Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/312

 304 Anecdotes by William Seward, F.R.S.

��Dr. Johnson used to tell his friends that from time imme morial a convict of the parish of St. Giles in the Fields had the privilege of the right hand in the cart. /#., p. 303.

Dr. Johnson one day observing a friend of his packing up the two volumes of Observations on Man, written by this great and good man (Hartley) to take into the country, said, ' Sir, you do right to take Dr. Hartley with you/ Dr. Priestley said of him, * that he had learned more from Hartley, than from any book he had ever read, except the Bible V

Johnson used to say of the Due de Rochefoucault that he was one of the few gentlemen writers of whom authors by profession had occasion to be afraid 2. European Magazine, 1798, p. 374-

Dr. Johnson said that Busby used to declare that his rod was his sieve, and that whoever could not pass through that was no boy for him 3. He early discovered the genius of Dr. South, lurking perhaps under idleness and obstinacy. * I see

��1 Hartley is not, I think, men tioned in any of Johnson's writings or in Boswell. Priestley, in his Auto biography, ed. 1810, p. 12, says of Hartley's Observations on Man : ' It produced the greatest, and in my opinion, the most favourable effect on my general turn of thinking through life.'

If Johnson had heard Seward sup porting Hartley's fame by Priestley's praise, he would have knit his brows, and in a stern manner enquired, " Why do we hear so much of Dr. Priestley ? " ' Life, iv. 238.

that Coleridge was, in early life, so passionate an admirer of the Hart- leian philosophy, that "Hartley" was the sole baptismal name which he gave to his eldest child ; and in an early poem entitled Religious Musings he has characterized Hart ley as
 * It is known to most literary people

��" Him of mortal kind Wisest, him first who marked the

ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the

sentient brain Pass in fine surges." But at present (August, 1807) all this was a forgotten thing. Coleridge was so profoundly ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism of Hartley, and so disgusted to think that he could at any time have countenanced that creed, that he would scarcely allow to Hartley the reverence which is undoubtedly his due.' De Quincey's Works, ed. 1863, ii. 56.

2 Speaking of the Earl of Carlisle's Poems, Johnson said 'that when a man of rank appeared in that char acter [as a candidate for literary fame,] he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.' Life, iv. 114.

3 'As we stood before Busby's tomb the Knight [Sir Roger de Cover- said

�� �