Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr. Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he told us of a curious converfation between the famous George Faulkner and him. George faid that England had drained Ireland of fifty. thousand pounds in fpecie, annually, for fifty years. "How fo, fir! (faid Dr. Johnfon,) you must have a very great trade?" No trade.'-"Very rich No mines,'-"From whence, then, does all this money come?" • Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of Ireland!'

mines ?"

He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift; for I once took the liberty to afk him, if Swift had perfonally offended him, and he told me, he had not. He faid to-day, "Swift is clear, but he is fhallow. In coarfe humour, he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour, he is inferior to Addifon: So he is inferior to his contemporaries; without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the "Tale of a Tub" was his : it has fo much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works. which are indifputably his. If it was his, I fhall only fay, he was impar fibi.”

We gave him as good a dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or growfe, were then abundant, and quite in feafon; and, fo far as wifdom and wit can be aided by adminiftering agreeable fenfations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest fhould not be deficient.

Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our Deputy Com mander in Chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the moft univerfal scholars I ever knew,

[ocr errors]

knew, had learned the Erfe language, and expreffed his belief in the authenticity of Offian's Poetry. Dr. Johnson took the oppofite fide of that perplexed queftion; and I was afraid the difpute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's notion of men having tails, and called him a Judge, à pofteriori, which amufed Dr. Johnson; and thus hoftilities were prevented.

At fupper we had Dr. Cullen, his fon the advocate, Dr. Adam Ferguffon, and Mr. Crosbie, advocate. Witchcraft was introduced. Mr. Crosbie said, he thought it the greatest blafphemy to fuppofe evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raifing ftorms, for inftance, to destroy his creatures.Johnson. Why, fir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not phyfical evil be alfo confiftent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits, than evil men evil unembodied fpirits, than evil embodied fpirits. And as to ftorms, we know there are fuch things; and it is no worse that evil fpirits raise them, than that they rife."-Crobie. "But

it is not credible, that witches fhould have effected what they are faid in ftories to have done."-JohnSon. "Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only faying, that your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft.(Dr. Ferguffon faid to me, afide, He is right.'). And then, fir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence: `you must consider, that wife and great men have

[blocks in formation]

condemned witches to die."-Crofbie. "But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft."Johnfon. "No, fir; witchcraft had ceased; and therefore an act of parliament was paffed to prevent perfecution for what was not witchcraft. Why it ceased, we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the reafon of many other things."-Dr. Cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious difquifition, with the grave addrefs for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his profeffional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and converfing in their fleep. I am very forry I have no note of this. We talked of the OuranOutang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to fpeak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr. Crofbie faid, that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing poffible; in fhort, that all which is in posse might be found in effe.-Johnson. "But, fir, it is as possible that the Ouran-Outang does not fpeak, as that he fpeaks. However, I fhall not contest the point. I fhould have thought it not poffible to find a Monboddo; yet be exifts."-I again mentioned the ftage. — Johnson. "The appearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he reprefents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. They fay, See Garrick! how he looks to-night! See how he'll clutch the dagger!? That is the buz of the theatre."

[ocr errors]

Tuesday, 17th Auguft.

Sir William Forbes came to breakfaft, and brought with him Dr. Blacklock, whom he introduced

duced to Dr. Johnfon, who received him with a most humane complacency; "Dear Dr. Blacklock, I am glad to fee you !"-Blacklock feemed to be much furprized, when Dr. Johnson faid, "it was easier to him to write poetry than to compofe his Dictionary. His mind was lefs on the ftretch in doing the one than the other. Befides; compofing a Dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed."-Dr. Blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion, with apparant uneasiness, as if he wifhed for more certainty*. Dr. Johnson, who had thought it all over, and whofe vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience, thus encouraged the blind Bard to apply to higher fpeculations what we all willingly fubmit to in common life: in fhort, he gave him more familiarly the able and fair reasoning of Butler's Analogy: "Why, fir, the greatest concern we have in this world, the choice of our profeffion, must be determined without demonstrative reasoning. Human life is not yet fo well known, as that we can have it. And take the cafe of a man who is ill. I call two phyficians they differ in opinion. I am not to lie down, and die between them: I must do fomething."-The converfation then turned on Atheism; on that horrible book, Systéme de la Nature; and on the fuppofition of an eternal neceffity, without defign, without a governing mind.-Johnson. "If it were fo, why has it ceafed? Why don't we fee men thus produced around us now? Why, at least, does it not keep pace, in fome measure, with the progress

D 2

* See his letter on this fubject in the APPENDIX.

[ocr errors]

1

progrefs of time? If it ftops because there is now no need of it, then it is plain there is, and ever has been, an all-powerful intelligence. he, with one of his fatyrick laughs.) I fhall fuppofe Scotchmen made Englishmen by choice."

But ftay! (faid Ha! ha! ha! neceffarily, and

At dinner this day, we had Sir Alexander Dick, whofe amiable character, and ingenious and cultivated mind, are fo generally known; (he was then on the verge of seventy, and is now (1785) eighty-one, with his faculties entire, his heart warm, and his temper gay;) Sir David Dalrymple Lord Hailes; Mr. Maclaurin, advocate; Dr. Gregory, who now worthily fills his father's medical chair; and my uncle, Dr. Bofwell. This was one of Dr. Johnfon's best days. He was quite in his element. All was literature and tafte, without any interruption. Lord Hailes, who is one of the best philologifts in Great Britain, who has written papers in the World, and a variety of other works in prose and in verse, both Latin and English, pleased him highly. He told him, he had discovered the Life of Cheynel, in the Student, to be his.-Johnfon. "No one else knows it."-Dr. Johnson had, before this, dictated to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of Scotland, concerning vicious intromiffion, that is to fay, intermeddling with the effects of a deceased perfon, without a regular title; which formerly was understood to fubject the intermeddler to payment of all the defunct's debts. The principle has of late been relaxed. Dr. Johnson's argument was, for a renewal of its strictness. The paper was printed, with additions by me, and given into the Court of Seffion. Lord Hailes knew Dr. John

fon's

« AnteriorContinuar »