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Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a 1763. lecture on morality, and another a fhilling, and fee which will refpect you Etat. 54most. If you wish only to fupport nature, Sir William Petty fixes your allowance at three pounds a year; but as times are much altered, let us call it fix pounds. This fum will fill your belly, fhelter you from the weather, and even get you a strong lasting coat, fuppofing it to be made of good bull's hide. Now, Sir, all beyond this is artificial, and is defired in order to obtain a greater degree of respect from our fellow-creatures. And, Sir, if fix hundred pounds a year procure a man more confequence, and, of course, more happiness than fix pounds a year, the fame proportion will hold as to fix thoufand, and so on as far as opulence can be carried. Perhaps he who has a large fortune may not be fo happy as he who has a fmall one; but that must proceed from other caufes than from his having the large fortune: for, cæteris paribus, he who is rich in a civilized society, must be happier than he who is poor; as riches, if properly used, (and it is a man's own fault if they are not,) must be productive of the highest advantages. Money, to be fure, of itself is of no ufe; for its only ufe is to part with it. Rouffeau, and all those who deal in paradoxes, are led away by a childish defire of novelty. When I was a boy, I used always to choose the wrong fide of a debate, because most ingenious things, that is to fay, moft new things, could be said upon it. Sir, there is nothing for which you may not mufter up more plaufible arguments, than those which are urged against wealth and other external advantages. Why now, there is stealing; why should it be thought a crime ? When we confider by what unjust methods property has been often acquired, and that what was unjustly got it must be unjust to keep, where is the harm in one man's taking the property of another from him? Befides, Sir, when we confider the bad ufe that many people make of their property, and how much better use the thief may make of it, it may be defended as a very allowable practice. Yet, Sir, the experience of mankind has difcovered stealing to be so very bad a thing, that they make no fcruple to hang a man for it. When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the fame time, very forry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, fhew it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune. So you hear people talking how miferable a king must be; and yet they all wish to be in his place.”

It was fuggested that kings must be unhappy, because they are deprived of the greatest of all fatisfactions, eafy and unreferved fociety. JOHNSON. "That

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Etat. 54.

"That is an ill-founded notion. Being a king does not exclude a man from fuch fociety. Great kings have always been focial. The King of Pruffia, the only great king at present, is very focial. Charles the Second, the last King of England who was a man of parts, was focial; and our Henrys and Edwards were all focial."

Mr. Dempfter having endeavoured to maintain that intrinfick merit ought to make the only diftinction amongst mankind. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, mankind have found that this cannot be. How fhall we determine the proportion of intrinsick merit? Were that to be the only distinction amongst mankind, we should foon quarrel about the degrees of it. Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long acquiefce, but would endeavour to obtain a superiority by their bodily ftrength. But, Sir, as fubordination is very neceffary for fociety, and contentions for fuperiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say all civilifed nations, have settled it upon a plain invariable principle. A man is born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices, gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we fhould have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

I faid, I confidered diftinction of rank to be of fo much importance in civilifed fociety, that if I were afked on the fame day to dine with the first duke in England, and with the first man in Britain for genius, I fhould hefitate which to prefer. JOHNSON. "To be fure, Sir, if you were to dine only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, you would choose rather to dine with the firft man for genius; but to gain moft respect, you fhould dine with the firft duke in England. For nine people in ten that you meet with, would have a higher opinion of you for having dined with a duke; and the great genius himself would receive you better, because you had been with the great duke."

man.

He took care to guard himself against any poffible fufpicion that his fettled principles of reverence for rank and refpect for wealth were at all owing to mean or interested motives; for he afferted his own independence as a literary "No man (faid he) who ever lived by literature, has lived more independently than I have done." He said he had taken longer time than he needed to have done in compofing his Dictionary. He received our compliments upon that great work with complacency, and told us that the Academy della Crufca could fcarcely believe that it was done by one man. Next morning I found him alone, and have preferved the following fragments of his converfation. Of a gentleman who was mentioned, he faid, "I have

"I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me fuch general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle other people." I faid, his principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good man. JOHNSON. "We can have no dependance upon that inftinctive, that conftitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you that fuch a man may be a very amiable member of fociety. I can conceive him placed in fuch a fituation that he is not much tempted to deviate from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue when there is not fome ftrong incitement to tranfgrefs its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But if fuch a man ftood in need of money, I fhould not like to truft him; and I fhould certainly not truft him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themfelves at any expence. Truth will not afford fufficient food to their vanity; fo they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield fuch people no more milk, and fo they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had paffed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well fettled upon pofitive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to fhake it. The human mind is fo limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a fubject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must certainly be true,"

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Etat. 54.

I mentioned Hume's argument against the belief of miracles, that it is more probable that the witneffes to the truth of them are mistaken, or speak falsely, than that the miracles fhould be true. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, the great difficulty of proving miracles should make us very cautious in believing them. But let us confider; although GOD has made Nature to operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to think that he may suspend thofe laws, in order to establish a fyftem highly advantageous to mankind. Now the Christian religion is a moft beneficial fyftem, as it gives us light and certainty where we were before in darkness and doubt. The miracles which prove it are attefted by men who had no intereft in deceiving us; but who, on the contrary, were told that they fhould fuffer perfecution, and did actually lay down their lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts which they afferted. Indeed, for fome centuries the heathens did not pretend to deny the miracles; but faid they were performed by the aid of evil fpirits. This

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is a circumftance of great weight. Then, Sir, when we take the proofs derived from prophecies which have been fo exactly fulfilled, we have most satisfactory evidence. Suppofing a miracle poffible, as to which, in my opinion, there can be no doubt, we have as strong evidence for the miracles in support of Christianity, as the nature of the thing admits."

At night, Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head coffee-house, in the Strand. "I encourage this houfe (faid he); for the miftrefs of it is a good civil woman, and has not much business."

"Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I don't like to think myfelf growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do laft; and then, Sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous fentiments in every respect. I love the young dogs of this age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not fo good fcholars. Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a fad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now. My judgement, to be fure, was not fo good; but, I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman faid to me, Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."

This account of his reading, given by himself in plain words, fufficiently confirms what I have already advanced upon the difputed question as to his application. It reconciles any feeming inconfiftency in his way of talking upon it at different times; and fhews that idleness and reading hard were with him relative terms, the import of which, as ufed by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what fcholars of different degrees of ardour and affiduity have been known to do. And let it be remembered, that he was now talking fpontaneously, and expreffing his genuine fentiments; whereas at other times he might be induced from his fpirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of argumentative conteft, to fpeak lightly of his own application to ftudy. It is pleafing to confider that the old gentleman's gloomy prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, was fo far from being verified in Johnfon, that his ardour for literature never failed, and his laft writings had more eafe and vivacity than any of his earlier productions.

He mentioned to me now, for the firft time, that he had been distrest by melancholy, and for that reafon had been obliged to fly from study and medi

tation,

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tation, to the diffipating variety of life. Against melancholy he recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating Etat. 54. and drinking, and especially to fhun drinking at night. He faid melancholy people were apt to fly to intemperance for relief, but that it funk them much deeper in mifery. He obferved, that labouring men who work hard, and live fparingly, are feldom or never troubled with low fpirits.

He again infifted on the duty of maintaining fubordination of rank. "Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his refpect, than of his money. I confider myself as acting a part in the great fyftem of fociety, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a' nobleman and he Sam. Johnfon. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay' in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and faid to her, Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very fenfible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I defire that he may be allowed to fit down and dine with us.' I thus, Sir, fhewed her the abfurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me fince. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have fome people under them; why not then have some people above them ?" I mentioned a certain authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by fhewing no deference to noblemen into whose company he was admitted. JOHNSON. "Suppofe a fhoemaker should claim an equality with him as he does with a Lord; how would he stare. Why, Sir, do you ftare? (fays the fhoemaker,) I do fervice to fociety. great 'Tis true, I am paid for doing it; but fo are you, Sir: and I am forry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing fomething not fo neceffary. For mankind could do better without your books, than without my fhoes.' Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the diftinction of rank, which creates no jealoufy, as it is allowed to be accidental."

He faid, Dr. Jofeph Warton was a very agreeable man, and his "Effay on the Genius and Writings of Pope," a very pleafing book. I wondered that he delayed fo long to give us the continuation of it. JOHNSON. "Why,

5 This one Mrs. Macaulay was the fame perfonage who afterwards made herself so much known as "the celebrated female hiftorian."

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