fermon for thee,' faid Johnson, but thou must < pay me for it.'

Yet was he not fo indifferent to the subjects that he was requested to write on, as at any time to abandon either his religious or political principles. He would no more have put his name to an Arian or Socinian tract than to a defence of Atheism. At the time when Faction Detected' came out, a pamphlet of which the late lord Egmont is now generally understood to have been the author, Osborne the bookfeller, held out to him a ftrong temptation to anfwer it, which he refused, being convinced, as he affured me, that the charge contained in it was made good, and that the argument grounded thereon was unanswerable.

Indeed whoever perufes that mafterly performance must be convinced that a fpirit fimilar to that which induced the Ifraelites, when under the conduct of their wife legiflator, to cry out Ye take too much upon ye,' is the most frequent motive to oppofition, and that whoever hopes to govern a free people by reafon, is miftaken in his judgment of human nature. 'He,' says Hooker, that goeth about to persuade a people that

they are not well governed, fhall never want attentive ⚫ and favourable hearers:' and the fame author fpeaking of legiflation in general, delivers this as his fentiment: Laws politic ordained for external order and

regimen amongst men are never framed as they 'fhould be, unless prefuming the will of man to be obftinate, rebellious and averfe from all obedience unto the facred laws of his nature: In a word, unless prefuming man, in regard of his depraved mind, little ⚫ better than a wild beaft, they do accordingly provide, notwithstanding, fo to frame his outward actions as that they be no hindrance unto the common good,

for which focieties were inftituted. Unless they do this they are not perfect.' Ecclef. Pol. Lib. I. Sect. 1. Ibid. Sect. 10.

That these were the fentiments of Johnfon alfo, I am warranted to fay, by frequent declarations to the fame purpofe, which I have heard him make; and to these I attribute it, that he ever after acquiefced in the measures of government through the fucceffion of adminiftrations.

It has already been mentioned in the account above given of Savage, that the friends of that ill-ftarred man had fet on foot a subscription for his fupport, and that Swanfea was the place they had fixed on for his refidence: the fame was completed at the end of the year 1739. Johnfon at that time lodged at Greenwich, and there parted with that friend and companion of his midnight rambles, whom it was never his fortune again to fee. The event is antedated in the poem of London;' but in every particular, except the difference of a year, what is there faid of the departure of Thales muft be understood of Savage, and looked upon as true hiftory. In his life of Savage, Johnson has mentioned the circumftances that attended it, and deplored this feparation as he would have done a greater misfortune than it proved: that it was, in reality, none, may be inferred from Savage's inability, arifing from his circumftances, his courfe of life, and the laxity of his mind, to do good to any one: it is rather to be fufpected that his example was contagious, and tended to confirm Johnfon in his indolence and thofe other evil habits which it was the labour of his life to conquer. They who were witnesses of Johnfon's perfevering temperance in the article of drinking, for, at leaft, the latter half of his life, wili fcarcely believe that, during

part

part of the former, he was a lover of wine, that he not only indulged himself in the use of it when he could procure it, but, with a reflex delight, contemplated the act of drinking it, with all the circumftances that render it grateful to the palate or pleasing to the eye: in the language of Solomon he looked upon the wine <when it was red, when it gave his colour in the cup,

and when it moved itself aright*.' In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him affert, that a tavern-chair was the throne of human felicity. As foon,' said he, as I ⚫ enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion ' of care, and a freedom from folicitudet: when I am 'feated, I find the mafter courteous, and the fervants obfequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to fupply my wants: wine there exhilarates my fpirits, ⚫ and prompts me to free conversation and an inter⚫ change of difcourfe with those whom I most love: < I dogmatife and am contradicted, and in this con'flict of opinions and fentiments I find delight.'

Proverbs, chap. xxiii. ver. 31.

How

It is worthy of remark by thofe who are curious in obferving cuftoms and modes of living, how little the fe houfes of entertainment are now frequented, and what a diminution in their number has been experienced in London and Westminster in a period of about forty years backward. The history of taverns in this country may be traced back to the time of Henry IV. for fo ancient is that of the Boar's Head in Eaftcheap, the rendezvous of Prince Henry and his lewd companions, as we learn from Shakespeare. Of little lefs antiquity is the White Hart without Bishop's-gate, which now bears in the front of it the date of its erection, 1480.

Anciently there ftood in Old Palace-yard, Weftminster, a tavern known by the fign of the White Rofe, the fymbol of the York faction. It was near the chapel of our Lady behind the high altar

How far his converfations with Savage might induce him thus to delight in tavern-fociety, which is often a temptation to greater enormities than exceffive drinking, cannot now be known, nor would it anfwer any good purpose to enquire. It may, nevertheless, be conjectured, that whatever habits he had contracted of idlenefs, neglect of his perfon, or indifference in the choice of his company, received no correction or check from fuch an example as Savage's conduct held forth; and farther it is conjectured, that he would have been lefs troubled with thofe reflections, which, in his latest hours, are known to have given him uncafinefs, had he never become acquainted with one fo loofe in his morals, and fo well acquainted with the vices of the town as this man appears to have been. We are to remember that Johnfon was, at this time, a husband: can it therefore be fuppofed that the fociety of fuch a man as Savage had any tendency to improve him in the exercife of the of the abbey-church. Together with that chapel it was, in 1503, pulled down, and on the fcite of both was erected the chapel of Henry the Seventh. At the refloration, the Cavaliers and other adherents to the royal party, for joy of that event were for a time inceffantly drunk; and from a picture of their manners in Cowley's comedy, Cutter of Coleman- ftreet, must be fuppofed to have greatly contributed to the increase of taverns. When the frenzy of the times was abated, taverns, especially those about the Exchange, became places for the tranfaction of almost all manner of bufinefs there accounts were fettled, conveyances executed, and there attornies fat, as at inns in the country on market days, to receive their clients. In that space near the Royal Exchange which is encompaffed by Lombard, Gracechurch, part of Bishop'sgate and Threadneedle streets, the number of taverns was not so few as twenty, and on the feite of the Bank there ftood four. At the Crown, which was one of them, it was not unusual in a morning to draw a butt of mountain, a hundred and twenty gallons, in gills.

domeftic

domestic virtues? nay rather we must doubt it, and ascribe to an indifference in the discharge of them, arifing from their nocturnal excurfions, the incident of a temporary feparation of Johnfon from his wife, which foon took place, and that, while he was in a lodging in Fleet-ftreet, fhe was harboured by a friend near the Tower. It is true that this feparation continued but a short time, and that if indeed his affection, atthat inftant, was alienated from her, it soon returned; for his attachment to her appears, by a variety of notes and memorandums concerning her in books that she was accustomed to read in, now in my cuftody, to have been equal to what it ought to be: nay Garrick would often rifque offending them both, by mimicking his mode of gallantry and his uxorious behaviour towards her.

The little profit, or indeed reputation, that accrued to Johnson by the writing of political pamphlets, led him to think of other exercifes for his pen. He had, fo early as 1734, folicited employment of Cave; but Cave's correfpondents were fo numerous that he had little for him till the beginning of the year 1738, when Johnson conceived a thought of enriching the Magazine with a biographical article, and wrote for it the Life of Father Paul, an abridgment, as it feems to be, of that life of him which Johnfon intended to have prefixed to his tranflation of the Hiftory of the Council of Trent. The motive to this and other exertions of the fame talent in the lives of Boerhaave, Blake, Barretier, and other eminent perfons, was his wants, which at one time were fo preffing as to induce him in a letter to Cave, hereinbefore inferted, to intimate to him that he wanted a dinner.

Johnfon