THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON - All 6 Volumes in One Edition. James Boswell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them[500].’

      Happening to meet Sir Adam Fergusson[501], I presented him to Dr. Johnson. Sir Adam expressed some apprehension that the Pantheon would encourage luxury. ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) I am a great friend to publick amusements; for they keep people from vice. You now (addressing himself to me,) would have been with a wench, had you not been here.—O! I forgot you were married.’

      Sir Adam suggested, that luxury corrupts a people, and destroys the spirit of liberty. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, that is all visionary. I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual[502]. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. What Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as he pleases?’ SIR ADAM. ‘But, Sir, in the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig. Why all this childish jealousy of the power of the crown? The crown has not power enough. When I say that all governments are alike, I consider that in no government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. If a sovereign oppresses his people to a great degree, they will rise and cut off his head. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government[503]. Had not the people of France thought themselves honoured as sharing in the brilliant actions of Lewis XIV, they would not have endured him; and we may say the same of the King of Prussia’s people.’ Sir Adam introduced the ancient Greeks and Romans. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, the mass of both of them were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing, and consequently knowledge is not generally diffused. Knowledge is diffused among our people by the newspapers[504].’ Sir Adam mentioned the orators, poets, and artists of Greece. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people. We see even what the boasted Athenians were. The little effect which Demosthenes’s orations had upon them, shews that they were barbarians[505].’

      Sir Adam was unlucky in his topicks; for he suggested a doubt of the propriety of Bishops having seats in the House of Lords. JOHNSON. ‘How so, Sir? Who is more proper for having the dignity of a peer, than a Bishop, provided a Bishop be what he ought to be; and if improper Bishops be made, that is not the fault of the Bishops, but of those who make them.’

      On Sunday, April 5, after attending divine service at St. Paul’s church, I found him alone. Of a schoolmaster[506] of his acquaintance, a native of Scotland, he said, ‘He has a great deal of good about him; but he is also very defective in some respects. His inner part is good, but his outer part is mighty aukward. You in Scotland do not attain that nice critical skill in languages, which we get in our schools in England. I would not put a boy to him, whom I intended for a man of learning. But for the sons of citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals, and then go to trade, he may do very well.’

      I mentioned a cause in which I had appeared as counsel at the bar of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, where a Probationer[507], (as one licensed to preach, but not yet ordained, is called,) was opposed in his application to be inducted, because it was alledged that he had been guilty of fornication five years before. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, if he has repented, it is not a sufficient objection. A man who is good enough to go to heaven, is good enough to be a clergyman.’ This was a humane and liberal sentiment. But the character of a clergyman is more sacred than that of an ordinary Christian. As he is to instruct with authority, he should be regarded with reverence, as one upon whom divine truth has had the effect to set him above such transgressions, as men less exalted by spiritual habits, and yet upon the whole not to be excluded from heaven, have been betrayed into by the predominance of passion. That clergymen may be considered as sinners in general, as all men are, cannot be denied; but this reflection will not counteract their good precepts so much, as the absolute knowledge of their having been guilty of certain specifick immoral acts. I told him, that by the rules of the Church of Scotland, in their Book of Discipline, 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, in as much 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[508].’ BOSWELL. ‘But, Sir, after I had argued that it was not an heinous sin, an old clergyman rose up, and repeating the text of scripture denouncing judgement against whoremongers[509], 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, will become heinous. Whoremonger is a dealer in whores[510], as ironmonger is a dealer in iron. But as you don’t call a man an ironmonger for buying and selling a pen-knife; so you don’t call a man a whoremonger for getting one wench with child[511].’

      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 a 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[512].

      Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, ‘he was a blockhead[513];’ and upon my expressing my astonishment at so strange an assertion, he 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[514]. Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson’s, than in all Tom Jones[515]. I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews[516].’ 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[517]. 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 publick 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[518].

      A book of travels, lately published under the title of Coriat Junior, and written by Mr. Paterson[519], was mentioned. Johnson said, this book was an imitation of Sterne[520], and not of Coriat, whose name Paterson had chosen as a whimsical one. ‘Tom Coriat, (said he,) was a humourist about the court of James the First. He had a mixture of learning, of wit, and of buffoonery. He first travelled through Europe, and published his travels[521]. He afterwards travelled on foot through Asia, and had made many remarks; but he died at Mandoa, and his remarks were lost.’

      We СКАЧАТЬ