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, inasmuch 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 repeated 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, would 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.

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

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.

In 1806 he became Lord Chancellor of England.

said, 'What I mean by his being a blockhead is, that he was a barren rascal.' BOSWELL: 'Will you not allow, sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?" JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, it is of very low life. Richardson used to say that, had he not known who Fielding was, he should have believed he was an ostler. Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's than in all Tom Jones.1 I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews.' ERSKINE : 'Surely, sir, Richardson is very tedious.' JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.'-I have already given my opinion of Fielding; but I cannot refrain from repeating here my wonder at Johnson's excessive and unaccountable depreciation of one of the best writers that England has produced. Tom Jones has stood the test of public opinion with such success as to have established its great merit, both for the story, the sentiments, and the manners, and also the varieties of diction, so as to leave no doubt of its having an animated truth of execution throughout.

The book of travels lately published under the title of Coriat Junior, and written by Mr. Paterson, was mentioned. Johnson said this book was in imitation of Sterne, and not of Coriat, whose name Paterson had chosen as a whimsical one, 'Tom Coriat,' said he, 'was a humorist about the court of James I. He had a mixture of learning, of wit, and of buffoonery. He first travelled through Europe, and published his travels. He afterwards travelled on foot through Asia, and had made many remarks; but he died at Mandoa, and his remarks were lost.'

We talked of gaming, and animadverted on it with severity. JOHNSON: 'Nay, gentlemen, let us not aggravate the matter. It is not roguery to play with a man who is ignorant of the game, while you are master of it, and so win his money : for he thinks he can play better than you, as you think you can play better than he; and the superior skill carries it.' ERSKINE: 'He is a fool, but you are not a rogue.' JOHNSON: 'That's much about the truth, sir. It must be considered that a man who only does what every one of the

1 Johnson's severity against Fielding did not arise from any viciousness in his style, but from his loose life, and the profligacy of almost all his male characters. Who would venture to read one of his novels aloud to modest women? His novels are male amusements, and very amusing they certainly are. Fielding's conversation was coarse, and so tinctured with the rank weeds of the garden, that it would now be thought only fit for a brothel.-BURNEY.

2 Mr. Samuel Paterson, eminent for his knowledge of books. -BOSWELL.

3 Mr. Paterson, in a pamphlet, produced some evidence to show that his work was written before Sterne's Sentimental Journey appeared.-BOSWELL

N

society to which he belongs would do, is not a dishonest man. In the republic of Sparta it was agreed that stealing was not dishonourable if not discovered. I do not commend a society where there is an agreement that what would not otherwise be fair shall be fair; but I maintain, that an individual of any society who practises what is allowed, is not a dishonest man.' BosWELL: 'So then, sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand pounds in a winter? JOHNSON: 'Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. Trade gives employment to numbers, and so produces intermediate good.'

Mr. Erskine told us that when he was in the island of Minorca, he not only read prayers, but preached two sermons to the regiment. He seemed to object to the passage in Scripture, where we are told that the angel of the Lord smote, in one night, forty thousand Assyrians.1 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'you should recollect that there was a supernatural interposition; they were destroyed by pestilence. You are not to suppose that the angel of the Lord went about and stabbed each of them with a dagger, or knocked them on the head, man by man.'

After Mr. Erskine was gone, a discussion took place, whether the present Earl of Buchan, when Lord Cardross, did right to refuse to go Secretary of the Embassy to Spain, when Sir James Gray, a man of inferior rank, went Ambassador. Dr. Johnson said that perhaps in point of interest he did wrong; but in point of dignity he did well. Sir Alexander insisted that he was wrong, and said that Mr. Pitt intended it as an advantageous thing for him. 'Why, sir,' said Johnson, 'Mr. Pitt might think it an advantageous thing for him to make him a vintner, and get him all the Portugal trade; but he would have demeaned himself strangely had he accepted of such a situation. Sir, had he gone Secretary while his inferior was Ambassador, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family.'

I talked of the little attachment which subsisted between near relations in London. 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'in a country so commercial as ours, where every man can do for himself, there is not so much occasion for that attachment. No man is thought the worse of here whose brother was hanged. In uncommercial countries many of the branches of a family must depend on the stock; so, in order to make the head of the family take care of them, they are represented as connected with his reputation, that, self-love being interested, he may exert himself to promote their interest. You have first large circles, or clans; as commerce increases, the connection is confined to families;

1 One hundred and eighty-five thousand. See Isa. xxxvii. 36 and 2 Kings xix. 35.-MALONE.

by degrees, that too goes off, as having become unnecessary, and there being few opportunities of intercourse. One brother is a merchant in the City, and another is an officer in the Guards; how little intercourse can these two have!'

I argued warmly for the old feudal system. Sir Alexander opposed it, and talked of the pleasure of seeing all men free and independent. JOHNSON: 'I agree with Mr. Boswell that there must be a high satisfaction in being a feudal lord; but we are to consider that we ought not to wish to have a number of men unhappy for the satisfaction of one.' I maintained that numbers, namely the vassals or followers, were not unhappy; for that there was a reciprocal satisfaction between the lord and them: he being kind in his authority over them; they being respectful and faithful to him.

On Thursday, April 9, I called on him to beg he would go and dine with me at the Mitre tavern. He had resolved not to dine at all this day, I know not for what reason; and I was so unwilling to be deprived of his company, that I was content to submit to suffer a want which was at first somewhat painful, but he soon made me forget it; and a man is always pleased with himself when he finds his intellectual inclinations predominate.

He observed, that to reason philosophically on the nature of prayer was very unprofitable.

Talking of ghosts, he said he knew one friend, who was an honest man, and a sensible man, who told him he had seen a ghost; old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer at St. John's Gate. He said Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever it was mentioned. BOSWELL: 'Pray, sir, what did he say was the appearance?" JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, something of a shadowy being.' I mentioned witches, and asked him what they properly meant. JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, they properly mean those who make use of the aid of evil spirits.' BOSWELL: 'There is no doubt, sir, a general report and belief of their having existed." JOHNSON: 'You have not only the general report and belief, but you have many voluntary solemn confessions.' He did not affirm anything positively upon a subject which it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a matter of absurd credulity. He only seemed willing, as a candid inquirer after truth, however strange and inexplicable, to show that he understood what might be urged for it.1

CHAPTER XXV. 1772-1773.

On Friday, April 10, I dined with Johnson at General Oglethorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith.

1 See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 33.-BOSWELL

Armorial bearings having been mentioned, Johnson said they were as ancient as the siege of Thebes, which he proved by a passage in one of the tragedies of Euripides.1

I started the question whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old General fired at this, and said, with a lofty air, 'Undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honour.' GOLDSMITH (turning to me): 'I ask you first, sir, what would you do if you were affronted?' I answered I should think it necessary to fight. 'Why, then,' replied Goldsmith, 'that solves the question.' JOHNSON: 'No, sir, it does not solve the question. It does not follow that what a man would do is therefore right.' I said, I wished to have it settled whether duelling was contrary to the laws of Christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the subject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and, so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these: 'Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arise, which are considered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour he lies, his neighbour tells him he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow; but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must therefore be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of selfdefence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of society. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refinement; but while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel.'

Let it be remembered that this justification is applicable only to the person who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggressor.

The General told us that when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg. The Prince took up a glass of wine, and by a fillip made some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly might have fixed a quarrelsome

1 The passage to which Johnson alluded is to be found (as I conjecture) in the Phœnisse, 1. 1104. Καὶ πρῶτα μὲν προσῆγε, κ.τ.λ. Ὁ τῆς κυναγοῦ Παρθενοπαῖος ἔκγονος, ΕΠΙΣΗΜ' έχων ΟΙΚΕΙΟΝ ἐν μέσῳ σάκι. J. BOSWELL, jun.

character upon the young soldier; to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the Prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his Highness had done in jest, said, 'Mon Prince-' (I forget the French words he used; the purport, however, was), 'That's a good joke; but we do it much better in England;' and threw a whole glass of wine in the Prince's face. An old General, who sat by, said, 'Il a bien fait, mon Prince, vous l'avez commencé:'and thus all ended in good humour.

Dr. Johnson said, 'Pray, General, give us an account of the siege of Belgrade.' Upon which the General, pouring a little wine upon the table, described everything with a wet finger: 'Here we were, here were the Turks, etc. etc. Johnson listened with the closest attention.

A question was started how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle-the same likings and the same aversions. JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you did agree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party.' GOLDSMITH: 'But, sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard: "You may look into all the chambers but one." But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject.' JOHNSON (with a loud voice): 'Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point: I am only saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid.'1

Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural History; and that he might

1 Mr. Boswell's note here being rather short, as taken at the time (with a view perhaps to future revision), Johnson's remark is obscure, and requires to be a little opened. What he said probably was, 'You seem to think that two friends, to live well together, must be in perfect harmony with each other; that each should be to the other what Sappho boasts she was to her lover, and uniformly agree in every particular: but this is by no means necessary,' etc. The words of Sappho alluded to are: 'omnique à parte placebam." Ovid. Epist. Sapp. ad Phaonem. 1. 51. MALONE.

I should rather conjecture that the passage which Johnson had in view was the following, 1. 45:

have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six mile-stone, on the Edgeware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children: he was 'The Gentleman.' Mr. Mickle, the translator of The Lusiad, and I went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a black-lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts being introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his, an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him that he had seen an apparition. Goldsmith told us he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends that he should die on a particular day; that upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him where was his prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, 'I shall die, notwithstanding what you see.' Soon afterwards there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had not reached, and he was killed upon the spot. Colonel Cecil, who took possession of his effects, found in his pocketbook the following solemn entry :

come to him in the evening, when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defence of Hastie, the schoolmaster of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the House of Lords. When I came, I found him unwilling to exert himself. I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject. He said, 'There's no occasion for my writing. I'll talk to you.' He was, however, at last prevailed on to dictate to me, while I wrote as follows:

'The charge is, that he has used immoderate and cruel correction. Correction, in itself, is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear. To impress this fear is therefore one of the first duties of those who have the care of children. It is the duty of a parent, and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness. It is the duty of a master, who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis. Yet as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel. But when is correction immoderate? When it is more frequent or more severe than is required ad monendum et docendum, for reformation and instruction. No severity is cruel which obstinacy makes necessary; for the greatest cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar too careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof. Locke, in his treatise of education, mentions a mother, with applause, who whipped an infant eight times before she had subdued it; for had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined. The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different: as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A stubborn scholar must be corrected till he is subdued. The discipline of a school is military. There must be either unbounded licence or absolute authority. The master who punishes, not only consults the future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction, but he propagates obedience through the whole school, and establishes regularity by exemplary justice. The victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction totally ineffectual. Obstinacy, therefore, must never be victorious. Yet it is well known that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids

tion must be proportionate to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastic as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have, indeed, set some bounds to scholastic penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined that a master who strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as criminal. But punishments, however severe, that produce no lasting evil, may be just and reasonable, because they may be necessary. Such have been the punishments used by the respondent. No scholar has gone from him either blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired. They were irregular, and he punished them; they were obstinate, and he enforced his punishment. But however provoked, he never exceeded the limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain; and how much of that was required, no man is so little able to determine as those who have determined against him-the parents of the offenders. It has been said that he used unprecedented and improper instruments of correction. Of this accusation the meaning is not very easy to be found. No instrument of correction is more proper than another, but as it is better adapted to produce present pain without lasting mischief. Whatever were his instruments, no lasting mischief has ensued; and therefore, however unusual, in hands so cautious, they were proper. It has been objected that the respondent admits the charge of cruelty by producing no evidence to confute it. Let it be considered, that his scholars are either dispersed at large in the world, or continue to inhabit the place in which they were bred. Those who are dispersed cannot be found; those who remain are the sons of his prosecutors, and are not likely to support a man to whom their fathers are enemies. If it be supposed that the enmity of their fathers proves the justness of the charge, it must be considered how often experience shows us, that men who are angry on one ground will accuse on another; with how little kindness, in a town of low trade, a man who lives by learning is regarded; and how implicitly, where the inhabit ants are not very rich, a rich man is hearkened to and followed. In a place like Campbelltown, it is easy for one of the principal inhabitants to make a party. It is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances. It is easy for them to oppress a man poorer than themselves; and natural to assert the dignity of riches, by persisting in oppression. The argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to the school, by alleging that he has lost the confidence of the people, is not the subject of juridical consideration; for he is to suffer, if he must suffer, not for their judgment, but for his own actions. It may be convenient for them to have another master; but it is a convenience of their own making. It would be likewise convenient for him to find another school; but this convenience he cannot obtain. The question is not what is now convenient, but what is generally right. If the people of Campbelltown be distressed by the restoration of the

respondent, they are distressed only by their own fault; by turbulent passions and unreasonable desires; by tyranny, which law has defeated; and by malice, which virtue has surmounted.'

'This, sir,' said he, 'you are to turn in your mind, and make the best use of it you can in your speech.'

Of our friend Goldsmith he said, 'Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company.' BosWELL: 'Yes, he stands forward.' JOHNSON: 'True, sir; but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an awkward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule.' BOSWELL: 'For my part, I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly.' JOHNSON: 'Why, yes, sir; but he should not like to hear himself.'

On Tuesday, April 14, the decree of the Court of. Session in the schoolmaster's cause was reversed in the House of Lords, after a very eloquent speech by Lord Mansfield, who showed himself an adept in school discipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client. On the evening of the next day, I supped with Dr. Johnson at the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand, in company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning.. I repeated a sentence of Lord Mansfield's speech, of which, by the aid of Mr. Longlands, the solicitor on the other side, who obligingly allowed me to compare his note with my own, I have a full copy: 'My lords, severity is not the way to govern either boys or men.' 'Nay,' said Johnson, 'it is the way to govern them. I know not whether it be the way to mend them.'

I talked of the recent expulsion of six students from the University of Oxford, who were Methodists, and would not desist from publicly praying and exhorting. JOHNSON: 'Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at an University, who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt, but at an University? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows.' BOSWELL: 'But was it not hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?" JOHNSON: 'I believe they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden.' Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy.

Desirous of calling Johnson forth to talk and exercise his wit, though I should myself be the object of it, I resolutely ventured to undertake the defence of convivial indulgence in wine, though he was not to-night in the most genial humour. After urging the common plausible topics, I at last had recourse to the maxim, in