the seven Bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet Nonjurors to the new Government. The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house. Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out "Wanderer," saying, "These are fine verses. written with hostility of Warburton in my have quoted this couplet : a passage in Savage's -“If (said he) I had Shakspeare, I should 'Here Learning, blinded first, and then beguil'd, You see they'd have fitted him to a T" (smiling.) DR. ADAMS. Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. Chamberlayne, who had given up good preferments in the Church of England on his conversion to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, exclaimed fervently, "GOD bless him." Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that the present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother assured her, there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON. "All infidel writers drop into oblivion, when personal connections and the floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. There will sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider that what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I remember to have seen in some old collection: Cor. et Ad.-Line 23: For "good preferments" read "great prospects.” 'Henceforth be quiet and agree, But dreads a friend like t'other.' The point is well, though the expression is not correct; one, and not thee, should be opposed to t'other." On the Roman Catholick religion he said, "If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man, of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with GOD, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women are not all Papists." BOSWELL "They are not more afraid of death than men are." JOHNSON. "Because they are less wicked." DR. ADAMS. "They are more pious." JOHNSON. "No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. all at piety." He'll beat you He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, "They may think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of convenience, and I think they are as well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism." As to the invocation of saints, he said, "Though I do not think it authorised, it appears to me, that the communion of saints' in the a I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," printed at London, 1749. It is as follows: "EPIGRAM, occasioned by a religious Dispute at Bath. Two wits harangue the table; B N -y believes he knows not why, "Peace, coxcombs, peace, and both agree, And dreads a friend like t'other." 1 Nash and Bentley are the names of the wits. " a Creed means the communion with the saints in Heaven, as connected with 'The holy catholick church." He admitted the influence of evil spirits upon our minds, and said, "Nobody who believes the New Testament can deny it." I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd, the Bishop of Worcester's Sermons, and read to the company some passages from one of them, upon this text, "Resist the Devil and he will fly from you." James iv. 7. I was happy to produce so judicious and elegant a supporter of a doctrine, which, I know not why, should in this world of imperfect knowledge, and therefore of wonder and mystery in a thousand instances, be contested by some with an unthinking assurance and flippancy. After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great enmity between Whig and Tory. JOHNSON. "Why not so much, I think, unless when they come into competition with each other. There is none when they are only common acquaintance, none when they are of different sexes. A Tory will marry into a Whig family, and * Waller, in his "Divine Poesie," Canto first, has the same thought finely expressed: "The Church triumphant, and the Church below, In songs of praise their present union show : Their joys are full; our expectation long, In life we differ, but we join in song; May sing together, though we dwell apart." The Sermon thus opens:-"That there are angels and spirits good and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more considerable and malignant than the rest, who in the form, or under the name of a serpent, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose head, as the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to bruise; that this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet received his death's wound, but is still permitted, for ends unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit, can possibly entertain a doubt of it." Having treated of possessions, his Lordship says, "As I have no authority to affirm that there are now any such, so neither may I presume to say with confidence, that there are not any." "But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more peremptory.-[Then, having stated the various proofs], All this I say is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of the demonick influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined." Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an antiquated or obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite Prelate now alive; and were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, but to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's-Inn." His Lordship in this Sermon explains the words, "deliver us from evil," in the Lord's Prayer, as signifying a request to be protected from "the evil one," that is, the Devil. This is well illustrated in a short but excellent Commentary by my late worthy friend, the Reverend Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit. It is remarkable that Waller in his "Reflections on the several Petitions," in that sacred form of devotion, has understood this in the same sense, "Guard us from all temptations of the FOE." a Whig into a Tory family, without any reluctance. But indeed in a matter of much more concern than political tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern themselves much about difference of opinion. And ladies set no value on the moral character of men who pay their addresses to them; the greatest profligate will be as well received as the man of the greatest virtue, and this by a very good woman, by a woman who says her prayers three times a day." Our ladies endeavoured to defend their sex from this charge; but he roared them down! "No, no; a lady will take Jonathan Wild as readily as St. Austin, if he has three-pence more; and, what is worse, her parents will give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of our vices; they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because we restrict them; they are the slaves of order and fashion; their virtue is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as concerns this world." Miss Adams mentioned a gentleman of licentious character, and said, "Suppose I had a mind to marry that gentleman, would my parents consent?" JOHNSON. "Yes, they'd consent, and you'd go. You'd go though they did not consent." MISS ADAMS. "Perhaps their opposing might make me go." JOHNSON. "O, very well; you'd take one whom you think a bad man, to have the pleasure of vexing your parents. You put me in mind of Dr. Barrowby the physician, who was very fond of swine's flesh. One day when he was eating it, he said, 'I wish I was a Jew.'-'Why, so? (said somebody); the Jews are not allowed to eat your favourite meat.''Because (said he) I should then have the gust of eating it, with the pleasure of sinning.'" He then proceeded in his declamation. Miss Adams soon afterwards made an observation that I do not recollect, which pleased him much; he said with a good-humoured smile, "That there should be so much excellence united with so much depravity is strange." Indeed, this lady's good qualities, merit, and accomplishments, and her constant attention to Dr. Johnson, were not lost upon him. She happened to tell him that a little coffee-pot, in which she had made his coffee, was the only thing she could call her own. He turned to her with a complacent gallantry, "Don't say so, my dear; I hope you don't reckon my heart as nothing." I asked him if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, "I am for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend." "Fox (added he) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided the kingdom with Cæsar; so that it was a doubt whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue of Fox." Dr. Wall, physician at Oxford, drank tea with us. Johnson had in general a peculiar pleasure in the company of physicians, which was certainly not abated by the conversation of this learned, ingenious, and pleasing gentleman. Johnson said, "It is wonderful how little good Radcliffe's travelling fellowships have done. I know nothing that has been imported by them; yet many additions to our medical knowledge might be got in foreign countries. Inoculation, for instance, has saved more lives than war destroys. And the cures performed by the Peruvian-bark are innumerable. But it is in vain to send our travelling physicians to France, and Italy, and Germany, for all that is known there is known here; I'd send them out of Christendom; I'd send them among barbarous nations." On Friday, June 11, we talked at breakfast, of forms of prayer. JOHNSON. "I know of no good prayers but those in the Book of Common Prayer."" DR. ADAMS. (in a very earnest manner) "I wish, Sir, you would compose some family prayers." JOHNSON. "I will not compose prayers for you, Sir, because you can do it for yourself. But I have thought of getting together all the books of prayers which I could, selecting those which should appear to me the best, putting out some, inserting others, adding some prayers of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer." We all now gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in pressing him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little displeased at the manner of our importunity, and in great agitation called out, "Do not talk thus of what is so aweful. I know not what time GOD will allow me in this world. There are many things which I wish to do." Some of us persisted, and Dr. Adams said, "I never was more serious about any thing in my life." JOHNSON. "Let me alone, let me alone; I am overpowered." And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some time upon the table. I mentioned Jeremy Taylor's using, in his forms of prayer, "I m the chief of sinners," and other such self-condemning expresjons. "Now (said I) this cannot be said with truth by every man, and therefore is improper for a general printed form. I myself tannot say that I am the worst of men. I will not say so." JOHNSON. "A man may know, that physically, that is, in the real state of things, he is not the worst man; but that morally he may be so. Law observes, that 'Every man knows something worse of himself, than he is sure of in others.' You may not have committed such |