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1772.

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interest he did wrong; but in point of dignity he did well. Sir Alexander infifted that he was wrong, and faid that Mr. Pitt intended it as an advan- Etat. 63. tageous thing for him. "Why, Sir, (faid Johnson,) 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 fuch a situation. Sir, had he gone Secretary while his inferiour was Ambassadour, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family."

I talked of the little attachment which subsisted between near relations in London. "Sir, (faid Johnfon,) in a country fo commercial as ours, where every man can do for himself, there is not so much occafion 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 reprefented as connected with his reputation, that, felf-love being interefted, he may exert himself to promote their interest. You have first large circles, or clans; as commerce increases, the connection 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!"

I argued warmly for the old feudal system. Sir Alexander opposed it, and talked of the pleasure of feeing all men free and independent. JOHNSON. "I agree with Mr. Bofwell that there must be a high fatisfaction 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 fatisfaction of one."-I maintained that numbers, namely, the vassals or followers, were not unhappy, for that there was a reciprocal fatisfaction between the Lord and them: he being kind in his authority over them; they being respectful and faithful to him.

On Thursday, April 9, I called on him to beg he would go and dine with me at the Mitre tavern. He had refolved not to dine at all this day, I know not for what reason; and I was so unwilling to be deprived of his company, that I was content to submit to fuffer a want, which was at first somewhat painful, but he foon made me forget it; and a man is always pleased with himself when he finds his intellectual inclinations predominate.

He observed, that to reason too philofophically on the nature of prayer, was very unprofitable.

Talking of ghofts, he faid, he knew one friend, who was an honest man and a fenfible man, who told him he had feen a ghost, old Mr. Edward

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Cave, the printer at St. John's Gate. He said, Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, but feemed to be in great horrour whenever it was mentioned. BOSWELL. "Pray, Sir, what did he say was the appearance?" JOHNSON. “Why, Sir, something of a fhadowy being."

I mentioned witches, and asked him what they properly meant. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, they properly mean those who make use of the aid of evil spirits." BOSWELL. "There is no doubt, Sir, a general report and belief of their having existed," JOHNSON. "Sir, you have not only the general report and belief, but you have many voluntary folemn confessions." He did not affirm any thing positively upon a fubject which it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a matter of abfurd credulity. He only seemed willing, as a candid enquirer after truth, however strange and inexplicable, to shew that he understood what might be urged for it 3.

On Friday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith.

Armorial bearings having been mentioned, Johnson faid, they were as ancient as the siege of Thebes, which he proved by a passage in one of the tragedies of Euripides.

I started the question whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old General fired at this, and faid, with a lofty air, "Undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honour." GOLDSMITH, (turning to me.) "I ask you firft, Sir, what you would do if you were affronted?" I answered I should think it necessary to fight. "Why then (replied Goldsmith,) that folves the question." JOHNSON. "No, Sir, it does not folve the question. It does not follow that what a man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have it fettled, whether duelling was contrary to the laws of Christianity. Johnfon immediately entered on the fubject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and fo far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these : " Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arife; which are confidered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not fo. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour he lies, his neighbour tells him he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow: but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must,

3. See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability, "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit. p. 33.

therefore,

1772.

therefore, be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without Etat. 63. fighting a duel. Now, Sir, it is never unlawful to fight in felf-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from paffion against his antagonist, but out of felf-defence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of fociety. I could wish that there was not that fuperfluity of refinement; but while fuch notions prevail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel."

Let it be remembered, that this justification is applicable only to the perfon who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggreffor.

The General told us, that when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, ferving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was fitting 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 foldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been confidered 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 fat by, faid, "Il'a bien fait, mon Prince, vous l'avez commencé;" and thus all ended in good humour.

Dr. Johnfon faid, "Pray, General, give us an account of the siege of Bender." Upon which the General, pouring a little wine upon the table, defcribed every thing with a wet finger: "Here were we, here were the Turks," &c. &c. Johnson listened with the closest attention.

A question was started, how far people who disagree in any capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith faid they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle-the fame likings and the fame averfions. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, you must shun the fubject 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 fomething as to which they difagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the fituation 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 fubject." JOHNSON,

: 1772.

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Ætat. 63.

(with a loud voice.) " Sir, I am not faying 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."

Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a natural history, and, that he might have full leifure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the fix mile-stone, on the Edgeware-road, and had carried down his books in two returned poft-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 children: he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle, the tranflator of "The Lufiad," and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiofity to fee his apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the walls with a black lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts having been introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his, an honest man and a man of fenfe, having afferted to him that he had feen an apparition. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had feen

one.

General Oglethorpe told us, that Pendergraft, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends that he fshould die on a particular day. That upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Pendergrast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him where was his prophecy now. Pendergraft gravely answered, "I shall die, notwithstanding what you fee." Soon afterwards there came a fhot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had not yet reached, and he was killed upon the fpot. Colonel Cecil, who took poffeffion of his effects, found in his pocketbook the following folemn entry:

[Here the date.] "Dreamt-or

* Sir John Friend meets me:" (here the very day on which he was killed was mentioned.) Pendergraft had been a witness against Sir John Friend, who was executed for high treason. General Oglethorpe faid, he was in company with Colonel Cecil when Pope came and enquired 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 faid he should be at leisure to give me fome afsistance for the defence

• Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus :-" was told by an apparition;" -the writer being probably uncertain whether he was afleep or awake when his mind was impressed with the folemn presentiment with which the fact afterwards happened fo wonderfully to correspond.

of 1772.

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 Etat. 63. pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the fubject. He said, "There's no occafion for my writing. I'll talk to you." He was, however, at last prevailed on to dictate to me, while I wrote as follows:

"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 mafter, 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 inftruction. No feverity is cruel which obftinacy makes neceffary; for the greatest cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar too careless for inftruction, 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 had 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 feverity. A ftubborn scholar must be corrected till he is fubdued. The difcipline of a school is military. There must be either unbounded licence or abfolute authority. The master who punishes, not only confults the future happiness of him who is the immediate fubject of correction; but he propagates obedience through the whole school, and establishes regularity by exemplary justice. The victorious obftinacy 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 proportioned to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle difcipline, and the refractory must be fubdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholaftick, 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 scholastick penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wifely determined,

that

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