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1772.

Etat. 63.

(with a loud voice.) "Sir, I am not faying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to fome point: I am only faying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid."

Goldfmith told us, that he was now bufy in writing a natural hiftory, and, that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the fix mile-ftone, on the Edgeware-road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaifes. He faid, he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, fimilar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and children: he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle, the translator of "The Lufiad," and I, went to vifit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiofity to fee his apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, fcrawled upon the walls with a black lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts having been introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his, an honeft man and a man "of fenfe, having afferted to him that he had feen an apparition. Goldfmith told us, he was affured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen

General Oglethorpe told us, that Pendergraft, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends that he should die on a particular day. That upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Pendergraft was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him where was his prophecy now. Pendergraft gravely answered, "I fhall die, notwithstanding what you fee." Soon afterwards there came a fhot from a French battery, to which the orders for a ceffation of arms had not yet reached, and he was killed upon the fpot. Colonel Cecil, who took poffeffion of his effects, found in his pocketbook the following folemn entry:

[Here the date.] "Dreamt-or- — Sir John Friend meets me:" (here the very day on which he was killed was mentioned.) Pendergraft had been a witness against Sir John Friend, who was executed for high treafon. General Oglethorpe faid, he was in company with Colonel Cecil when Pope came and enquired into the truth of this ftory, which made a great noife at the time, and was then confirmed by the Colonel.

On Saturday, April 11, he appointed me to come to him in the evening, when he said he should be at leifure to give me fome affiftance for the defence

4 Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus:-" was told by an apparition ;”—the writer being probably uncertain whether he was afleep or awake when his mind was impreffed with the folemn prefentiment with which the fact afterwards happened fo wonderfully to correfpond."

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of Haftie, the schoolmafter of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the
House of Lords. When I came, I found him unwilling to exert himself.
preffed him to write down his thoughts upon the fubject. He faid, "There's
no occafion for my writing. I'll talk to you." He was, however, at last
prevailed on to dictate to me, while I wrote as follows:
"The charge is, that he has used immoderate and cruel correction. Cor-
rection, in itself, is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed
only by fear. To imprefs this fear, is therefore one of the first duties of those
who have the care of children. It is the duty of a parent; and has never
been thought inconfiftent with parental tenderness. It is the duty of a master,
who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis. Yet, as good things
become evil by excefs, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel.
But when is correction immoderate? When it is more frequent or more
fevere than is required ad monendum et docendum, for reformation and inftruc-
tion. No feverity is cruel which obftinacy makes neceffary; for the greatest
cruelty would be to defift, and leave the scholar too careless for inftruction, and
too much hardened for reproof. Locke, in his treatise of Education, mentions
a mother, with applaufe, who whipped an infant eight times before fhe had
fubdued it; for had fhe stopped at the feventh act of correction, her daughter,
fays he, would have been ruined. The degrees of obftinacy in young minds
are very different; as different must be the degrees of perfevering feverity.
A stubborn scholar must be corrected till he is fubdued. The difcipline of a
fchool is military. There must be either unbounded licence or abfolute autho-
rity. The mafter who punishes, not only consults the future happiness of him
who is the immediate fubject of correction; but he propagates obedience
through the whole school, and establishes regularity by exemplary juftice.
The victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours
of reformation or inftruction totally ineffectual. Obftinacy, therefore, must
never be victorious. Yet, it is well known, that there fometimes occurs a
fullen and hardy refolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids
defiance to all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportioned
to occafions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle difcipline, and the
refractory must be fubdued by harfher methods. The degrees of fcholaftick,
as of military punishment, no ftåted rules can afcertain. It must be enforced
till it overpowers temptation; till ftubbornness becomes flexible, and perverse-
nefs regular. Custom and reafon have, indeed, fet fome bounds to fcholaftick
penalties. The schoolmafter inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his
edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wifely determined,

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1772.

Etat. 63.

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that a master who ftrikes at a fcholar's eye fhall be confidered as criminal. But punishments, however fevere, that produce no lafting evil, may be just and reasonable, because they may be neceffary. Such have been the punishments used by the refpondent. No fcholar has gone from him either blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired. They were irregular, and he punished them: they were obftinate, and he enforced his punishment. But, however provoked, he never exceeded the limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain; and how much of that was required, no man is fo little able to determine as thofe who have determined against him;-the parents of the offenders.-It has been faid, that he ufed unprecedented and improper inftruments of correction. Of this accufation the meaning is not very eafy to be found. No inftrument of correction is more proper than another, but as it is better adapted to produce present pain without lafting mischief. Whatever were his inftruments, no lasting mifchief has enfued; and therefore, however unusual, in hands fo cautious they were proper. It has been objected, that the refpondent admits the charge of cruelty, by producing no evidence to confute it. Let it be confidered, that his scholars are either difperfed at large in the world, or continue to inhabit the place in which they were bred. Those who are difperfed cannot be found : those who remain are the fons of his perfecutors, and are not likely to fupport a man to whom their fathers are enemies. If it be fuppofed that the enmity of their fathers proves the juftice of the charge, it must be confidered how often experience fhews us, that men who are angry on one ground will accufe on another; with how little kindness, in a town of low trade, a man who lives by learning is regarded; and how implicitly, where the inhabitants are not very rich, a rich man is hearkened to and followed. In a place like Campbelltown it is easy for one of the principal inhabitants to make a party. It is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances. It is eafy for them to opprefs a man poorer than themselves; and natural to affert the dignity of riches, by persisting in oppreffion. The argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to his school, by alledging that he has loft the confidence of the people, is not the fubject of juridical confidera-. tion; for he is to fuffer, if he must fuffer, not for their judgement, but for his own actions. It may be convenient for them to have another master; but it is a convenience of their own making. It would be likewife convenient for him to find another school; but this convenience he cannot obtain.-The question is not what is now convenient, but what is generally right. If the

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people of Campbelltown be diftreffed by the restoration of the refpondent, they are diftreffed only by their own fault; by turbulent paffions and unrea- Atat. 63. fonable defires; by tyranny, which law has defeated, and by malice which virtue has furmounted."

This, Sir, (faid he,) you are to turn in your mind, and make the best ufe of it you can in your speech."

Of our friend Goldfmith he faid, "Sir, he is fo much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely left you should forget that he is in the company." BoSWELL. "Yes, he stands forward." JOHNSON. "True, Sir; but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an aukward pofture, not in rags, not fo as that he shall only be expofed to ridicule." BOSWELL. "For my part, I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly." JOHNSON. "Why yes, Sir; but he should not like to hear himself."

On Tuesday, April 14, the decree of the Court of Seffion in the schoolmaster's cause was reversed in the Houfe of Lords, after a very eloquent fpeech by Lord Mansfield, who fhewed himself an adept in school discipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client. On the evening of the next day I fupped with Dr. Johnson, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, in company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning, I repeated a sentence of Lord Mansfield's speech, of which, by the aid of Mr. Longlands, the folicitor on the other fide, who obligingly allowed me to compare his note with my own, I have a full copy: "My Lords, feverity is not the way to govern either boys or men." " Nay, (faid Johnson,) it is the way to govern them. I know not whether it be the way to mend them.”

I talked of the recent expulfion of fix ftudents from the University of Oxford, who were methodists, and would not defift from publickly praying and exhorting. JOHNSON. " JOHNSON. "Sir, that expulfion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at an University who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt but at an University? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows." BOSWELL. "But, was it not hard, Sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?" JOHNSON. "Sir, I believe they might be good beings; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden." Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illuftration uncommonly happy.

Defirous of calling Johnson forth to talk, and exercife his wit, though I should myself be the object of it, I refolutely ventured to undertake the defence of convivial indulgence in wine, though he was not to-night in the Ccc

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Ætat. 63.

moft genial humour. After urging the common plaufible topicks, I at last had recourfe to the maxim, in vino veritas; a man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, that may be an argument for drinking, if you fuppofe men in general to be liars. But, Sir, I would not keep company with a fellow who lyes as long as he is fober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him "."

'Mr. Langton told us he was about to establish a school upon his eftate, but it had been fuggefted to him, that it might have a tendency to make the people lefs industrious. JOHNSON. "No, Sir. While learning to read and write is a diftinction, the few who have that diftinction may be the less inclined to work but when every body learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work; but if every body had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waistcoats. There are no people whatever more industrious, none who work more, than our manufacturers; yet they have all learnt to read and write. Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good, from fear of remote evil;-from fear of its being abufed. A man who has candles may fit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles; but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the fun gives us light, is a valuable art, and ought to be preferved." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, would it not be better to follow Nature; and go to bed and rise just as Nature gives us light or with-holds it?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir; for then we should have no kind of equality in the partition of our time between fleeping and waking. It would be very different in different seasons and in different places. In fome of the northern parts of Scotland how little light is there in the depth of winter!"

We talked of Tacitus, and I hazarded an opinion, that with all his merit for penetration, fhrewdnefs of judgement, and terfeness of expreffion, he was. too compact, too much broken into hints, as it were, and therefore too difficult to be understood. To my great fatisfaction Dr. Johnson fanctioned this opinion. "Tacitus, Sir, feems to me rather to have made notes for an hiftorical work, than to have written a history "."

5 Mrs. Piozzi, in her "Anecdotes,” p. 261, has given an erroneous account of this incident, as of many others. She pretends to relate it from recollection, as if she herself had been prefent; when the fact is, that it was communicated to her by me. She has reprefented it as a perfonality, and the true point has escaped her.

It is remarkable, that Lord Monboddo, whom on account of his refembling Dr. Johnfon in fome particulars, Foote called an Elzevir edition of him, has, by coincidence, made the very fame remark. Origin and Progrefs of Language, vol. iii. 2d edit. p. 219.

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