Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/368

 360 A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Johnson

not subject to every skyey influence, and the evil of the hour I ?) he would argue, and prove it in a sort of dissertation, that there was, generally and individually, more of natural and moral good, than of the contrary 2 . He asserted, that no man could pronounce he did not feel more pleasure than misery. Every body would not answer in the affirmative ; for an ounce of pain outweighs a pound of pleasure. There are people who wish they had never been born to whom life is a disease and whose apprehensions of dying pains and of futurity embitter every thing. The reader must not think it impertinent to remark, that Johnson did not choose to pass his whole life in celibacy. Perhaps the raising up a posterity may be a debt and duty all men owe to those who have lived before them. Johnson had a daughter, who died before its mother, if this pen is not mistaken 3 . When these were gone, he lost his hold on life, for he never married again. He has expressed a surprize that Sir Isaac Newton continued totally unacquainted with the female sex, which is asserted by Voltaire, from the information of Cheselden 4, and is admitted to be true. For curiosity, the first and most durable of the passions, might have led him to overcome that inexperience. This pen may as well finish this last point in the words of Fontenelle, that Sir Isaac never was married, and perhaps never had time to think of it 5. Whether the sun-shine of the world upon our author raised his drooping spirits, or that the lenient hand of time re moved something from him, or that his health meliorated by mingling more with the croud of mankind, or not, he however apparently acquired more chearfulness, and became more fit for

1 ' A breath thou art, 4 (Euvres de Voltaire, ed. 1819, Servile to all the skiey influences xxiv. 70.

That do this habitation where 5 * II ne s'est point marie, et peut-

thou keep'st etre n'a t-il pas eu le loisir d'y penser

Hourly afflict.' jamais, abime' d'abord dans des

Measure for Measure, Act iii. sc. i. etudes profondes et continuelles pen-

1. 7. For the effect of ' the skiey in- dant la force de Page, occupe ensuite

fluences' on Johnson see Life, i. d'une charge importante, et meme

332. de sa grande consideration, qui ne

2 For his unhappy thoughts on life lui laissait sentir nf vuide dans sa see ib. i. 213, 331, n. 6, 343 ; ii. 125 ; vie ni besoin d'une societe domes- iv. 300 ; ante, ii. 256. tique.' Eloge de Newton, ed. 1728,

3 He never had a child. p. 36.

the

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