With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, An The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, He added, "These are all of which I can be ferred coronatur." The was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Gold 1 [On the iron crown, see Mr. Steevens's note 7, on Act iv. sc. i. of RICHARD III. It seems to be alluded to in MACBETH, Act iv. sc. i. "Thy crown does sear," &c. See also Gough's Camden, vol. iii. p. 396.—BLAKEWAY.] obscure couplet Educa smith's "Deserted Village," which are only the tion by last four: lectures "That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, Talking of education, "People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures:You might teach making of shoes by lectures!" At night I supped with him at the Mitre Tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade. I told him that a foreign friend of his, whom I had met with abroad, was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and said, "As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." JOHNSON. "If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." I added, that this man said to me, "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." JOHNSON. "Sir, he must be very singular in his ness opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of Capacity men; for none of his friends think him so." for happiHe said, "No honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity." I named Hume. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention." -I mentioned Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little Miss with a new gown at a dancing-school ball, a General at the head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an eloquent speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON. "Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher." I remember this very question very happily illustrated in opposition to Hume, by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht. "A small drinking-glass and a large one, (said he,) may be equally full; but the large one holds more than the small." 1 novced ni ehely to serysh 1 [Bishop Hall, in discussing this subject, has the same image: "Yet so conceive of these heavenly degrees, that the least is glorious. So do these vessels differ, that all are full." EPISTLES, Dec. iii. cp. 6. "Of the different degrees of heavenly glory." This most learned and ingenious writer, however, was not the first who suggested this image; for it is found also in an old book entitled "A Work worth the reading," by Charles Gibbon, 4to, 1591. In the fifth dialogue of this work, in which the question debated is, "whether there be VOL. II. N ow. men years, C Courting Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and great said to me, "You have now lived five-and-twenty and you have employed them well. "Alas, Sir, (said I,) I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematicks? Do I know law?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, though you may know no science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profession. Is mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because It should be excelled by plodding blockheads. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a plodding blockhead may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it a plodding blockhead can never excel." bigal thaI talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them. You may be prudently attached to great men, and yet independent. You degrees of glorie in heaven, or difference of paines in hell," one of the speakers observes, that "no doubt in the world to come, (where the least pleasure is unspeakable,) it cannot be but that he which hath bin most afflicted here, shall conceive and receive more exceeding joy, than he which hath bin touched with lesse tribulation; and yet the joyes of heaven are fitlie compared to vessels filled with licour, of all quantities; for everie man shall have his full measure there." By "all quantities" this writer (who seems to refer to a still more ancient authour than himself) I suppose, means different quantities. —M.] reboza are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, Convents you are to calculate, and not pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling's worth of court for sixpence worth of good. But if you can get a shilling's worth of good for sixpence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court." He said, "If convents should be allowed at all, they should only be retreats for persons unable to serve the publick, or who have served it. It is our first duty to serve society; and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls. A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged." I introduced the subject of second sight, and other mysterious manifestations; the fulfilment of which, I suggested, might happen by chance. JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, but they have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous." I talked to him a great deal of what I had seen in Corsica, and of my intention to publish an account of it. He encouraged me by saying, "You cannot go to the bottom of the subject; but all that you tell us will be new to us. us as many anecdotes as you can." Give Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rousseau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said, (sar |