say he was miserable. JOHNSON. "Alas! it is all outside; I may be cracking my joke, and cursing the sun. Sun, how I hate thy beams!" I knew not well what to think of this declaration; whether to hold it as a genuine picture of his mind (1), or as the effect of his persuading himself contrary to fact, that the position which he had assumed as to human unhappiness was true. We may apply to him a sentence in Mr. Greville's " Maxims, Characters, and Reflections (2);" a book which is entitled to much more praise than it has received: "Aristarchus is charming; how full of knowledge, of sense, of sentiment. You get him with difficulty to your supper; and after having delighted every body and himself for a few hours, he is obliged to return home; he is finishing his treatise, to prove that unhappiness is the portion of man." (3) (1) Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company, who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and dying. (2) Fulke Greville, Esq. of Welberry, in Wilts, the husband of the authoress of the "Ode to Indifference."- MARKLAND. (3) Here followed a very long note, or rather dissertation, by the Reverend Mr. Churton, on the subject of Johnson's opinion of the misery of human life, which I have thought will be read most conveniently in the Appendix. — C. - [See JOHNSONIANA, post.] Milton. CHAPTER X 1784. Anonymous Writings. Pope. David Lewis. Sackville Parker. Cook's Voyages. · Puns.· Barristers. Lord Hale. · Attornies. Club. Italy. - · Last Dinner at the Free Will. - Miss Seward. Lord Chesterfield.- Carleton's Memoirs.— Intuition and Sagacity. - Lord Thurlow. Mrs. Piozzi's "Anecdotes." Country Life. ON Sunday, 13th June, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a college life, without restraint and with superior elegance, in consequence of our living in the master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicott related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written "Paradise Lost," should write such poor sonnets: "Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones." We talked of the casuistical question, "Whether it was allowable at any time to depart from truth?" JOHNSON. "The general rule is, that truth should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the comfort of life that we should have a full security by mutual faith; and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered, that we may preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a man to a murderer." BOSWELL. "Supposing the person who wrote Junius were asked whether he was the author, might he deny it?" JOHNSON. "I don't know what to say to this. If you were sure that he wrote Junius, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him afterwards? Yet it may be urged that what a man has no right to ask, you may refuse to communicate; and there is no other effectual mode of preserving a secret and an important secret, the discovery of which may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial; for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But stay, Sir, here is another case. Supposing the author had told me confidentially that he had written Junius, and I were asked if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous promise, express or implied, to conceal it. (1) Now what I ought to do for the author, may I not do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man, for fear of alarming him. (1) You have no business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself." I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the opinion of those who have held that truth, as an eternal and immutable principle, ought upon no account whatever to be violated, from supposed previous or superior obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade ourselves that they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the whole, be more perfect were truth universally preserved. (1) Of this opinion was Archbishop Secker: "Plausible as the plea of concealment, in the case of sickness, may appear, the need and the benefit of employing falsehood even in these circumstances, for the most part at least, cometh of evil." (Sermons, vol. v. 153.) Still, this eminent prelate admits that on such occasions there are sometimes difficulties, but that if the truth be departed from, it should be "almost extorted, and conscientiously restrained to things in themselves the least exceptionable." What is the course which ought to be pursued, whether in withholding or making a patient acquainted with the probable issue of a malady manifesting mortal symptoms, has been laid down by a very distinguished physician of the present day, in terms which do honour to his piety, his judgment, and his feelings. See Sir Henry Halford's Essays, p. 79.- MARK LAND. In the notes to the "Dunciad," we find the fol lowing verses addressed to Pope (1): "While malice, Pope, denies thy page Its own celestial fire; While critics, and while bards in rage, "While wayward pens thy worth assail, These times, though many a friend bewail, "But when the world's loud praise is thine, "When none shall rail, and every lay That day (for come it will) that day Shall I lament to see." It is surely not a little remarkable that they should appear without a name. Miss Seward, knowing Dr. Johnson's almost universal and minute literary information, signified a desire that I should ask him who was the author. He was prompt with his answer:- Why, Sir, they were written by one Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of Westminster-school, and published a Miscellany, in which 'Grongar Hill' first came out." (2) Johnson 66 (1) The annotator calls them "amiable verses." — B.- The annotator was Pope himself. C. (2) Lewis's verses addressed to Pope (as Mr. Bindley suggests to me) were first published in a collection of Pieces in verse and prose on occasion of "The Dunciad," 8vo. 1732. They are there called an Epigram. Lewis was author of "Philip of Macedon," a tragedy, published in 1727, and dedicated to Pope and in 1730 he published a second volume of miscellaneous poems. As Dr. Johnson settled in London not |