same cause, I suggested, that whatever return we might receive, we should still have the consolation of being like Butler's steady and generous Royalist,

"True as the dial to the sun,

Although it be not shone upon."

We were well entertained and very happy at Dr. Nowell's, where was a very agreeable company; and we drank "Church and King" after dinner, with true Tory cordiality.

We talked of a certain clergyman of extraordinary character, who by exerting his talents in writing on temporary topicks, and displaying uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself to affluence. I maintained that we ought not to be indignant at his success; for merit of every sort was entitled to reward. JOHNSON. "Sir, I will not allow this man to have merit. No, Sir; what he has is rather the contrary; I will, indeed, allow him courage, and on this account we so far give him credit. We have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back. Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

I censured the coarse invectives which were become fashionable in the House of Commons, and said that if members of parliament must attack each other personally in the heat of debate, it should be done more genteely. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; that Abuse is not so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle conveyance. The difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference between being bruised

would be much worse.

1784.

Ætat. 75.

1784. by a club, and wounded by a poisoned arrow." I have since observed his position elegantly expressed by Dr. Young:

Etat. 75.

"As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart, "Good breeding sends the satire to the heart."

On Saturday, June 12, there drank tea with us at Dr. Adams's, Mr. John Henderson, student of Pembroke-College, celebrated for his wonderful acquirements in Alchymy, Judicial Astrology, and other abstruse and curious learning; and the Reverend Herbert Croft, who, I am afraid, was somewhat mortified by Dr. Johnson's not being highly pleased with some .66 Family Discourses," which he had printed; they were in too familiar a style to be approved of by so manly a mind. I have no note of this evening's conversation, except a single fragment. When I mentioned Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision, the prediction of the time of his death, and its exact fulfilment ;-JOHNSON. "It is the most extraordinary thing that has happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears, from his uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evidence of the spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it." DR. ADAMS. "You have evidence enough; good evidence, which needs not such support." JOHNSON. "I like to have more."

Mr. Henderson, with whom I had sauntered in the venerable walks of Merton-College, and found

6 See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter.

[A correct account of Lord Lyttelton's supposed Vision may be found in Nashe's "History of Worcestershire;"-ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS, p. 36. M.]

Etat. 75.

him a very learned and pious man, supped with us. 1784. Dr. Johnson surprised him not a little, by acknowledging with a look of horrour, that he was much oppressed by the fear of death. The amiable Dr. Adams suggested that GOD was infinitely good. JOHNSON. "That he is infinitely good, as far as the perfection of his nature will allow, I certainly believe; but it is necessary for good upon the whole, that individuals should be punished. As to an individual, therefore, he is not infinitely good; and as I cannot be sure that I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who shall be damned." (looking dismally.) DR. ADAMS." What do you mean by damned!" JOHNSON. (passionately and loudly) "Sent to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly." DR. ADAMS. "I don't believe that doctrine." JOHNSON. "Hold, Sir, do you believe that some will be punished at all?” DR. ADAMS." Being excluded from Heaven will be a punishment; yet there may be no great positive suffering." JOHNSON. "Well, Sir; but, if you admit any degree of punishment, there is an end of 'your argument for infinite goodness simply considered; for, infinite goodness would inflict no punishment whatever. There is not infinite goodness physically considered; morally there is." BosWELL. "But may not a man attain to such a degree of hope as not to be uneasy from the fear of death?" JOHNSON. "A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him quiet. You see I am not quiet, from the vehemence with which I talk; but I do not despair." MRS. ADAMS. "You seem, Sir, to forget the merits of our Redeemer." JOHNSON. "Madam, I do not forget the merits of my Redeemer; but my ReY

VOL. IV.

1784.

Etat. 75

deemer has said that he will set some on his right hand and some on his left."-He was in gloomy agi'tation, and said, "I'll have no more on't."-If what has now been stated should be urged by the enemies of Christianity, as if its influence on the mind were not benignant, let it be remembered, that Johnson's temperament was melancholy, of which such direful apprehensions of futurity are often a common effect. We shall presently see, that when he approached nearer to his aweful change, his mind became tranquil, and he exhibited as much fortitude as becomes a thinking man in that situation.

From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, whether it was upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson was decidedly for the balance of misery: in confirmation of which I maintained, that

* The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he is pleased to say, "I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve."

"The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised sens timents of the writer:

Jam 6, 1792.

LAST week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's Johnson, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and inreasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn in

no man would choose to lead over again the life which he had experienced. Johnson acceded to that

1784.

Etat. 75.

the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the
consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the
voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable
degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of
the same natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says
he scarcely passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,):
he considered and represented human life, as a scene of much
greater misery than is generally experienced. There may be per-
sons bowed down with affliction all their days; and there are
those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them of rest; but neither
calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so much and so gene-
rally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life which Johnson's
imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. This I
am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have experi
enced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness,
(I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls
to the lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional
sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps,
weeks void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in
short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive
from experience or observation, is not that state of constant
wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was: which mis-
representation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not cor-
rected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large por-
tion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the portrait a
faithful copy of life.'

The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:
"I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who
all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those
which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It
might be added that as the representation here spoken of, appears
not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does it seem to
be countenanced by Scripture. There is, perhaps, no part of the
sacred volume which at first sight promises so much to lend its
sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the book of Ec-
clesiastes, which so often, and so emphatically, proclaims the va-
nity of things sublunary, But the design of this whole book, (as
it has been justly observed,) is not to put us out of conceit with