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There was a poem called 'Eugenio,' which came out fome years ago, and concluded thus:

And now, ye trifling felf-affuming elves,

• Brimful of pride, of nothing, of yourselves,
Survey Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er,
Then fink into yourselves, and be no more.'

Nay, Dryden in his poem on the Royal Society, has these lines:

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Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,

And fee the ocean leaning on the sky;

< From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world fecurely pry."

Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that fpecies of wit, deigned to allow that there was one good pun in "Menagiana," I think on the word corps.

Much pleasant conversation paffed, which Johnson relished with great good humour. But his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work.

On Saturday, May 1, we dined by ourselves at our old rendezvous, the Mitre tavern. He was placid, but not much disposed to talk. He observed, that "The Irish mix better with the English than the Scotch do; their language is nearer to English; as a proof of which, they fucceed very well as players, which Scotchmen do not. Then, Sir, they have not that extreme nationality which we find in the Scotch. I will do you, Bofwell, the justice to say, that you are the most unfcottified of your countrymen. You are almost the only inftance of a Scotchman that I have known, who did not at every other sentence bring in fome other Scotchman."

We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I introduced a queftion which has been much agitated in the Church of Scotland, whether the claim of lay-patrons to present ministers to parishes be well founded; and fuppofing it to be well founded, whether it ought to be exercifed without the concurrence of the people? That Church is compofed of a series of judicatures: a Presbytery,— a Synod,—and, finally, a General Affembly; before all of which, this matter may be contended: and in fome cafes the Prefbytery having refused to induct or fettle, as they call it, the perfon prefented by the patron, it has been found neceffary to appeal to the General Affembly. He said, I might see the subject

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Etat. 64.

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well treated in the "Defence of Pluralities;" and although he thought that a Etat. 64. patron fhould exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right. Then fuppofing the question to be pleaded before the General Affembly, he dictated to me what follows: "AGAINST the right of patrons is commonly oppofed, by the inferiour judicatures, the plea of confcience. Their confcience tells them, that the people ought to choose their paftor; their confcience tells them that they ought not to impose upon a congregation a minister ungrateful and unacceptable to his auditors. Confcience is nothing more than a conviction felt by ourfelves of fomething to be done, or fomething to be avoided; and, in questions of fimple unperplexed morality, confcience is very often a guide that may be trufted. But before conscience can determine, the state of the question is fuppofed to be completely known. In queftions of law, or of fact, conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's confcience can tell him the rights of another man: they must be known by rational investigation or historical enquiry. Opinion, which he that holds it may call his confcience, may teach fome men that religion would be promoted, and quiet preferved, by granting to the people univerfally the choice of their minifters. But it is a confcience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another. Religion cannot be promoted by injuftice: and it was never yet found that a popular election was very quietly transacted.

"That juftice would be violated by transferring to the people the right of patronage, is apparent to all who know whence that right had its original. The right of patronage was not at firft a privilege torne by power from unrefifting poverty. It is not an authority at firft ufurped in times of ignorance, and established only by fucceffion and by precedents. It is not a grant capriciously made from a higher tyrant to a lower. It is a right dearly purchased by the first poffeffors, and juftly inherited by thofe that fucceeded them. When Christianity was established in this island, a regular mode of publick worship was prescribed. Publick worship requires a publick place; and the proprietors of lands, as they were converted, built churches for their families and their vaffals. For the maintenance of minifters, they fettled a certain portion of their lands; and a district, through which each minifter was required to extend his care, was, by that circumfcription, conftituted a parish. This is a pofition fo generally received in England, that the extent of a manor and of a parish are regularly received for each other. The churches which the proprietors of lands had thus built and thus endowed, they justly thought themfelves entitled to provide with minifters; and where the epifcopal govern

ment prevails, the Bishop has no power to reject a man nominated by the 1773. patron, but for fome crime that might exclude him from the priesthood. Atat. 64. For the endowment of the church being the gift of the landlord, he was consequently at liberty to give it according to his choice, to any man capable of performing the holy offices. The people did not choose him, because the people did not pay him.

"We hear it fometimes urged, that this original right is paffed out of memory, and is obliterated and obfcured by many translations of property and changes of government; that scarce any church is now in the hands of the heirs of the builders; and that the present perfons have entered fubfequently upon the pretended rights by a thousand accidental and unknown caufes. Much of this, perhaps, is true. But how is the right of patronage extinguished? If the right followed the lands, it is poffeffed by the fame equity by which the lands are poffeffed. It is, in effect, part of the manor, and protected by the fame laws with every other privilege. Let us fuppofe an eftate forfeited by treason, and granted by the Crown to a new family. With the lands were forfeited all the rights appendant to those lands; by the fame power that grants the lands, the rights alfo are granted. The right loft to the patron falls not. to the people, but is either retained by the Crown, or, what to the people is the fame thing, is by the Crown given away. Let it change hands ever fo often, it is poffeffed by him that receives it with the fame right as it was conveyed. It may, indeed, like all our poffeffions, be forcibly feized or fraudulently obtained. But no injury is ftill done to the people; for what they never had, they have never loft. Caius may ufurp the right of Titius; but neither Caius nor Titius injure the people: and no man's confcience, however tender or however active, can prompt him to restore what may be proved to have been never taken away. Suppofing, what I think cannot be proved, that a popular election of minifters were to be defired, our defires are not the measure of equity. It were to be defired that power fhould be only in the hands of the merciful, and riches in the poffeffion of the generous; but the law must leave both riches and power where it finds them; and must often leave riches with the covetous, and power with the cruel. Convenience may be a rule in little things, where no other rule has been established. But as the great end of government is to give every man his own, no inconvenience is greater than that of making right uncertain. Nor is any man more an enemy to publick peace, than he who fills weak heads with imaginary claims, and breaks the feries of civil fubordination, by inciting the lower claffes of mankind to encroach upon the higher.

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"Having

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"Having thus fhewn that the right of patronage, being originally purchased, Etat. 64. may be legally transferred, and that it is now in the hands of lawful poffeffors, at least as certainly as any other right, we have left to the advocates of the people no other plea than that of convenience. Let us, therefore, now confider what the people would really gain by a general abolition of the right of patronage. What is most to be defired by fuch a change is, that the country. fhould be fupplied with better minifters. But why fhould we fuppofe that the parish will make a wifer choice than the patron? If we suppose mankind. actuated by intereft, the patron is more likely to choose with caution, because he will fuffer more by choofing wrong. By the deficiencies of his minister, or by his vices, he is equally offended with the reft of the congregation; but he will have this reafon more to lament them, that they will be imputed to his abfurdity or corruption. The qualifications of a minifter are well known to be learning and piety. Of his learning the patron is probably the only judge in the parish; and of his piety not less a judge than others; and is more likely to inquire minutely and diligently before he gives a prefentation, than one of the parochial rabble, who can give nothing but a vote. It may be urged, that: though the parish might not choose better ministers, they would at least choose ministers whom they like better, and who would therefore officiate with greater efficacy. That ignorance and perverfenefs fhould always obtain what they like, was never confidered as the end of government; of which it is the great and standing benefit, that the wife fee for the fimple, and the regular act for the capricious. But that this argument fuppofes the people capable of judging, and refolute to act according to their beft judgements, though this be fufficiently abfurd, is not all its abfurdity. It fuppofes not only wisdom, but unanimity in thofe, who upon no other occafions are unanimous or wife. If by fome ftrange concurrence all the voices of a parifh fhould unite in the choice of any fingle man, though I could not charge the patron with injustice for presenting a minifter, I fhould cenfure him as unkind and injudicious. But, it is evident, that as in all other popular elections there will be contrariety of judgement and acrimony of paffion, a parish upon every vacancy. would break into factions, and the conteft for the choice of a minifter would fet neighbours at variance and bring difcord into families. The minister would be taught all the arts of a candidate, would flatter fome and bribe others ;and the electors, as in all other cafes, would call for holidays and ale, and break the heads of each other during the jollity of the canvas. The time must, however, come at laft, when one of the factions must prevail, and one of the minifters get poffeffion of the church. On what terms does he enter

upon

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upon his ministry but those of enmity with half his parish? By what prudence or what diligence can he hope to conciliate the affections of that party by whofe Etat. 64. defeat he has obtained his living? Every man who voted againft him will enter the church with hanging head and downcaft eyes, afraid to encounter that neighbour by whofe vote and influence he has been overpowered. He will hate his neighbour for oppofing him, and his minifter for having profpered by the oppofition; and, as he will never see him but with pain, he will never fee him but with hatred. Of a minifter prefented by the patron, the parish has feldom any thing worse to say than that they do not know him. Of a minister chosen by a popular conteft, all those who do not favour him have nurfed up in their bofoms principles of hatred and reasons of rejection. Anger is excited principally by pride. The pride of a common man is very little exafperated by the fuppofed ufurpation of an acknowledged fuperiour. He bears only his little share of a general evil, and fuffers in common with the whole parish but when the contest is between equals, the defeat has many aggravations; and he that is defeated by his next neighbour is feldom fatisfied without fome revenge: and it is hard to fay what bitterness of malignity would prevail in a parish where thefe elections should happen to be frequent, and the enmity of oppofition fhould be re-kindled before it had cooled."

Though I prefent to my readers Dr. Johnson's masterly thoughts on this fubject, I think it proper to declare, that notwithstanding I am myself a laypatron, I do not entirely fubfcribe to his opinion.

On Friday, May 7, I breakfafted with him at Mr. Thrale's in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavoured as well as I could to apologise for a lady who had been divorced from her husband by act of parliament. I faid, that he had used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she could not continue to live with him without having her delicacy contaminated; that all affection for him was thus deftroyed; that the effence of conjugal union being gone, there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation; that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be loft; and, that the gentleman on whose account fhe was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily fituated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was fenfible could not be juftified; for, when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check: "My dear Sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and there's an end on't."

He

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