tholic religion. JOHNSON. "In the barbarous ages, sir, priests and people were equally deceived; but afterwards, there were gross corruptions introduced by the clergy; such as indulgences to priests to have concubines, and the worship of images, not, indeed, inculcated, but knowingly permitted." He strongly censured the licensed stews at Rome. BOSWELL. "So then, sir, you would allow of no irregular intercourse whatever between the sexes ?" JOHNSON, "To be sure I would not, sir: I would punish it much more than it is done, and so restrain it. In all countries there has been fornication, as in all countries there has been theft; but there may be more or less of the one as well as of the other, in proportion to the force of law. All men will naturally commit fornication, as all men will naturally steal: and, sir, it is very absurd to argue, as has been often done, that prostitutes are necessary to prevent the violent effects of appetite from violating the decent order of life; nay, should be permitted, in order to preserve the chastity of our wives and daughters. Depend upon it, sir, severe laws, steadily enforced, would be sufficient against those evils, and would promote marriage."

Boswell talked of the recent expulsion of six students from the university of Oxford, who were methodists, and would not desist from publicly praying and exhorting. JOHNSON. "Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at an university, who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt but at an university? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows." BOSWELL. "But, was it not hard, sir, to expel them?

for I am told they were good beings." JOHNSON. "I believe they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the university of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden." Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy.

No. XVII.

FREE WILL.

DR. MAYO, (addressing Dr. Johnson) "Pray, sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on Grace?” JOHNSON. "No, sir." BOSWELL. "It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it." MAYO. "But he makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity." Boswell. "Alas, sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears. The argument for the moral necessity of human actions is always, I observe, fortified by supposing universal prescience to be one of the attributes of the Deity." JOHNSON. "You are surer that you are free, than you are of prescience; you are surer that you can lift up your finger or not as you please, than you are of any conclusion from a deduction of reasoning. But let us consider a little the objection from prescience. It is certain I am either to go home to-night or not that does not prevent my freedom."

BOSWELL." That it is certain you are either to go home or not, does not prevent your freedom ; because the liberty of choice between the two is compatible with that certainty. But if one of these events be certain now, you have no future power of volition. If it be certain you are to go home tonight, you must go home." JOHNSON. "If I am well acquainted with a man, I can judge, with great probability, how he will act in any case, without his being restrained by my judging. God may have this probability increased to certainty." BOSWELL. "When it is increased to certainty, freedom ceases; because that cannot be certainly known which is not certain at the time: but if it be certain at the time, it is a contradiction in terms to maintain that there can be afterwards any contingency dependent upon the exercise of the will, or any thing else." JOHNSON. "All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it."

BOSWELL introduced the subject of second sight, and other mysterious manifestations; the fulfilment of which, he suggested, might happen by chance. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, but they have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous."

Mrs. Williams told a story of second sight, which happened in Wales, where she was born.-He listened to it very attentively, and said he should be

glad to have some instances of that faculty well authenticated. His elevated wish for more and more evidence for spirit, in opposition to the grovelling belief of materialism, led him to a love of such mysterious disquisitions. He again justly ob served, that we could have no certainty of the truth of supernatural appearances, unless something was told us which we could not know by ordinary means, or something done which could not be done but by supernatural power: that Pharaoh, in reason and justice, required such evidence from Moses; nay, that our Saviour said, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin." He had said in the morning, that Macaulay's History of St. Kilda was very well written, except some foppery about liberty and slavery. Boswell mentioned to him, that Macaulay told him, he was advised to leave out of his book the wonderful story, that upon the approach of a stranger all the inhabitants catch cold; but that it had been so well authenticated, he determined to retain it. JOHNSON. "Sir, to leave things out of a book, merely because people tell you they will not be believed, is meanness. Macaulay acted with more magnanimity."

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On a former occasion, Johnson had said, Macaulay, who writes the account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudice, and wanted to be a smart modern thiuker; and yet he affirms for a truth, that when a ship arrives there, all the inhabitants are seized with a cold."

Dr. John Campbell, the celebrated writer, took a great deal of pains to ascertain this fact, and attempted to account for it on physical principles,

from the effect of effluvia from human bodies. A lady of Norfolk, in a letter to Dr. Burney, mentions the following solution of it: "Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious, as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the author. Reading the book with my ingenious friend, the late reverend Mr. Christian, of Docking-after ruminating a little, The cause,' says he, is a natural one. The situation of St. Kilda renders a north-east wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemic cold!' If I am not mistaken, Mr. Macaulay is dead; if living, this solution might please him, as I hope it will Mr. Boswell, in return for the many agreeable hours his works have afforded us."

Of John Wesley, he said, "He can talk well on any subject." BOSWELL. "Pray, sir, what has he made of his story of a ghost?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, he believes it; but not on sufficient authority. He did not take time enough to examine the girl. It was at Newcastle, where the ghost was said to have appeared to a young woman several times, mentioning something about the right to an old house, advising application to be made to an attor ney, which was done; and, at the same time, saying the attorney would do nothing, which proved to be the fact. 'This,' says John, is a proof that a ghost knows our thoughts.' Now (laughing) it is not necessary to know our thoughts, to tell that an attorney will sometimes do nothing. Charles Wesley, who is a more stationary man, does not believe the story. I am sorry that John did not take