By this concession he will at once terminate the only two differences that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.' Ib ii. 506. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his Diary in 1827:--'I finished the review of John Home's works, which, after all, are poorer than I thought them. Good blank verse, and stately sentiment, but something luke-warmish, excepting Douglas, which is certainly a masterpiece. Even that does not stand the closet. Its merits are for the stage; and it is certainly one of the best acting plays going.' Lockhart's Scott, ix. 100.
[938] Sheridan, says Mr. S. Whyte (Miscellanea Nova, p. 45), brought out Douglas at the Dublin Theatre. The first two nights it had great success. The third night was as usual to be the author's. It had meanwhile got abroad that he was a clergyman. This play was considered a profanation, a faction was raised, and the third night did not pay its expenses. It was Whyte who suggested that, by way of consolation, Sheridan should give Home a gold medal. The inscription said that he presented it to him 'for having enriched the stage with a perfect tragedy.' Whyte took the medal to London. When he was close at his journey's end, 'I was,' he writes, 'stopped by highwaymen, and preserved the medal by the sacrifice of my purse at the imminent peril of my life.'
[939]
'No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims, Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames.'
The Nonjuror was 'a comedy thrashed out of Moliere's Tartuffe.' The Dunciad, i. 253.
[940] See post, June 9, 1784; also Macaulay's England, ch. xiv. (ed. 1874, v. 94), for remarks on what Johnson here says.
[941] See ante, i. 318, where his name is spelt Madden.
[942] This was not merely a cursory remark; for in his Life of Fenton he observes, 'With many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time of discord and debate (about the beginning of this century) consulted conscience [whether] well or ill informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government; and refusing to qualify himself for publick employment, by taking the oaths [by the oaths] required, left the University without a degree.' This conduct Johnson calls 'perverseness of integrity.' [Johnson's Works, viii. 54.
The question concerning the morality of taking oaths, of whatever kind, imposed by the prevailing power at the time, rather than to be excluded from all consequence, or even any considerable usefulness in society, has been agitated with all the acuteness of casuistry. It is related, that he who devised the oath of abjuration, profligately boasted, that he had framed a test which should 'damn one half of the nation, and starve the other.' Upon minds not exalted to inflexible rectitude, or minds in which zeal for a party is predominant to excess, taking that oath against conviction may have been palliated under the plea of necessity, or ventured upon in heat, as upon the whole producing more good than evil.
At a county election in Scotland, many years ago, when there was a warm contest between the friends of the Hanoverian succession, and those against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one side rose to go away. Upon which a very sanguine gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to stop them, calling out with much earnestness, 'Stay, stay, my friends, and let us swear the rogues out of it!' BOSWELL. Johnson, writing of the oaths required under the Militia Bill of 1756, says:--'The frequent imposition of oaths has almost ruined the morals of this unhappy nation, and of a nation without morals it is of small importance who shall be king.' Lit. Mag. 1756, i. 59.
[943] Dr. Harwood sent me the following extract from the book containing the proceedings of the corporation of Lichfield: '19th July, 1712. Agreed that Mr. Michael Johnson be, and he is hereby elected a magistrate and brother of their incorporation; a day is given him to Thursday next to take the oath of fidelity and allegiance, and the oath of a magistrate. Signed, &c.'--'25th July, 1712. Mr. Johnson took the oath of allegiance and that he believed there was no transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper before, &c.'--CROKER.
[944] A parody on Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2.
[945] Lord Southampton asked Bishop Watson of Llandaff 'how he was to bring up his son so as to make him get forwards in the world. "I know of but one way," replied the Bishop; "give him parts and poverty." "Well then," replied Lord S., "if God has given him parts, I will manage as to the poverty."' H. C. Robinson's Diary, i. 337. Lord Eldon said that Thurlow promised to give him a post worth about L160 a year, but he never did. 'In after life,' said Eldon, 'I inquired of him why he had not fulfilled his promise. His answer was curious:--"It would have been your ruin. Young men are very apt to be content when they get something to live upon; so when I saw what you were made of, I determined to break my promise to make you work;" and I dare say he was right, for there is nothing does a young lawyer so much good as to be half starved.' Twiss's Eldon, i.