of every other privilege. Let us suppose an estate which it is the great and standing benefit, that the forfeited by treason, and granted by the crown to wise see for the simple, and the regular act for the a new family. With the lands were forfeited all capricious. But that this argument supposes the the rights appendant to those lands; by the same people capable of judging, and resolute to act acpower that grants the lands, the rights also are cording to their best judgments, though this be granted. The right lost to the patron falls not to sufficiently absurd, it is not all its absurdity. It the people, but is either retained by the crown, or, supposes not only wisdom, but unanimity in those, what to the people is the same thing, is by the who upon no other occasions are unanimous or crown given away. Let it change hands ever so wise. If by some strange concurrence all the often, it is possessed by him that receives it with voices of a parish should unite in the choice of the same right as it was conveyed. It may, in- any single man, though I could not charge the padeed, like all our possessions, be forcibly seized or tron with injustice for presenting a minister, fraudulently obtained. But no injury is still done.should censure him as unkind and injudicious. 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 how ever 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 measure 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 But, it is evident, that as in all other popular elec- must prevail, and one of the ministers get posses sion 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 thing 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 superiour. 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." No. VIII. In justice to the ingenious Dr. Blacklock, I publish the following letter from him, relative to a passage in the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. See p. 336.-Bos WELL. TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "Edinburgh, Nov. 12, 1785. "DEAR SIR,-Having lately had the pleasure of reading your account of the journey which you took with Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Western Isles, I take the liberty of transmitting my ideas of the conversation which happened between the doctor and myself concerning lexicography and poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution: and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering. that, if every one concerned in the conversations related were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting particulars might be recovered, which the most assiduous attention could not observe, nor the most tenacious memory retain. A little reflection, sir, will convince you, that there is not an axiom in Euclid more intuitive nor more evident than the Doctor's assertion that poetry was of much easier execution than lexicography. Any mind, therefore, endowed with common sense, must have been extremely absent from itself, if it discovered the least astonishment from hearing that a poem might be written with much more facility than the same quantity of a dictionary. "The real cause of my surprise was what appeared to me much more paradoxical, that he could write a sheet of dictionary with as much pleasure as a sheet of poetry. He acknowledged, indeed, that the latter was much easier than the former. For in the one case, books and a desk were requisite; in the other, you might compose when lying in bed, or walking in the fields, &c. He did not, however, descend to explain, nor to this moment can I comprehend, how the labours of a mere philologist, in the most refined sense of that term, could give equal pleasure with the exercise of a mind replete with elevated conceptions and pathetic ideas, while taste, fancy, and intellect were deeply enamoured of nature, and in full exertion. You may likewise, perhaps, remember, that when I complained of the ground which scepticism in religion and morals was continually gaining, it did not appear to be on my own account, as my private opinions upon these important subjects had long been inflexibly determined. What I then deplored, and still deplore, was the unhappy influence which that gloomy hesitation had, not only upon particular characters, but even upon life in general; as being equally the bane of action in our present state, and of such consolations as we might derive from the hopes of a future. "I have the pleasure of remaining with sincere esteem and respect, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant, "THOMAS BLACKLOCK." I am very happy to find that Dr. Blacklock's apparent uneasiness on the subject of scepticism from a benevolent concern for the happiness of was not on his own account (as I supposed), but mankind. With respect, however, to the question concerning poetry, and composing a dictionary, I am confident that my state of Dr. Johnson's position is accurate. One may misconceive the motive by which a person is induced to discuss a particular topick (as in the case of Dr. Blacklock's speaking of scepticism); but an assertion, like that made by Dr. Johnson, cannot be easily mistaken. And, indeed, it seems not very probable, that he who so pathetically laments the drudgery to which the unhappy lexicographer is doomed, and is known to have written his splendid imitation of Juvenal with astonishing rapidity, should have had "as much pleasure in writing a sheet of a dictionary as a sheet of poetry." Nor can I concur with the ingenious writer of the foregoing letter, in thinking it an axiom as evident as any in Euclid, that "poetry is of easier execution than lexicography." I have no doubt that Bailey, and the "mighty blunderbuss of law," Jacob, wrote ten pages of their respective dictionaries with more ease than they could have written five pages of poetry. If this book should again be reprinted, I shall, with the utmost readiness, correct any errours I may have committed, in stating conversations, provided it can be clearly shown to me that 1 have been inaccurate. But I am slow to believe (as I have elsewhere observed) that any man's THE following verses, written by Sir Alexander (now Lord) Macdonald, and addressed and presented to Dr. Johnson, at Armidale, in the Isle of Sky, should have appeared in the proper place, if the authour of this Journal had been possessed of them; but this edition was almost printed off when he was accidentally furnished with a copy by a friend.-BOSWELL. [These are the verses referred to in p. 372, n. They have not been removed to the text, because Mr. Boswell did not think proper to do so in his subsequent editions, and because the Editor really does not profess to understand them. It seems hard to guess what Sir Alexander could have meant by presentng Dr. Johnson with such lines.-ED.]. Viator, o qui nostra per æquora Undique conglomerantur oris. Cum feriant inopina corpus. Quidni! peremptum clade tuentibus Datur, doloris dum profundos Vi solitâ redivivus horror. No. X. [INSCRIPTION on the monument of S James Macdonald, Bart., in the church of Slate, and two letters from that young gentleman to his mother,-referred to in p. 373 To the memory Of SIR JAMES MACDONALD, Bart. As few have acquired in a long life Great propriety of behaviour, His eloquence was sweet, correct, and flowing; All which endowments, United with the most amiable temper And every private virtue, Procured him, not only in his own country, But also from foreign nations, The highest marks of esteem. In the year of our Lord 1766, The 25th of his life, After a long and extremely painful illness, Which he supported with admirable patience and fortitude, As had never graced that of any other British subject, Since the death of Sir Philip Sydney. The fame he left behind him is the best consolatior. And to his countrymen in this isle, Of a clear and enlightened understanding. And that of all Britain. And as the best return she can make For the constant tenderness and affection His much afflicted mother, The LADY MARGARET MACDONALD, Daughter to the Earl of Eglintoune, Erected this monument, A. D. 1768. This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute partic ulars concerning him must be interesting to many I shall therefore insert his two last letters to his | have lived in an interesting period, and who have mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me. SIR J. MACDONALD TO LADY MARGARET. "Rome, 9th July, 1766. "MY DEAR MOTHER,-Yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness. Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed; I only recover slower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it is a dose of physic, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and remain always your most sincerely affectionate son, "J MACDONALD." 66 He grew, however, gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as follows from Frescati : "MY DEAR MOTHER,-Though I did not mean to deceive you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would have very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger I have gone through ever since that time. My life, which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise I should have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force by deception. There is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight; during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death, with as much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit of. In case of the worst, the Abbé Grant will be my executor in this part of the world, and Mr. Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as possible."-BOSWELL. borne some part in the transactions of their time, a thought has for some time possessed me of leav ing to my family and friends an account of myself, and of those affairs in which I have been, or may hereafter be, engaged. My chief design, if I shall live to execute it, is to make my son acquainted with his father, to inform him of the rank and situation in which I found the family, which he should think himself born to raise and advance, and to encourage him, by my example, to persevere in the design of acquiring that station in the state to which our blood entitles him, but to which the local position of our ancestors has yet hindered us from attaining. My family is derived from the ancient royal stock of Denmark. In those unhappy times, when heroism was little better than piracy, and when the Danes first infested and then subdued England, my ancestor was invested with the tributary sovereignty of the Isle of Man. His history, the succession, or the share these princes of Man had in the predatory wars of that rude age, are lost in dark and vague tradition. The first fact, which seems clearly ascertained, is, that Leod, the son of the King of Man, on the conquest of that island by the English, in, under the Earl of Derby, fled with his followers to the Hebrides. He probably found his countrymen there; and either by conquest, agreement, or alliance, possessed himself of that part of these isles now called Lewes and Harries. "Leod had two sons, Tormod and Torquil. The first married the daughter of a powerful chief in the Isle of Skye; he was a warrior, and of great prowess; his father gave or left to him Harries; and, by dint of his valour and marriage, he possessed himself of a large domain in Skye; which, together with Harries, I, his lineal successor, inherited; Torquil and his posterity possessed Lewes; which, with other acquisitions, they have since lost, and that family is now represented by Macleod of Rasay. From Leod, whose name is held in high traditional veneration, all his descendants, and many of his followers, have taken the patronymic of Macleod. My ancestors, whose family-seat has always been at Dunvegan, seem to have lived, for some centuries, as might be expected from men who had gained their lands by their swords, and who were placed in islands of no easy access. They had frequent wars and alliances with their neighbours in Skye, by which it appears they neither gained nor lost; they frequently attacked or assisted the petty kings in Ireland, or the chiefs on the coast of Scotland, but they neither increased nor diminished their own possessions. In the reign of King David of Scotland, they at last took a charter for their lands, from which time they seem long to have practised the patriarchal life, beloved by their people, unconnected with the government of Scotland, and undisturbed by it. When James the Sixth was about to take possession of the throne of England, Macleod, called Roderick More, from his great size and strength, went to Edinburgh to pay his homage. It is remarkable, that this chieftain was an adept in Latin, had travelled on the Continent, and spoke French with fluency, but could neither 1 [Mr. Boswell states, ante, p. 390, that he was sc called not from his size, but his spirit.-En.] |