Had Johnson been furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has procured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved in manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL.
[731] See ante, ii.358, note 3.
[732] Short Notes for Civil Conversation. Spedding's Bacon, vii.109.
[733] 'When I took up his Life of Cowley, he made me put it away to talk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that nobody could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language was generally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the mere common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes and talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given by Macaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's Essays, edit. 1843, i.404. See ante, ii.96, note; iv.183; and post, the end of the vol.
[734] See ante, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14.
[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the English the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; in so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's Hume, i. 53.
[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is recorded. See ante, ii.403, and iii.352.
[737] See ante, iii.398, note 3.
[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body (which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid, emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the body in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells the bladder and fills it. Piozzi Letters, ii.310. The 'body' was iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. The other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley.
[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr. Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, Materialism; by which mind is denied to human nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals into despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remaineth for the people of GOD' [Hebrews, iv.9], or for that happiness which is revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.
As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a necessarian, [meaning necessitarian] hate any man; because I consider him as being, in all respects, just what GOD has made him to be; and also as doing with respect to me, nothing but what he was expressly designed and appointed to do; GOD being the only cause, and men nothing more than the instruments in his hands to execute all his pleasure.'-- Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, p. 111.
The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that 'Dr. Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. Priestley. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever wishes to see a perfect delineation of this Literary Jack of all Trades, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St.