JOHNSON.'But we don't know that the hen is hungry;let the hen be fairly hungry,and I'll warrant she'll peck the corn herself.Acock,I believe,will feed hens instead of himself;but we don't know that the cock is hungry.'BOSWELL.'And that,Sir,is not from affection but gallantry.But some of the Indians have affection.'JOHNSON.'Sir,that they help some of their children is plain;for some of them live,which they could not do without being helped.'
I dined with him;the company were,Mrs.Williams,Mrs.Desmoulins,and Mr.Lowe.He seemed not to be well,talked little,grew drowsy soon after dinner,and retired,upon which I went away.
Having next day gone to Mr.Burke's seat in the country,from whence I was recalled by an express,that a near relation of mine had killed his antagonist in a duel,and was himself dangerously wounded,I saw little of Dr.Johnson till Monday,April 28,when Ispent a considerable part of the day with him,and introduced the subject,which then chiefly occupied my mind.JOHNSON.'I do not see,Sir,that fighting is absolutely forbidden in Scripture;I see revenge forbidden,but not self-defence.'BOSWELL.'The Quakers say it is;"Unto him that smiteth thee on one cheek,offer him also the other."'JOHNSON.'But stay,Sir;the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion;it is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense.We see this from the context,where there are other recommendations,which I warrant you the Quaker will not take literally;as,for instance,"From him that would borrow of thee,turn thou not away."Let a man whose credit is bad,come to a Quaker,and say,"Well,Sir,lend me a hundred pounds;"he'll find him as unwilling as any other man.No,Sir,a man may shoot the man who invades his character,as he may shoot him who attempts to break into his house.So in 1745,my friend,Tom Gumming,the Quaker,said,he would not fight,but he would drive an ammunition cart;and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers,to enable them to fight better.'BOSWELL.'When a man is the aggressor,and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is killed,have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a state of happiness?'JOHNSON.
'Sir,we are not to judge determinately of the state in which a man leaves this life.He may in a moment have repented effectually,and it is possible may have been accepted by GOD.'
I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr.Johnson,they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling.In my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,3rd edit.p.386[p.366,Oct.24],it appears that he made this frank confession:--'Nobody at times,talks more laxly than I do;'and,ib.,p.231[Sept.19,1773],'He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.'We may,therefore,infer,that he could not think that justifiable,which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel.--BOSWELL.
Upon being told that old Mr.Sheridan,indignant at the neglect of his oratorical plans,had threatened to go to America;JOHNSON.'Ihope he will go to America.'BOSWELL.'The Americans don't want oratory.'JOHNSON.'But we can want Sheridan.'
On Monday,April 29,I found him at home in the forenoon,and Mr.
Seward with him.Horace having been mentioned;BOSWELL.'There is a great deal of thinking in his works.One finds there almost every thing but religion.'SEWARD.'He speaks of his returning to it,in his Ode Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens.'JOHNSON.
'Sir,he was not in earnest:this was merely poetical.'BOSWELL.
'There are,I am afraid,many people who have no religion at all.'
SEWARD.'And sensible people too.'JOHNSON.'Why,Sir,not sensible in that respect.There must be either a natural or a moral stupidity,if one lives in a total neglect of so very important a concern.SEWARD.'I wonder that there should be people without religion.'JOHNSON.'Sir,you need not wonder at this,when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man's life is passed without thinking of it.I myself was for some years totally regardless of religion.It had dropped out of my mind.It was at an early part of my life.Sickness brought it back,and I hope I have never lost it since.'BOSWELL.'My dear Sir,what a man must you have been without religion!Why you must have gone on drinking,and swearing,and--'JOHNSON (with a smile,)'I drank enough and swore enough,to be sure.'SEWARD.
'One should think that sickness and the view of death would make more men religious.'JOHNSON.'Sir,they do not know how to go about it:they have not the first notion.A man who has never had religion before,no more grows religious when he is sick,than a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of calculation.'
I mentioned Dr.Johnson's excellent distinction between liberty of conscience and liberty of teaching.JOHNSON.'Consider,Sir;if you have children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Church of England,and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to his principles,you would drive away the Quaker.You would not trust to the predomination of right,which you believe is in your opinions;you would keep wrong out of their heads.Now the vulgar are the children of the State.If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the State approves,the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.'SEWARD.'Would you restrain private conversation,Sir?'JOHNSON.'Why,Sir,it is difficult to say where private conversation begins,and where it ends.If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves,we should not be restrained;for that would be to put an end to all improvement.
But if we should discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls,and as many boys,I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks,to finish the debate there.'
