and soul, upon conviction, to the church. Lucas preached his funeral sermon. I suspect he is the same who is mentioned by Baxter in his Life, and whom Baxter tried in vain to settle in non-conformity. Lucas's resolution may be very cheering to many who are suffering from other afflictions. than loss of sight and it is astonishing what some good individuals, who are hardly ever free from bodily pain, do accomplish in the sacred cause of humanity and religion: they do breathe out their last gasp in the service of mankind" with true and undaunted heroism.

"I know

But some

Of Sterne he had a very poor opinion. A lady once ventured to ask him how he liked Yorick's sermons. nothing about them, madam," was his reply. time afterward, forgetting himself, he severely censured them, and the lady very aptly retorted, "I understood you to say, sir, that you had never read them." "No, madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage coach. I should never have deigned even to look at them had I been at large."

Mr. Wickins records an opinion of the same tendency. "I showed him," he says, "Sterne's Sermons." Sir," said he, "do you ever read any others?" Yes, doctor, I read Sherlock, Tillotson, Beveridge, and others." "Ay, sir, there you drink the cup of salvation to the bottom; here you have merely the froth from the surface."

Sterne's other writings he equally disliked. "Nothing odd, he said, “will do long. · Tristram Shandy' did not last." Another anecdote is most characteristic of Johnson's manner; his rudeness, and subsequent apology. Miss Monckton (afterward Countess of Cork) insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. "I am sure," said she, "they have affected me. "Why," said, Johnson, smiling and rolling himself about, "that is because, dearest, you're a dunce." When she some time afterward mentioned this to him, he said, with equal truth and politeness, "Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it."

Yet other eminent men thought well of Sterne. Of the celebrated father of Lord Chancellor Bathurst, we have this

anecdote from Sterne's own hand. "He came up to me one day," he says, "as I was at the Prince of Wales's Court I want to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you should know also who it is that wishes that pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so much. I have lived my life with geniuses of that caste, but have survived them; and despairing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have cleared my accounts and shut up my books, with thoughts of never opening them again. But you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before I die, which now I do: so go home and dine with me!"

Sterne in his sermons was satirical on Methodists, Quakers, and Roman Catholics. He speaks of the former as "illiterate mechanics, who, as a witty divine said of them, were much fitter to make a pulpit than to get into one, able so to frame their nonsense to the nonsense of the times, as to beget an opinion in their followers, not only that they prayed and preached by inspiration, but that the most common actions of their lives were set about in the Spirit of the Lord." He goes on to say, that the opinions of the Methodists are but a republication, with some alterations, of the extravagant conceits of Quakers, which he regards as enthusiastic, "The truest definition," he writes, § "" you can give of Popery is, that it is a system put together and contrived to operate upon men's weaknesses and passions, and thereby to pick their pockets, and leave them in a fit condition for its arbitrary designs." In his next sermon he still further attacks the Roman Catholics and Methodists, charging the latter with more than papal uncharitableness.

*Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v. p. 434.

The

†The case of Norton v. Kelly, referred to in Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Northington, is a very remarkable one of religious imposture. The defendant, among other inducements, had written to the plaintiff, a lady, "Your former pastor has, I hear, excommunicated you; but put yourself in my congregation, wherein dwells the fullness of God." invariable style of his letters was, "all is to be completed by love and union." Lord Northington, then Lord Henley, concludes, "One of his counsel, with some ingenuity, tried to shelter him under the denomination of an independent preacher.' I have tried in this decree to spoil his independency !"-Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v. p. 191.

Vol. ii. Sermon 25.

§ Sermon 37.

"Faith," he continues, "the distinguishing characteristic of a Christian, is defined by them, not as a rational assent of the understanding to truths which are established by indisputable authority, but as a violent persuasion of the mind, that they are instantaneously become the children of God; that the whole score of their sins is for ever blotted out, without the payment of one tear of repentance. Pleasing doctrine this to the fears and passions of mankind; promising fair to gain proselytes of the vicious and impenitent!”

It may be feared that there is too much truth in this remark of Sterne's; and perhaps it may not be unapplicable to some preachers in the Church of England. We do not desire that dissenters should bear the whole blame of advancing false doctrine or light conceits. But, turning from these accusations, we shall find a good deal of sterling sense in Sterne's sermons; and there is one on the Thirtieth Day of January (the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles the First), which would not have been displeasing, in its sentiments, at least, to Dr. Johnson himself.

66

The notice of some inferior divines and writers may be passed by; and we refrain also from entering on the controversy concerning Milton Milton is in himself a giant, and the subject gigantic. Several of our leading divines are not named by Dr. Johnson in Boswell's Life," but we can not argue from their omission that they were unknown to Dr. Johnson. It need only be stated, that the names do not appear of Latimer, Ridley, Fuller, Andrewes, Mede, John Smith* (of Cambridge), Whitgift, Jackson,† Chillingworth, Hall, Cosin, Cudworth, Scott, Stillingfleet, Beveridge, Bull, Ken, Bingham, Waterland, &c., &c., with others who form the glory of the church in theological literature, and its redoubtable bulwark against the assaults of Rome on the one hand, and dissent, as well as infidelity, on the other.

So highly eulogized by Alexander Knox.

† Jones of Nayland speaks of Dr. Jackson's works as a magazine of theological learning, every where penned with great elegance and dignity, so that his style is a pattern of perfection."-Life of Bp. Horne, p. 75.

Addison found out the virtues of Dr. John Scott, and describes his "Christian Life" as "one of the finest and most rational schemes of divinity that is written in our tongue, or in any other."-Spectator, No. 447, vol. vi. p. 194.

CHAPTER XIII.

LORD CHANCELLOR THURLOW.

MEN of high rank simply, gain honor to themselves by their notice of others who are eminent in the walks of literature, whereas those who are celebrated both for rank and learning have less temptation to seek fame in this way; and, especially, the lasting fame of Lord Chancellors must mainly depend on the soundness of their legal decisions, and the part they may bear in the politics of the times in which they live. It is thus the more gratifying to find with what high regard Lord Chancellor Thurlow contemplated the literary exertions of Dr. Johnson, and sought, in an hour of apparent need, to meet his wishes, at the request of friends. It must be remembered, too, that Johnson originally derived his pension from George the Third through the Marquis of Bute, to whom it was at first suggested by Lord Thurlow's rival, Mr. Wedderburn, afterward Earl of Loughborough. Thurlow, however might well be in good humor at this time; for, but the year before, Lord Loughborough, who had been appointed First Commissioner when the Great Seal was put in Commission during the Coalition Ministry,* had been obliged, much to his chagrin, to deliver it up to his bitter and reckless opponent.

Boswell observed rightly, when he addressed Lord Thurlow "as well assured of his lordship's, regard for Dr. Johnson;" for his lordship, in answer, speaks highly of Johnson's merit, and the reflection it would be on all if such a man should perish for want of the means to take care of his health; and to Sir Joshua Reynolds his lordship writes of the pleasure he felt in contributing to the health and comfort of a man, "whom,” he says, "I venerate sincerely and highly for every part, without exception, of his exalted character." Johnson, in

* Fox and Lord North, under the Duke of Portland, 1783.

turn, asserted that he was proud to own his obligations to "such a mind;" and concluded his letter to his lordship, saying, "I have received a benefit which only men like you are able to bestow. I shall now live, mihi carior, with a higher opinion of my own merit."

More than a year before, he had said, "Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation that you discover what his real abilities are: to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now I honor Thurlow, sir : Thurlow is a fine fellow he fairly puts his mind to yours."

And both of these great men resembled each other in some respects; the want of religion in one, and the possession of it in the other, constituting a marked difference. Both were rebellious, in college days, against the respective authorities; both were thorough clubbists; and Thurlow, as Lord Campbell remarks, "like his contemporary, Dr. Johnson, took great pains in gladiatorial discussion," and both were acknowledged to be lions" in their chosen and distinguished paths of life. Of Thurlow, too, it is recorded, as well as it has been of Johnson, that "however rough he might be with men, he

*“An old, free-speaking companion of his (Thurlow's), well known at Lincoln's-inn, would say, 'I met the great LAW LION this morning, going to Westminster, and bowed to him; but he was so busy reading in his coach what his provider had supplied him with, that he took no notice of me."" "So fiercely did he spring on a luckless counsel or solicitor, that he generally went by the name of the 'Tiger;' and sometimes they would, out of compliment, call him the 'Lion,' adding, that Hargrave was his provider. This was the learned editor of Coke upor Littleton."-Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v. p. 633,

522.

In no part of Johnson's life and habits could he, by any conceit, be denominated "Tiger." No; he was the veritable "Lion" all through his career, and in the generous and sublime tenor of his arduous life surpasses Thurlow.

On fighting a duel, Thurlow is described as standing up to his adversary like an elephant. His physical courage, like Johnson's, was great; but the latter could not explain "the rationality of dueling."

"At

The excellent William Wilberforce has this entry in his Diary: the levee, and then dined at Pitt's-sort of cabinet dinner-was often thinking that pompous Thurlow, and elegant Carmarthen, would soon appear in the same row with the poor fellow who waited behind their chairs."-Life of Wilberforce, by his Sons.