Page:An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson.djvu/150

 It is observed, by the younger Pliny, that in the confines of virtue and great qualities, there are, generally, vices of an opposite nature. In Dr. Johnson not one ingredient can take the name of vice. From his attainments in literature, grew the pride of knowledge; and from his powers of reasoning, the love of disputation and the vain glory of superior vigour. His piety, in some instances, bordered on superstition. He was willing to believe in preternatural agency, and thought it not more strange, that there should be evil spirits than evil men. Even the question about second sight held him in suspense. "Second sight," Mr. Pennant tells us, "is a power of seeing images impressed on the organs of sight, by the power of fancy; or on the fancy, by the disordered spirits operating on the mind. It is the faculty of seeing spectres or visions, which represent an event actually passing at a distance, or likely to happen at a future day. In 1771, a gentleman, the last who was supposed to be possessed of this faculty, had a boat at sea, in a tempestuous night, and, being anxious for his freight, suddenly started up, and said his men would be drowned, for he had seen them pass before "him