Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/105

 Hawkins's Life of Johnson.

��positions, such as, that the luxury of this country has increased with its riches x and that the practice of card-playing is more general than heretofore 2. At this versatility of temper, none, however, took offence ; as Alexander and Caesar were born for conquest, so was Johnson for the office of a symposiarch 3, to preside in all conversations ; and I never yet saw the man who would venture to contest his right 4.

Let it not, however, be imagined, that the members of this our club met together, with the temper of gladiators, or that there was wanting among us a disposition to yield to each other in all diversities of opinion : and indeed, disputation was not, as in many associations of this kind, the purpose of our meeting : nor were our conversations, like those of the Rota club 5, re strained to particular topics. On the contrary, it may be said, that with our gravest discourses was intermingled

'Mirth, that after no repenting draws/

MILTON (Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner),

for not only in Johnson's melancholy there were lucid intervals 6 ,

��arising from the immensity of London, was, that nobody was heeded by his neighbour ; there was no fear of cen sure for not observing Good Friday, as it ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country-towns. He said, it was, upon the whole, very well observed even in London.' Life, ii. 356.

1 Johnson always opposed attacks on luxury. To suppose that it cor rupts a people and destroys the spirit of liberty was ' all visionary.' Ib. ii. 170. 'No nation was ever hurt by it, for it can reach but to a very few.' Ib. ii. 218. 'It produces much good.' Ib. iii. 56. ' He laughed at querulous declamations against the age on ac count of luxury.' Ib. iii. 226. ' De pend upon it, Sir, every state of society is as luxurious as it can be.' Ib. iii. 282. ' Man is not diminished in size by it.' Ib. v. 358.

Luxury, which in most parts of life by being well-balanced and dif-

VOL. II. H

��fused, is only decency and conveni ence, has perhaps as many, or more, good than evil consequences attend ing it. It certainly excites industry, nourishes emulation, and inspires some sense of personal value into all ranks of people.' Burke's Works, ed. 1808, ii. 203.

2 Life, iii. 23.

3 Symposiarch is not in Johnson's Dictionary.

4 Ante, ii. 93, n. 2.

5 Hawkins, I suppose, refers to the Rota Club in which James Harington, ' with a few associates as fanatical as himself, used to meet, with all the gravity of political importance, to settle an equal government by rota tion.' Johnson's Works, vii. 95. They met in New Palace Yard, Westminster. Swift's Works, ed. 1803, ii. 321.

6 Letters, ii. 377, . i.

but

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