1776. Ætat. 67. rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in the graces." Mr. “ I read (said he) Sharpe's letters on Italy over again when I was at Bath. “ Mrs. Williams was angry that Thrale's family did not send regularly to her every time they heard from me while I was in the Hebrides Little people are apt to be jealous: but they should not be jealous; for they ought to consider, that superiour attention will necessarily be paid to superiour fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and on that account may have an equal claim to attention ; but one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may have a double claim.” Talking of his notes on Shakspeare, he said, “I despise those who do not see that I am right in the passage where as is repeated, and affes of great charge’ introduced. That on 'To be, or not to be,' is disputable.” A gentleman, whom I found fitting with him one morning, faid, that in his opinion the character of an infidel was more detestable than that of a man notoriously guilty of an atrocious crime. I differed from him, because we are furer of the odiousness of the one, than of the errour of the other. Johnson. “ Sir, I agree with him; for the infidel would be guilty of any crime if he were inclined to it.” “ Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain . It may be observed, that Mr. Malone, in his very valuable edition of Shakspeare, has fully vindicated Dr. Johnson from the idle censures which the first of these notes has given tise to. The interpretation of the other pallage, which Dr. Johnson allows to be difputable, he has clearly thewn to be erroneous. early early in the market, keep in employment? You will hear it said, very gravely, 1776. Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To Ætat. 67. , The uncommon vivacity of General Oglethorpe's mind, and variety of know- When I complained of having dined at a fplendid table without hearing one sentence of conversation worthy of being remembered, he said, “ Sir, there seldom is any such conversation.” Boswell. “Why then meet at table?” Johnson. “Why to eat and drink together, and promote kindness; and, Sir, this is better done when there is no folid conversation ; for when there is, people differ in opinion, and get into bad humour, or some of the company who are not capable of such conversation, are left out, and feel themselves uneasy. It was for this reason, Sir Robert Walpole said, he always talked bawdy at his table, because in that all could join.” Being irritated by hearing a gentleman ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions • L a « Every 1776. Ætat. 67. “ Every man is to take existence on the terms on which it is given to him. To some men it is given on condition of not taking liberties, which other men may take without much harm. One man may drink wine and be nothing the worse for it; on another wine may have effects so inflammatory as to injure him both in body and mind, and perhaps make him commit fomething for which he may deserve to be hanged.” “ Lord Hailes's · Annals of Scotland' have not that pointed form which is the taste of this age; but it is a book which will always sell, it has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation.. I never before read Scotch history with certainty.” I asked him whether he would advise me to read the Bible with a commentary, and what commentaries he would recommend. Johnson. “ To be sure, Sir, I would have you read the Bible with a commentary; and I would recommend Lowth and Patrick on the Old Testament, and Hammond on the New." During my stay in London this spring, I solicited his attention to another " 2 was was wrong, and dictated to me the following argument in confutation of it: 1776. Ætat. 67. a « Of the censure pronounced from the pulpit, our determination must be formed, as in other cases, by a consideration of the action itself, and the particular circumstances with which it is invested. “ The right of censure and rebuke seems necessarily appendant to the pastoral office. He, to whom the care of a congregation is entrusted, is considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as the father of a family. As a shepherd tending not his own sheep but those of his master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not authority to restrain. “ As a teacher giving instruction for wages, and liable to reproach if those whom he undertakes to inform make no proficiency, he must have the power of enforcing attendance, of awakening negligence, and repressing contradiction. “ As a father, he possesses the paternal authority of admonition, rebuke, and punishment. He cannot without reducing his office to an empty name, be hindered from the exercise of any practice necessary to stimulate the idle, to reform the vicious, to check the petulant, and correct the stubborn. “ If we enquire into the practice of the primitive church, we shall, I believe, find the ministers of the Word exercising the whole authority of this complicated character. We shall find them not only encouraging the good by exhortation, but terrifying the wicked by reproof and denunciation. In the earliest ages of the Church, while religion was yet pure from secular advantages, the punishment of sinners was publick censure, and open penance;. penalties inflicted merely by ecclesiastical authority, at a time while the church had yet no help from the civil power, while the hand of the magistrate lifted only the rod of persecution; and when governours were ready to afford a refuge to all those who fled from clerical authority. “ That the Church, therefore, had once a power of publick censure is evident, because that power was frequently exercised. That it borrowed not its power from the civil authority, is likewise certain, because civil authority was at that time its enemy. “ The hour came at length, when after three hundred years of struggle and distress, Truth took poffefsion of imperial power, and the civil laws lent their aid to the ecclesiastical constitutions. The magistrate from that time co-operated L 2 with 1776. with the priest, and clerical sentences were made efficacious by secular force. to diminish its authority. Those rebukes and those censures which were : “ It therefore appears from ecclesiastical history, that the right of inflicting shame by publick censure, has been always considered as inherent in the Church, and that this right was not conferred by the civil power; for, it was exercised when the civil power operated against it. By the civil power it was never taken away; for the Christian magistrate interposed his office not to rescue finners from censure, but to supply more powerful means of reformation; to add pain where shame was insufficient; and when men were proclaimed unworthy of the society of the faithful, to restrain them by imprisonment, from spreading abroad the contagion of wickedness. “ It is not improbable that from this acknowledged power of publick censure, grew in time the practice of auricular confession. Those who dreaded the blast of publick reprehension, were willing to submit themselves to the priest, by a private accusation of themselves; and to obtain a reconciliation with the Church by a kind of clandestine absolution and invisible penance ; conditions with which the priest would in times of ignorance and corruption easily comply, as they increased his influence, by adding the knowledge of secret fins to that of notorious offences, and enlarged his authority, by making him the sole arbiter of the terms of reconcilement. “ From this bondage the Reformation set us free. The minister- has no longer power to press into the retirements of conscience, to torture us by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our lives. But though we have thus controuled his usurpations, his just and original power remains unimpaired. He may still see, though he may not pry: he may yet hear, though he may not question. And that knowledge which his eyes and upon him it is still his duty to use, for the benefit of his flock. A father who lives near a wicked neighbour, may forbid a fon to frequent his company. A minister who has in his congregation a man of open and scandalous wickedness, may warn his parishioners to shun his conversation. To warn them is not only lawful, but not to warn them would be criminal, He ears force |