The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol 2 | Page 3

of King James I. of Scotland.
Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which
he furnished to Goldsmith's Deserted Village, which are only the last
four:
'That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the
labour'd mole away: While self-dependent power can time defy, As
rocks resist the billows and the sky.'

Talking of education, 'People have now a days, (said he,) got a strange
opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see
that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the
lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by
lectures[17], except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach
chymistry by lectures.--You might teach making of shoes by
lectures[18]!'
At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our
social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a
considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in
which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period,
continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade[19].
I told him that a foreign friend of his[20], whom I had met with abroad,
was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of
immortality with brutal levity; and said, 'As man dies like a dog, let
him lie like a dog.' JOHNSON. 'If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a
dog.' I added, that this man said to me, 'I hate mankind, for I think
myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of
the best of men; for none of his friends think him so.'--He said, 'no
honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair
examination of the proofs of Christianity.' I named Hume[21].
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of
Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention.' I
mentioned Hume's notion[22], that all who are happy are equally happy;
a little miss with a new gown at a dancing school ball, a general at the
head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an eloquent
speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON. 'Sir, that all who are happy, are
equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally
satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity
of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal
happiness with a philosopher.' I remember this very question very
happily illustrated in opposition to Hume, by the Reverend Mr. Robert
Brown[23], at Utrecht. 'A small drinking-glass and a large one, (said
he,) may be equally full; but the large one holds more than the small.'

Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me, 'You have now
lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well.' 'Alas,
Sir, (said I,) I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematicks?
Do I know law?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, though you may know no
science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to
be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men
renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit
yourself for any profession.' I mentioned that a gay friend had advised
me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding
block-heads. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part
of law, a plodding block-head may excel; but in the ingenious and
rational part of it a plodding block-head can never excel.'
I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting
great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it.
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court
them. You may be prudently attached to great men and yet independent.
You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate,
and not pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling's
worth of court for six-pence worth of good. But if you can get a
shilling's worth of good for six-pence worth of court, you are a fool if
you do not pay court[24].'
He said, 'If convents should be allowed at all, they should only be
retreats for persons unable to serve the publick, or who have served it.
It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we
may attend