204 



JOHNSON. 



Johnson, of the British government, which he said was the most 

 fe.mu-t. detestable mode of persecution. To a. gentleman who 

 **~~1~~' hinted that such policy might be necessary to support 

 the authority of the English government, he replied by 

 saying, " Let the authority of the English government 

 perish, rather than be maintained by iniquity. Better 

 would it be to restrain the turbulence of the natives by 

 the authority of the sword, and to make them amena- 

 ble to law and justice by an effectual and vigorous po- 

 lice, than, by an unrelenting persecution, to beggar and 

 starve them." 



In 1771, he published another political pamphlet, 

 entitled, Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting 

 Falkland's Islands, in which, upon materials furnished 

 to him by ministry, and upon general topics, expanded 

 in his rich style, he successfully endeavoured to per- 

 suade the nation that it was wise and laudable to suf- 

 fer the question of right to remain, undecided, rather 

 than involve our country in another war. It has been 

 suggested by some, that he rated the importance of 

 those islands to Great Britain too low. However this 

 may be, his earnestness to avert the calamities of war, 

 and his eloquent description of its miseries, cannot be 

 over-praised. 



Mr. Strahan the printer, who was himself a member 

 of Parliament, and who loved much to be employed in 

 political negotiation, thought he should do eminent ser- 

 vice both to government and to Johnson, if he could 

 be the means of his getting a seat in the House of Com- 

 mons. With this view he wrote a strong recommen- 

 dation of our author to one of the secretaries of the 

 Treasury ; but, for reasons that are not well known, 

 the ministry did not take up his suggestion. It was 

 much agitated among his friends and admirers, whe- 

 ther, if he had obtained a seat in Parliament, he would 

 have distinguished himself in debate. Had he entered 

 the house at an early period of life, there can hardly be 

 a doubt that his knowledge and eloquence would have 

 commanded in the legislature a similar esteem to that 

 which they possessed in literature, but his own ac- 

 knowledgment that he had tried several times to speak 

 in the Society of Arts and Sciences, but that all his 

 flowers of oratory forsook him, render it probable that 

 he was too far advanced in age to commence the prac- 

 tice of public oratory. Eminence in parliamentary elo- 

 quence, in the ablest individuals, has been almost in all 

 instances gradual, and the result of training and ex- 

 perience. 



His pamphlet, entitled the Patriot, in 177*, was com- 

 posed on the eve of a general election, in order to in- 

 dispose the people against the oppositionists ; but the 

 strongest display of his political bigotry, was reserved 

 for his production, entitled, Taxation no Tyranny, which 

 was meant as an answer to the declaration of the Ame- 

 rican congress, relative to the claims of Great Britain. 

 Long before this time he had indulged most unfavour- 

 able sentiments of our fellow subjects in America. 

 " They are a race of convicts," he said to Dr. John 

 Campbell, " and ought to have been thankful for any 

 thing we allow them short of hanging." In this 

 pamphlet on the right of Britain to tax America, there 

 is not even acuteness of sophistry, far less any thing 

 deserving the name of argument. Positive assertion, 

 sarcastical severity, and extravagant ridicule, which he 

 himself reprobated as a test, composed the rhapsody. 

 Ministers themselves thought it decent to retrench some 

 of the absurdities which he put to press in defence of 

 their cause. They struck out, v by his own confes ion, 

 one passage to the following effect: " That the colo- 

 nists could with no solidity argue from their not having 



been taxed while in their infancy, that they should not Johmon, 

 now be taxed ; we do not put a calf into the plough, , Samu?l. 

 we wait until he is an ox* He said, " tliey struck it 

 out cither critically as too ludicrous, oV politically as too 

 exasperating; 1 care not which. It mas their business." 

 Dr. Johnson here speaks of his labours in a light that 

 is not far from venal. 



A tour to the Western Islands of Scotland in 1773, 

 in which he was accompanied by Mr. Boswell, forms a 

 remarkable and entertaining incident in his life. His 

 stay in Scotland was from the 18th of August, in which 

 he arrived, till the 22d of November, when he set out 

 on his return to London. He came by way of Ber- 

 wick- upon-Tweed to Edinburgh, where h.e remained a 

 few days, and then went by St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, 

 Inverness, and Fort Augustus, to the Hebrides, the 

 principal object of his tour. He visited the isles of 

 Sky, Raasay, Coll,- Mull, Inchkenneth, and Icolmkill. 

 He then travelled through Ayrshire by Inverary, and 

 from thence by Lochlomond and Dumbarton to Glas- 

 gow, then by Loudon to Auchinleck, in Ayrshire, the 

 seat of Boswell's family, and by Hamilton back to Edin- 

 burgh, where he again spent some time. He thus saw 

 the four universities of Scotland, its three principal ci- 

 ties, and as much of the Highland and insular life as 

 was sufficient for his philosophical contemplation. 

 Among his prejudices, a strong antipathy to the na- 

 tives of Scotland in general, had long been conspicu- 

 ous, and this journey exhibited many instances of his 

 contempt for their learning and abhorrence of their re- 

 ligion. When he published, however, the account of 

 his tour, two years afterwards, more candour and im- 

 partiality was found in it than had been expected ; and 

 to the praise which is justly due to the elegance and 

 vivacity of his descriptions, it may be added, that the 

 Scotch were indebted to him, in some instances, for his 

 repre'hension of customs and peculiarities from which 

 they have since departed. Prejudiced as he was, he 

 often made a fair war upon Scottish prejudices; and 

 though a sloven, he made some just remarks on the 

 sloth and discomforts that retard civilization. On one 

 subject he gave more offence to the national feelings 

 than truth and candour will permit us to sympathize 

 with. Our Celtic scholars have never proved the au- 

 thenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian, and John, 

 son sturdily denied them to be authentic. If the advo- 

 cates for the authenticity of the Gaelic poems had con- 

 fined their pretensions to a few fragments, or to any 

 moderate ideas of their antiquity, the cause might have 

 admitted of a dispute ; but when they supported Mac- 

 pherson's imaginary date of the third century, and the 

 existence of an entire epic poem, the sarcasms of John- 

 son's incredulity had their full force. 



In the month of March 1775, he was gratified by the 

 title of Doctor of Laws conferred on him by the uni- 

 versity of Oxford, at the solicitation of Lord North. 

 In September, he visited France, for the first time, with 

 Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and Mr. Baretti. His journey 

 did not occupy more than two months. Foote, who 

 happened to be at Paris at the same time, said, that the 

 French were perfectly astonished at his figure and 

 manner, and at his dress, which was exactly the same 

 with what he was accustomed to in London, his brown 

 clothes, black stockings, and plain shirt. Of the oc- 

 currences of this tour it is probable that he kept a 

 journal, though unfortunately he never perfected it, 

 from want of leisure or inclination. In the preceding 

 year he had also made a journey into Wales ; but 

 Wales, he observed, is so little different from England, 

 that it offers nothing to the speculation of the traveller. 



4 



