[485] See post, under Dec. 6, 1784.
[486] Id est, The Literary Scourge.
[487] See ante, ii. 236, where Johnson attacks 'the verbiage of Robertson.'
[488] 'We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such rigid philosophy, as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. The [That] man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.' Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks, the present respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration. BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 19, 1773, and Johnson's Works, ix. 145.
[489] 'He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning.' Ante, i. 218.
[490] In the original island.
[491] See ante, ii. 203, note 3.
[492] In this censure which has been carelessly uttered, I carelessly joined. But in justice to Dr. Kippis, who with that manly candid good temper which marks his character, set me right, I now with pleasure retract it; and I desire it may be particularly observed, as pointed out by him to me, that 'The new lives of dissenting Divines in the first four volumes of the second edition of the Biographia Brittanica, are those of John Abernethy, Thomas Amory, George Benson, Hugh Broughton the learned Puritan, Simon Browne, Joseph Boyse of Dublin, Thomas Cartwright the learned Puritan, and Samuel Chandler. The only doubt I have ever heard suggested is, whether there should have been an article of Dr. Amory. But I was convinced, and am still convinced, that he was entitled to one, from the reality of his learning, and the excellent and candid nature of his practical writings.
'The new lives of clergymen of the Church of England, in the same four volumes, are as follows: John Balguy, Edward Bentham, George Berkley Bishop of Cloyne, William Berriman, Thomas Birch, William Borlase, Thomas Bott, James Bradley, Thomas Broughton, John Brown, John Burton, Joseph Butler Bishop of Durham, Thomas Carte, Edmund Castell, Edmund Chishull, Charles Churchill, William Clarke, Robert Clayton Bishop of Clogher, John Conybeare Bishop of Bristol, George Costard, and Samuel Croxall.--"I am not conscious (says Dr. Kippis) of any partiality in conducting the work. I would not willingly insert a Dissenting Minister that does not justly deserve to be noticed, or omit an established Clergyman that does. At the same time, I shall not be deterred from introducing Dissenters into the Biographia, when I am satisfied that they are entitled to that distinction, from their writings, learning, and merit."'
Let me add that the expression 'A friend to the Constitution in Church and State,' was not meant by me, as any reflection upon this reverend gentleman, as if he were an enemy to the political constitution of his country, as established at the revolution, but, from my steady and avowed predilection for a Tory, was quoted from Johnson's Dictionary, where that distinction is so defined. BOSWELL. In his Dictionary a Tory is defined as 'one who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England.' It was on the Biographia Britannica that Cowper wrote the lines that end:--
'So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, The flame extinct he views the roving fire, There goes my lady, and there goes the squire, There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark, And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.'
Cowper's Works, viii. 320.
Horace Walpole said that the 'Biographia Britannica ought rather to be called Vindicatio Britannica, for that it was a general panegyric upon everybody.' Prior's Malone, p. 115.
[493] See ante, p. 99.
[494]
'Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.'
Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, 1, 163.
[495] Observations on Insanity, by Thomas Arnold, M.D., London, 1782. BOSWELL.
[496] We read in the Gospels, that those unfortunate persons who were possessed with evil spirits (which, after all, I think is the most probable cause of madness, as was first suggested to me by my respectable friend Sir John Pringle), had recourse to pain, tearing themselves, and jumping sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water.