"Sir, I would no respect than of his

taining subordination of rank. more deprive a nobleman of his money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society, 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 Johnson. 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 said 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 sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?" Boswell mentioned a certain author, who disgusted him by his forwardness, and by showing no deference to noblemen, into whose company he was admitted. JOHNSON. "Suppose a shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does with a lord: how he would stare! Why, sir, do you stare?' says the shoemaker, 'I do great service to society. 'Tis true, I am paid for doing it; but so are you, sir; and I am sorry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing something not so necessary; for mankind could do better without your books than without my shoes.'

Thus, sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to be accidental."

In a discussion whether the present earl of Buchan, when lord Cardross, did right to refuse to go secretary of embassy to Spain, when sir James Gray, a man of inferior rank, went ambassador; Dr. Johnson said, "that perhaps in point of interest he did wrong; but in point of dignity he did well." Sir Alexander Macdonald insisted that he was wrong; and said that Mr. Pitt intended it as an advantageous thing for him. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, Mr. Pitt might think it an advantageous thing for him to make him a vintner, and get him all the Portugal trade; but he would have demeaned himself strangely had he accepted of such a situation. Sir, had he gone secretary, while his inferior was ambassador, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family."

He talked with a noble enthusiasm of keeping up the representation of respectable families. His zeal on this subject was a circumstance in his character exceedingly remarkable, when it is considered that he himself had no pretensions to blood. Boswell heard him once say, "I have great merit in being zealous for subordination and the honours of birth; for I can hardly tell who was my grandfather.” He maintained the dignity and propriety of male succession, in opposition to the opinion of one of his friends, who had that day employed Mr. Chalmers to draw his will, devising his estate to his three sisters, in preference to a remote heir male. Johnson called them "three dowdies," and said, with as high a spirit as the boldest baron in the

"An

most perfect days of the feudal system, ancient estate should always go to males. It is mighty foolish to let a stranger have it because he marries your daughter, and takes your name. As for an estate newly acquired by trade, you may give it, if you will, to the dog Towser, and let him keep his own name."

Johnson was not the less ready to love Mr. Langton for his being of a very ancient family; for Boswell has heard him say with pleasure, "Langton, sir, has a grant of free warren from Henry the Second; and cardinal Stephen Langton, in king John's reign, was of this family."

One morning Boswell talked of old families, and the respect due to them. JOHNSON. "Sir, you have á right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right." Boswell. Why, sir, it is one more incitement to a man to do well." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, and it is a matter of opinion very necessary to keep society together. What is it but opinion, by which we have a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising and pulling down you, who are gentlemen, from your places, and saying, We will be gentlemen in our turn.' Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it, than to an upstart; and so society is more easily supported." BOSWELL."Perhaps, sir, it might be done by the respect belonging to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, the toga, inspired reverence." JOHNSON. "Why, we know very little about the Romans. But surely it is much easier to respect a

man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year. In repub lics there is no respect for authority, but a fear of power." BOSWELL. " At present, sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect." JOHNSON. " No, sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in a borough but, cæteris paribus, a man of family will be preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father their fathers have voted, though they should get no more money, or even less. That shows that the respect for family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would remain; but if the gentlemen will vie in expense with the upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruined."

When Boswell talked to him of the paternal estate to which he was heir, he said, "Sir, let me tell you, that to be a Scotch landlord, where you have a number of families dependent upon you, and attached to you, is, perhaps, as high a situation as humanity can arrive at. A merchant upon the 'Change of London, with a hundred thousand pounds, is nothing; an English duke, with an immense fortune, is nothing: he has no tenants who consider themselves as under his patriarchal care, and who will follow him to the field upon an emergency." His notion of the dignity of a Scotch landlord had been formed upon what he had heard of

the Highland chiefs; for it is long since a Lowland landlord has been so curtailed in his feudal authority, that he has little more influence over his tenants than an English landlord and of late years most of the Highland chiefs have destroyed, by means too well known, the princely power which they once enjoyed.

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Speaking of the little attachment which subsisted between near relations in London, Sir," said Johnson, "in a country so commercial as ours, where every man can do for himself, there is not so much occasion for that attachment. No man is thought the worse of here, whose brother was hanged. In uncommercial countries, many of the branches of a family must depend on the stock; so, in order to make the head of the family take care of them, they are represented as connected with his reputation, that, self-love being interested, he may exert himself to promote their interest. You have first large circles, or clans; as commerce increases, the connexion is confined to families; by degrees, that too goes off, as having become unnecessary, and there being few opportunities of intercourse. One brother is a merchant in the city, and another is an officer in the guards: how little intercourse can these two have!"

Boswell argued warmly for the feudal system; sir Alexander Macdonald opposed it, and talked of the pleasure of seeing all men free and independent. JOHNSON. "I agree with Mr. Boswell, that there must be high satisfaction in being a feudal lord; but we are to consider that we ought not to wish to have a number of men unhappy for the satisfaction of one." Boswell maintained, that numbers,