population? JOHNSON. "Why no, sir; the same quantity of food being produced, will be consumed by the same number of mouths, though the people may be disposed of in different ways. We see, if corn be dear, and butchers' meat cheap, the farmers will apply themselves to the raising of corn, till it becomes plentiful and cheap; and then butchers' meat becomes dear: so that an equality is always preserved. No, sir, let fanciful men do as they will depend upon it, it is difficult to disturb the system of life." BOSWELL. "But, sir, is it not a very bad thing for landlords to oppress their tenants by raising their rents?" JOHNSON. "Very bad; but, sir, it never can have any general influence; it may distress some individuals. For, consider this: landlords cannot do without tenants. Now, tenants will not give more for land than land is worth. If they can make more of their money by keeping a shop, or any other way, they'll do it, and so oblige landlords to let land come back to a reasonable rent, in order that they may get tenants. Land, in England, is an article of commerce. A tenant, who pays his landlord his rent, thinks himself no more obliged to him, than you think yourself obliged to a man, in whose shop you buy a piece of goods. He knows the landlord does not let him have his land for less than he can get from others, in the same manner as the shopkeeper sells his goods. No shopkeeper sells a yard of ribband for six-pence, when seven-pence is the current price." BOSWELL. "But, sir, is it not better that tenants should be dependent on landlords?" JOHNSON." Why, sir, as there are many more tenants than landlords, perhaps, strictly speaking, we should wish not.

But, if you please, you may let your lands, and so get the value, part in money, and part in homage. I should agree with you in that. BOSWELL. "So, sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement." JOHNSON." Why, sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things."

No. XIII.

GOVERNMENT.

A PARTY of literary friends spending the evening together at the Mitre tavern in Fleet-street, Goldsmith, as usual, endeavopred, with too much eagerness, to shine, and disputed very warmly with Johnson against the well-known maxim of the British constitution," the king can do no wrong;" affirming, that "what was morally false could not be politically true; and, as the king might, in the exercise of his regal power, command and cause the doing of what was wrong, it certainly might be said, in sense and in reason, that he could do wrong." JOHNSON. "Sir, you are to consider, that in our constitution, according to its true principles, the king is the head; he is supreme; he is above every thing; and there is no power by which he can be tried: therefore it is, sir, that we hold the king can do no wrong; that whatever may happen to be wrong in government, may not be above our reach, by being ascribed to majesty. Redress is always to be had against oppression, by punishing the immediate agents. The king, though he should command, cannot force a judge to condemn a man unjustly; therefore, it is

the judge whom we prosecute and punish. Political institutions are formed upon the consideration of what will most frequently tend to the good of the whole, although now and then exceptions may occur. Thus it is better, in general, that a ration should have a supreme legislative power, although it may at times be abused: and then, sir, there is this consideration that if the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.”

In the year 1769, politics being mentioned, he said, "This petitioning is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will untake to get petitions either against quarter guineas or half guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this; the object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning." "" #

He observed, "Providence has wisely ordered, that the more numerous men are, the more difficult it is for them to agree in any thing; and so they are governed. There is no doubt, that if the poor should reason, We'll be the poor no longer; we'll make the rich take their turn'—they could easily do it, were it not that they can't agree. So the common soldiers, though so much more numerous than their officers, are governed by them for the same reason."

Dr. Maxwell said of Johnson, "He detested the idea of governing by parliamentary corruption; and asserted most strenuously, that a prince,steadily and

* Unquestionably we should, if the burning this one cottage threaten a general conflagration.-Ed.

conspicuously pursuing the interests of his people, could not fail of parliamentary concurrence. A prince of ability, he contended, might and should be the directing soul and spirit of his own administration; in short, his own minister, and not the mere head of a party: and then, and not till then, would the royal dignity be sincerely respected.

6

"He seemed to think, that a certain degree of crown influence over the houses of parliament, (not meaning a corrupt and shameful dependence) was very salutary, nay, even necessary, in our mixed government. For,' said he, if the members were under no crown influence, and disqualified from receiving any gratification from court, and resembled, as they possibly might, Pym, and Haslerig, and other stubborn and sturdy members of the long parliament, the wheels of government would be totally obstructed. Such men would oppose, merely to show their power, from envy, jealousy, and perversity of disposition; and not gaining themselves, would hate and oppose all who did not loving the person of the prince, and conceiving they owed him little gratitude, from the mere spirit of insolence and contradiction, they would oppose and thwart him on all occasions.

"The inseparable imperfection annexed to all human governments, consisted, he said, in not being able to create a sufficient fund of virtue and principle, to carry the laws into due and effectual execution. Wisdom might plan, but virtue alone can execute. And where could sufficient virtue be found? A variety of delegated, and often discretionary, powers, must be entrusted somewhere; which, if not governed by integrity and conscience, would ne

cessarily be abused, till at last the constable would sell his for a shilling."

He had great compassion for the miseries and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly the papists; and severely reprobated the barbarous debilitating policy of the British government, which, he said, was the most detestable mode of persecution. To a gentleman, who hinted such policy might be necessary to support the authority of the English government, he replied, by saying, "Let the authority of the government perish, rather than be maintained by iniquity. Better would it be to restrain the turbulence of the natives by the authority of the sword, and to make them amenable to law and justice by an effectual and vigorous police, than to grind them to powder by all manner of disabilities and incapacities. Better to hang or drown people at once, than, by an unrelenting persecution, to beggar and starve them."

Sir Alexander Macdonald observed, that the chancellors in England are chosen from views much inferior to the office; being chosen from temporary political views. JOHNSON. " Why, sir, in such a government as ours, no man is appointed to an office because he is the fittest for it, nor hardly in any other government; because there are so many connections and dependencies to be studied. A despotic prince may choose a man to an office, merely because he is the fittest for it. The king of Prussia may do it."

In the Scottish schoolmaster's cause, which has been noticed at length under the head EDUCATION, in Part I, lord Mansfield said, in the house of lords, "6 My lords, severity is not the way to govern either