58 JOHNSON. 



guilty of an atrocious crime, and some one ventured to 

 deny this strange assertion, Johnson immediately said, 

 " Sir, I agree with him : for the infidel would be guilty of 

 any crime if he were inclined to it." (Boswell, III. 52.) 

 His impatience of hearing any one commended 

 whose orthodoxy was suspected is well known ; but 

 when a person of known heterodox opinions was in ques- 

 tion, he broke through all bounds, and once being at Ox- 

 ford, in a company into which Dr. Price came, he in- 

 stantly got up and left the room. Dr. Price was at that 

 time only known by his Unitarian writings, and had pub- 

 lished nothing on politics, except his calculations touching 

 reversionary payments may be so considered. When 

 some years later he attended a course of chemical lec- 

 tures, in which of necessity Dr. Priestley's name was fre- 

 quently mentioned as a great discoverer, he knit his 

 brows, and said with a stern voice : " Why do we hear so 

 much of Dr. Priestley 1" It was necessary to pacify him 

 by stating, what, however, the lecturer must have before said, 

 that the discoveries were Dr. Priestley's. (Bos., IV. 251.) 

 His abhorrence of David Hume is well known, and his 

 grossly insulting Adam Smith, because he had in a pri- 

 vate letter, which was afterwards published without his 

 consent, described the death of the philosopher as calm 

 and cheerful, and his life as virtuous, has been often men- 

 tioned. He is said to have given him the lie at Glasgow, 

 in a company of literary men assembled for the purpose 

 of showing civility to the renowned English traveller; 

 but this anecdote cannot possibly be true."* It is certain, 



* It is related on the authority of Sir Walter Scott, a professed 

 dealer in curious stories, and not very nice in scrutinizing his autho- 

 rities. Johnson's visit to Scotland was in 1773 ; Hume died in ] 776. 



