ness and recovery, by a short and distinct narrative, and then assuming a gay air, repeated from Swift, "Nor think on our approaching ills, "And talk of spectacles and pills." Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that Prelate, thus retaliated :"Tom knew he should be dead before what he has said of me would appear. He durst not have printed it while he was alive." DR. ADAMS. "I believe his Dissertations on the Prophecies' is his great work." 66 8 Dr. Newton in his Account of his own Life, after animadverting upon Mr. Gibbon's History, says, 'Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets' afforded more amusement; but candour was much hurt and offended at the malevolence that predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be allowed, are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient compensation for so much spleen and ill-humour. Never was any biographer more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of former criticks. His reputation was so high in the republick of letters, that it wanted not to be raised upon the ruins of others. But these Essays, instead of raising a higher idea than was before entertained of his understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of his temper.-The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and concerned for his townsman, for he respected him not only for his genius and learning, but valued him much for the more amiable part of his character, his humanity and charity, his morality and religion." The last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read Johnson's admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been provoked by them to express himself not in respectful terms, of a Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to literature and religion. JOHNSON." Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work; but how far it is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions. I fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed." DR. ADAMS. "He was a very successful man." JOHNSON. "I don't think so, Sir.-He did not get very high. He was late in getting what he did get; and he did not get it by the best means. I believe he was a gross flatterer." I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to Oxford on Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find myself again in the same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, with the comfortable prospect of making some stay. Johnson welcomed my return with more than ordinary glee. He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, whose character he had given at the Duke of Argyll's table, when we were at Inverary; and at this time wrote out for me, in his own hand, a fuller account of that learned and venerable writer, which I have published in its proper place. Johnson made a remark this evening which struck me a good deal. "I never (said he) knew a nonjuror who could reason." 1 Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of their writers; to Hickes, Brett, and 9" Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," third edit. p. 371. The Rev. Mr. Agutter has favoured me with a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson and Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is evidently so authentick that I shall here insert it!-HENDERSON. "What do you think, Sir, of William Law?" JOHNSON. "William Law, Sir, wrote the best piece of Parenetick Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner." HENDERSON." Jeremy Collier, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Jeremy Collier fought without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory." Mr. Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made; at last he said, but, Sir, "What do you think of Lesley?" JOHNSON. "Charles Lesley I had forgotten. Lesley was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.” other eminent divines of that persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven Bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet Nonjurors to the new Government. The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house. Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in Savage's "Wanderer," saying "These are fine verses,' "-" If (said he) I had written with hostility of Warburton in my Shakspeare, I should have quoted this couplet : Here Learning, blinded first, and then beguil'd, 'Looks dark as Ignorance, as Frenzy wild.' You see they'd have fitted him to a T," (smiling.) DR. ADAMS. "But you did not write against Warburton." JOHNSON. "No, Sir, I treated him with great respect both in my Preface and in my Notes..” 11 Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. Chamberlayne, who had given up great prospects in the Church of England on his conversion to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, exclaimed fervently, "GOD bless him." Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's [ See note, p. 44.] opinion, that the present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother assured her, there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON. "All infidel writers drop into oblivion, when personal connections and the floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. There will sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider that what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem whieh I remember to have seen in some old collection: • Henceforth be quiet and agree, Each kiss his empty brother; 'But dreads a friend like t'other.' The point is well, though the expression is not correct; one, and not thee, should be opposed to t'other." 2 On the Roman Catholick religion he said, If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There 2 I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," printed at London, 1749. It is as follows: "EPIGRAM, occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath. "Two wits harangue the table; is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with GOD, and pretty credulous, may be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women are not all Papists." BOSWELL." They are not more afraid of death than men are.' JOHNSON." Because they are 66 less wicked." DR. ADAMS. " They are more pious." JOHNSON. "No, hang e'm, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety." He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of Rome. 66 As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, They may think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of convenience ; and I think they are as well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism. As to the invocation of saints, he said, "Though I do not think it authorised, it appears to me, that the communion of saints' in the Creed means the communion with the saints in Heaven, as connected with The holy Catholick church." He admitted the influence of evil spirits 3 Waller, in his "Divine Poesie," Canto first, has the same thought finely expressed: "The Church triumphant, and the Church below, "In songs of praise their present union show; "Their joys are full; our expectation long, "In life we differ, but we join in song; 66 Angels and we assisted by this art, "May sing together, though we dwell apart." |
