a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, Sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven. out of society. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refinement; but while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel."

“Let it be remembered, that this justification is applicable only to the person who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggressor." "

1

The General told us, that, when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a prince of Wirtemberg. The prince took up a glass of wine, and, by a fillip, made some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly, might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it, might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his highness had done in jest, said “Mon Prince, —" (I forget the French words he used; the purport however was) "That's a good joke; but we do it much better in England;" and threw a whole glass of wine in the prince's face. An old general, who sat by, said, "Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l'avez commencé :" and thus all ended in good humour.

Dr. Johnson said, "Pray, General, give us an account of the siege of Belgrade." Upon which the general, pouring a little

1

The frequent disquisitions on this subject bring painfully to recollection the death of Mr. Boswell's eldest son, Sir Alexander, who was killed in a duel, arising from a political dispute, on the 26th of March, 1822, by Mr. Stuart, of Dunearn.-Croker.

This conversation on duelling was quoted on Mr. Stuart's trial by his counsel, Mr. Jeffrey, afterwards Lord Jeffrey.—Lockhart.

2 Oglethorpe, when a young man, was a volunteer in the army of Prince Eugene, and was present with Eugene's army at the operations against

wine upon the table, described every thing with a wet finger : "Here we were; here were the Turks," &c. &c. Johnson listened with the closest attention.

A question was started, how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle--the same likings and the same aversions. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree, For instance, I can live very well with Burke: I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion and affluence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party." GOLDSMITH. "But, Sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard: 'You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." JOHNSON (with a loud voice). "Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point; I am only saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid." 1

1

Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a Natural History; and, that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six mile-stone, on the Edgeware-road, and had carried down his books in two

the Turks, which resulted (1717) in the capitulation of Belgrade. — Editor.

1 Mr. Boswell's note being here rather short, as taken at the time, with a view, perhaps, to future revision, Johnson's remark is obscure, and requires to be a little opened. What he said probably was, You seem to think that two friends, to live well together, must be in perfect harmony with each other; that each should be to the other what Sappho boasts she was to her lover, and uniformly agree in every particular; but this is by no means necessary, &c. The words of Sappho alluded to are—

"Omnique a parte placebam."

Ovid. Epist. Sapph. ad Phaonem, l. 45.—Malone.

' Published, in 1774, in eight volumes, 8vo., under the title of a History of the Earth and Animated Nature. Printed for J. Nourse.-Editor.

returned post-chaises. He said, he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the "Spectator" appeared to his landlady and her children: he was "The Gentleman." Mr. Mickle,' the translator of "The Lusiad," and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but, having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall with a black-lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts being introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his [Cave], an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him that he had seen an apparition. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us, that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends, that he should die on a particular day. That upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him, where was his prophecy now? Prendergast gravely answered, "I shall die, notwithstanding what you see." Soon afterwards, there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had not yet reached, and he was killed upon the spot. Colonel Cecil, who took possession of his effects, found in his pocket-book the following solemn entry :[Here the date.] "Dreamt-orSir John Friend

' William Julius Mickle, the son of a Scotch clergyman, was born at Langholme, Dumfriesshire, in 1734. He lived the life that poets lived in those days; that is, in difficulties and distress, till 1779, when, being appointed secretary to Commodore Johnson, he realised by prize agencies a moderate competence. He retired to Forest Hill, near Oxford, where he died in 1788. His translation of the Lusiad is still in some repute and his ballad of "Cumnor Hall" suggested "Kenilworth" to Scott; but his other works are almost all forgotten.-Croker.

'Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus :-"was told by an apparition;" the writer being probably uncertain whether he was asleep or awake, when his mind was impressed with the solemn pre

meets me:" (here the very day on which he was killed was mentioned.) Prendergast had been connected with Sir John Friend, who was executed for high treason. General Oglethorpe said, he was with Colonel Cecil, when Pope came and inquired into the truth of this story, which made a great noise at the time, and was then confirmed by the colonel.

On Saturday, April 11, he appointed me to come to him in the evening, when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defence of Hastie, the schoolmaster of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the House of Lords. When I came, I found him unwilling to exert himself. I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject. He said, "There's no occasion for my writing: I'll talk to you." He was, however, at last prevailed on to dictate to me, while I wrote.

"The charge is, that he has used immoderate and cruel correction. Correction in itself is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear. To impress this fear is, therefore, one of the first duties of those who have the care of children. It is the duty of a parent; and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness. It is the duty of a master, who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis. Yet, as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel. But when is correction immoderate? When it is more frequent or more severe than is required ad monendum et docendum, for reformation and instruction. No severity is cruel which obstinacy makes necessary; for the greatest cruelty would be, to desist, and leave the scholar too

sentiment with which the fact afterwards happened so wonderfully to correspond.

Lord Hardinge, when Secretary at War, informed me, that it appears that Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, of the twenty-second foot, was killed at Malplaquet, August 31, 1709; but no trace can be found of any Colonel Cecil in the army of that period. The well-known Jacobite, Colonel William Cecil, who was sent to the Tower in 1744, could hardly have been, in 1709, of the age, rank, and station which Oglethorpe's anecdote seems to imply. Is it not very strange, if this story made so great a noise, we should read of it no where else? and, as so much curiosity was excited, that the paper should not have been preserved, or, at least, so generally shown as to be mentioned by some other witness?—Croker.

careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof.

Locke,

in his treatise of education, mentions a mother, with applause, who whipped an infant eight times before she subdued it; for had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined. The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A stubborn scholar must be corrected till he is subdued. The discipline of a school is military. There must be either unbounded licence or absolute authority. The master, who punishes, not only consults the future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction, but he propagates obedience through the whole school, and establishes regulatory by exemplary justice. The victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction totally ineffectual. Obstinacy, therefore, must never be victorious. Yet it is well known, that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids defiance to all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportionate to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastic as well as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have, indeed, set some bounds to scholastic penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined, that a master who strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as criminal. But punishments, however severe, that produce no lasting evil, may be just and reasonable, because they may be necessary. Such have been the punishments used by the respondent. No scholar has gone from him either blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired. They were irregular, and he punished them: they were obstinate, and he enforced his punishment. But however provoked, he never exceeded the limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain; and how much of that was required, no man is so little able to determine as those who have determined against him-the parents of the offenders. It has been said, that he used unprecedented and improper instruments of correction. Of this accusation the meaning is not very easy to be found. No instrument of correction is more proper than another, but as it is better adapted to produce present pain without lasting mischief. Whatever were his instruments, no lasting