James Boswell - THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON - All 6 Volumes in One Edition

I cannot dismiss the present topick without observing, that it is probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned that he often ‘talked for victory,’ rather urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertson’s excellent historical works, in the ardour of contest, than expressed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to suppose, that he should so widely differ from the rest of the literary world[700].

JOHNSON. ‘I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster-abbey.

While we surveyed the Poets’ Corner, I said to him,

“ Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis [701].”

When we got to Temple-bar he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it[702], and slily whispered me,

“ Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur ISTIS[703].”’.

Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. ‘His Pilgrim’s Progress has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser[704].’

A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul’s church as well as in Westminster-abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked, who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there[705]. Somebody suggested Pope. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholick, I would not have his to be first. I think Milton’s rather should have the precedence[706]. I think more highly of him now than I did at twenty[707]. There is more thinking in him and in Butler, than in any of our poets.’

Some of the company expressed a wonder why the authour of so excellent a book as The Whole Duty of Man [708] should conceal himself. JOHNSON. ‘There may be different reasons assigned for this, any one of which would be very sufficient. He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his religious counsels would have less weight when known to come from a man whose profession was Theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not suitable to his principles, so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future state.’

The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk’s till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received the agreeable intelligence that I was chosen[709]. I hastened to the place of meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, and whose splendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones[710], and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge , pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club.

Goldsmith produced some very absurd verses which had been publickly recited to an audience for money[711]. JOHNSON. ‘I can match this nonsense. There was a poem called Eugenio , which came out some years ago, and concludes thus:

“And now, ye trifling, self-assuming elves,

Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves,

Survey Eugenio, view him o’er and o’er,

Then sink into yourselves, and be no more[712].”

‘Nay, Dryden in his poem on the Royal Society[713], has these lines:

“Then we upon our globe’s last verge shall go,

And see the ocean leaning on the sky;

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,

And on the lunar world securely pry.”’

Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that species of wit[714], deigned to allow that there was one good pun in Menagiana , I think on the word corps [715].

Much pleasant conversation passed, which Johnson relished with great good humour. But his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work[716].

On Saturday, May 1, we dined by ourselves at our old rendezvous, the Mitre tavern. He was placid, but not much disposed to talk. He observed that ‘The Irish mix better with the English than the Scotch do; their language is nearer to English; as a proof of which, they succeed very well as players, which Scotchmen do not. Then, Sir, they have not that extreme nationality which we find in the Scotch. I will do you, Boswell, the justice to say, that you are the most unscottified of your countrymen. You are almost the only instance of a Scotchman that I have known, who did not at every other sentence bring in some other Scotchman[717].’

We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I introduced a question which has been much agitated in the Church of Scotland, whether the claim of lay-patrons to present ministers to parishes be well founded; and supposing it to be well founded, whether it ought to be exercised without the concurrence of the people? That Church is composed of a series of judicatures: a Presbytery, a Synod, and finally, a General Assembly; before all of which, this matter may be contended: and in some cases the Presbytery having refused to induct or settle , as they call it, the person presented by the patron, it has been found necessary to appeal to the General Assembly. He said, I might see the subject well treated in the Defence of Pluralities [718]; and although he thought that a patron should exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right. Then supposing the question to be pleaded before the General Assembly, he dictated to me what follows:

‘Against the right of patrons is commonly opposed, by the inferiour judicatures, the plea of conscience. Their conscience tells them, that the people ought to choose their pastor; their conscience tells them that they ought not to impose upon a congregation a minister ungrateful and unacceptable to his auditors. Conscience is nothing more than a conviction felt by ourselves of something to be done, or something to be avoided; and in questions of simple unperplexed morality, conscience is very often a guide that may be trusted. But before conscience can determine, the state of the question is supposed to be completely known. In questions of law, or of fact, conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man’s conscience can tell him the right of another man[719]; they must be known by rational investigation or historical enquiry. Opinion, which he that holds it may call his conscience, may teach some men that religion would be promoted, and quiet preserved, by granting to the people universally the choice of their ministers. But it is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another. Religion cannot be promoted by injustice: and it was never yet found that a popular election was very quietly transacted.

‘That justice would be violated by transferring to the people the right of patronage, is apparent to all who know whence that right had its original. The right of patronage was not at first a privilege torn by power from unresisting poverty. It is not an authority at first usurped in times of ignorance, and established only by succession and by precedents. It is not a grant capriciously made from a higher tyrant to a lower. It is a right dearly purchased by the first possessors, and justly inherited by those that succeeded them. When Christianity was established in this island, a regular mode of publick worship was prescribed. Publick worship requires a publick place; and the proprietors of lands, as they were converted, built churches for their families and their vassals. For the maintenance of ministers, they settled a certain portion of their lands; and a district, through which each minister was required to extend his care, was, by that circumscription, constituted a parish. This is a position so generally received in England, that the extent of a manor and of a parish are regularly received for each other. The churches which the proprietors of lands had thus built and thus endowed, they justly thought themselves entitled to provide with ministers; and where the episcopal government prevails, the Bishop has no power to reject a man nominated by the patron, but for some crime that might exclude him from the priesthood. For the endowment of the church being the gift of the landlord, he was consequently at liberty to give it according to his choice, to any man capable of performing the holy offices. The people did not choose him, because the people did not pay him.