[886] 'Only five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most decisive proof that they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's England, ed. 1874, v. 81.
[887] See ante, ii. 321, for Johnson's estimate of the Nonjurors, and i. 429 for his Jacobitism.
[888] Savage's Works, ed. 1777, ii. 28.
[889] See ante, p. 46.
[890] See Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 77.
[891] I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in The Foundling Hospital for Wit, printed at London, 1749. It is as follows:—
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'EPIGRAM, occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath. 'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high, Two wits harangue the table; B——y believes he knows not why. N—— swears 'tis all a fable. Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree, N——, kiss they empty brother: Religion laughs at foes like thee, And dreads a friend like t'other.' |
BOSWELL. The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash and Bentley, the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole. Croker. John Wesley in his Journal, i. 186, tells how he once silences Nash.
[892] See ante, ii. 105.
[893] Waller, in his Divine Poesie, canto first, has the same thought finely expressed:—