"residence and tyranny ; but surely the insolence "of such bargains is more offensive than the "avowed and open dominion of force. What re"ward can induce the possessor of a country to "admit a stranger more powerful than himself? "Fraud or terror must operate in such contracts; "either they promised protection which they never "have afforded, or instruction which they never "imparted.' We hope to be secured by their "favour from some other evil, or to learn the arts "of Europe, by which we might be able to secure "ourselves. Their power they never have exerted "in our defence, and their arts they have studi"ously concealed from us. Their treaties are "only to deceive, and their traffick only to defraud us. They have a written law among them, of "which they boast as derived from Him who "made the earth and sea, and by which they pro"fess to believe that man will be made happy "when life shall forsake him. Why is not this law "communicated to us ?2 It is concealed because it

1 Johnson in his Observations on the State of Affairs in 1756, had said:"Some colonies indeed have been established more peaceably than others. The utmost extremity of wrong has not always been practised; but those that have settled in the new world on the fairest terms have no other merit than that of a scrivener who ruins in silence over a plunderer that seizes by force."-Johnson's Works, vi. 115.

2 "To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with any purposes that terminate on this side of the grave, is a crime of which I know not that the world has yet had an example, except in the practice of the planters of America-a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble." -Boswell's Johnson, ii. 27.

"is violated. For how can they preach it to an "Indian nation, when I am told that one of its "first precepts forbids them to do to others "what they would not that others should do "to them?

"But the time perhaps is now approaching "when the pride of usurpation shall be crushed, "and the cruelties of invasion shall be revenged. "The sons of rapacity have now drawn their "swords upon each other, and referred their "claims to the decision of war1; let us look un"concerned upon the slaughter, and remember "that the death of every European delivers the 66 country from a tyrant and a robber2; for what is "the claim of either nation, but the claim of the " vulture to the leveret, of the tiger to the fawn? "Let them then continue to dispute their title to "regions which they cannot people, to purchase 66 by danger and blood the empty dignity of do"minion over mountains which they will never "climb, and rivers which they will never pass. "Let us endeavour, in the mean time, to learn "their discipline, and to forge their weapons; "and, when they shall be weakened with mutual "slaughter, let us rush down upon them,

1 Johnson, writing of the war between the English and the French in America, had said :-"Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily wish success to either party.

The American dispute between the French and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger."Johnson's Works, vi. 114, 5.

2

"Tyrants fall in every foe."

-Burns, Scots wha hae, etc.

"force their remains to take shelter in their

46

ships, and reign once more in our native country."

112

No. 83. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17,

SIR,

1759.

To the IDLER.

SUPPOSE you have forgotten that many weeks ago I promised to send you an account of my companions at the Wells. You would not deny me a place among the most faithful votaries of idleness, if you knew how often I have recollected my engagement, and contented myself to delay the performance for some reason which I durst not examine, because I knew it to be false; how often I have sat down to write, and rejoiced at interruption; and how often I have praised the dignity of resolution, determined at night to write in the

1 The only instances given in Johnson's Dictionary of remains in the plural are in the sense of the body left by the soul.

2 The news of Wolfe's conquest of Quebec and of his death on the Heights of Abraham had reached England scarcely more than a fortnight before this paper was published. Horace Walpole had written on October 21 :-" Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories."Walpole's Letters, iii. 259. Johnson was on one side, the English nation on the other.

"Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni."

morning, and referred it in the morning to the quiet hours of night.

I have at last begun what I have long wished at an end, and find it more easy than I expected to continue my narration.

Our assembly could boast no such constellation of intellects as Clarendon's band of associates. We had among us no Selden, Falkland, or Waller 1; but we had men not less important in their own eyes, though less distinguished by the public; and many a time have we lamented the partiality of mankind, and agreed that men of the deepest inquiry sometimes let their discoveries die away in silence, that the most comprehensive observers have seldom opportunities of imparting their remarks, and that modest merit passes in the crowd unknown and unheeded. 2

One of the greatest men of the society was Sim Scruple, who lives in a continual equipoise of doubt, and is a constant enemy to confidence and dogmatism. Sim's favourite topic of conversation is the narrowness of the human mind, the fallaciousness of our senses, the prevalence of early prejudice, and the uncertainty of appearances. Sim has many doubts about the nature of death, and is sometimes inclined to believe that sensation

1 In Clarendon's Autobiography, published this year (see ante, Idler, No. 65), an account is given of "the men of more than ordinary eminence" in whose "conjunction and communication he took much delight."-Life of the Earl of Clarendon, ed. 1759, p. 19.

2

"Merit was ever modest known."

-Gay, Court of Death

may survive motion, and that a dead man may feel though he cannot stir. He has sometimes hinted that man might, perhaps, have been naturally a quadruped; and thinks it would be very proper, that at the Foundling Hospital some children should be inclosed in an apartment in which the nurses should be obliged to walk half upon four and half upon two, that the younglings, being bred without the prejudice of example, might have no other guide than nature, and might at last come forth into the world as genius should direct, erect or prone, on two legs or on four.

The next in dignity of mien and fluency of talk was Dick Wormwood, whose sole delight is to find every thing wrong. Dick never enters a room but he shews that the door and the chimney are ill-placed. He never walks into the fields but he finds ground ploughed which is fitter for pasture. He is always an enemy to the present fashion. He holds that all the beauty and virtue of women will soon be destroyed by the use of tea.1 He triumphs when he talks on the present system

1 Johnson is referring to Jonas Hanway, who had attacked the use of tea in his Journal of Eight Days' Journey. "Men," he wrote, " seem to have lost their stature and comeliness, and women their beauty. I am not young, but me thinks there is not quite so much beauty in this land as there was. Your very chambermaids have lost their bloom, I suppose by sipping tea." Johnson, in his review of this Journal, had owned himself "a hardened and shameless teadrinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning."-Johnson's Works, vi. 21.