He added, "These are all of which I can be sure." They bear a small proportion to the whole, which consists of four hundred and thirty-eight verses. Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inserted, mentions Luke as a person well known, and superficiai readers have passed it over quite smoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by Luke, as by Lydiat, in "The Vanity of Huma rn Wishes." The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake. In the " Respublica Hungarica," there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514. headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished, by his head being encircled with a redhot iron crown; “coronâ candescente ferreá coronatur." The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland! (1)

66

Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," which are only the last four :

"That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away:
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky."

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

}

(1) On the iron crown, see Mr. Steevens's note 7. on Act iv. sc. 1. of Richard III. It seems to be alluded to in Macbeth, act iv. sc. "Thy crown does sear," &c. See also Gough' Camden, vol. iii. p. 396. BLAKEWAY

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 (1), 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 opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of men; for none of his friends think him so."- He 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 bishopric of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention." -I mentioned

(1) Probably Baretti.-C.

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Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancingschool 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 satisfed, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable co.1sciousness. 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 Rev. 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)

Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me, "You have now lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well." "Alas, Sir,"

(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. cap. 6. This most learned and ingenious writer, however, was not the first who suggested this image; for it is found also in "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 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 author than himself,) I suppose, means different quantities. MALONE.

said I, "I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematics? 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." I mentioned, that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding blockheads. JOHNSON. 66 '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."

I 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 indeper lent. You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, 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 sho..d only be retreats for persons unable to serve the public, or who have served it. It is our first duty to serve society ('), and, after we have

(1) This observation has given offence, as if it seemed to sanction the postponement of the care of our salvation, until

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. Give us as many anecdotes as you can."

we should have performed all our duties to society; which would be, in fact, an adjournment sine die. But Dr. Johnson was talking of monastic retirement, and from the context, as well as from his own practice, it is clear that he must have meant, that an entire abstraction from the world, and an exclusive dedication to recluse devotion, was not justifiable, as long as any of our duties to society were unperformed. Bishop Taylor, who will not be suspected of worldliness, has a sentiment not dissimilar: -"If our youth be chaste and temperate, moderate and industrious, proceeding, through a prudent and sober manhood, to a religious old age, then we have lived our whole duration, and shall never die."- Holy Dying, c. i. s. 3. Neither the Bishop nor Dr. Johnson could mean that youth and manhood should not be religious, but that they should not be religious to the exclusion of the social duties of industry, prudence, &c. See post, Aug. 19. 1773, where Johnson quotes from Hesiod, a line which Bishop Taylor had probably in his mind. C.

(1) The fact seems rather to be, that they have happened so seldom that (however general superstition may be) there does not seem to be on record, in the profane history of the world, one single well-authenticated instance of such a manifestation - not one such instance as could command the full belief of

rational men. Although Dr. Johnson generally leaned to the superstitious side of this question, it will be seen that he occasionally took a more rational view of it. -C.