Anonymous Writings. Pope. Lewis. Sackville Parker. Cook's Voyages. "Tommy Puns. Townshend." "The Rehearsal." Painting. Cross Readings. Club. - Last Dinner at the Italy. Free Will. Miss Seward. Lord Chesterfield.— Carleton's Memoirs.— Intuition and Sagacity. -- Lord Thurlow. Mrs. Piozzi's "Anecdotes." Country Life.— ON Sunday, 13th June, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a college life, without restraint and with superior elegance, in consequence of our living in the master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicott related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written "Paradise Lost," should write such poor sonnets: "Milton, Madam, was genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones." We talked of the casuistical question, "Whether it was allowable at any time to depart from truth ?” JOHNSON. "The general rule is, that truth should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the comfort of life that we should have a full security by mutual faith; and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered, that we may preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a man to a murderer." BOSWELL." Supposing the person who wrote Junius were asked whether he was the author, might he deny it?" JOHNSON. "I don't know what to say to this. If you were sure that he wrote Junius would you, if he denied it, think as well of his afterwards? Yet it may be urged that what a man has no right to ask, you may refuse to commu nicate; and there is no other effectual mode of preserving a secret and an important secret, the discovery of which may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial; for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But stay, Sir, here is another case. Supposing the author had told me confidentially that he had written Junius, and I were asked if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous promise, express or implied, to conceal it. (1) Now what I ought to do for the author, may I not do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man, for fear of alarming him. (1) You have no business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself." I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the opinion of those who have held that truth, as an eternal and immutable principle, ought upon no account whatever to be violated, from supposed previous or superior obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade ourselves that they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the whole, be more perfect were truth universally preserved. (1) Of this opinion was Archbishop Secker: "Plausible as ne plea of concealment, in the case of sickness, may appear, the need and the benefit of employing falsehood even in these circumstances, for the most part at least, cometh of evil.” (Sermons, vol. v. 153.) Still, this eminent prelate admits that on such occasions there are sometimes difficulties, but that if the truth be departed from, it should be "almost extorted, and conscientiously restrained to things in themselves the least exceptionable." What is the course which ought to be pursued, whether in withholding or making a patient acquainted with the probable issue of a malady manifesting mortal symptoms, has been laid down by a very distinguished physician of the present day, in terms which do honour to his piety, his judgment, and his feelings. See Sir Henry Halford's Essays, p. 79.- MARK LAND. In the notes to the "Dunciad," we find the fol owing verses addressed to Pope (1): "While malice, Pope, denies thy page While critics, and while bards in rage, "While wayward pens thy worth assail, These times, though many a friend bewail, "But when the world's loud praise is thine, "When none shall rail, and every lay That day. (for come it will) that day It is surely not a little remarkable that they should appear without a name. Miss Seward, knowing Dr. Johnson's almost universal and minute literary information, signified a desire that I should ask him who was the author. He was prompt with his answer:- Why, Sir, they were written by one Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of Westminster-school, and published a Miscellany, in which Grongar Hill' first came out." (2) Johnson (1) The annotator calls them "amiable verses.' annotator was Pope himself. C. (2) Lewis's verses addressed to Pope (as Mr. Bindley suggests to me) were first published in a collection of Pieces in verse and prose on occasion of "The Dunciad," 8vo. 1732. They are there called an Epigram. Lewis was author of Philip of Macedon," a tragedy, published in 1727, and dedi cated to Pope and in 1730 he published a second volume of miscellaneous poems. As Dr. Johnson settled in London not : praised them highly, and repeated them with a noble animation. In the twelfth line, instead of " one established fame," he repeated 66 one unclouded flame," which he thought was the reading in former editions; but I believe was a flash of his own genius. It is much more poetical than the other. On Monday, 14th June, and Tuesday, 15th, Dr. Johnson and I dined, on one of them, I forget which, with Mr. Mickle, translator of the "Lusiad," at Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few miles from Oxford; and on the other with Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College. From Dr. Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and when he returned to us gave the following account of his visit, saying, "I have been to see my old friend, Sack, Parker; long after the verses addressed to Pope first appeared, he probably then obtained some information concerning their author, David Lewis, whom he has described as an usher of Westminster-school: yet the Dean of Westminster, who has been pleased to make some inquiry on this subject, has not found any vestige of his having ever been employed in this situation. late writer ("Environs of London," iv. 171.) supposed that the following inscription in the churchyard of the church of Low Leyton, in Essex, was intended to commemorate this poet: "Sacred to the memory of David Lewis, Esq., who died the 8th day of April, 1760, aged 77 years; a great favourite of the Muses, as his many excellent pieces in poetry sufficiently testify. 'Inspired verse may on this marble live, But can no honour to thy ashes give.'”, But it appears to me improbable that this monument was erected for the author of the verses to Pope, and of the tragedy already mentioned: the language both of the dedication prefixed to that piece, and of the dedication addressed to the Earl of Shaftsbury, and prefixed to the Miscellanies, 1730, denoting a person who moved in a lower sphere than this Essex squire seems to have done. - M. |