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A46957
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Notes upon the Phœnix edition of the Pastoral letter Part I / by Samvel Johnson.
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Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing J835; ESTC R11877
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45,073
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120
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mind mine His Bookseller Mr. Chiswell by whom I had the Message seemed loath to carry him that blunt Answer Oh says I he has got the Title of a Lord lately I must Qualify my Answer Let him please to mind his own Business I will mind mine But the Bishop was mistaken in his Man all over for it was always in my Nature even to a Fault to spare every body Sr. Roger Lestrange knows it and many a Man besides notwithstanding very great Provocations And I have been so far from rigour all my Life that I never sued any Man though I have lost several Scores of Pounds by it which I have since known the want of And therefore the Bishop was out in thinking that I wanted such a Message and as much out in thinking that I would mind it What did he take me to be one of his Cubs whom he could lick into his own Shape and Fashion by a Message I am a Slave to Truth and Right and therefore any bodies Message supported with Wise and Honest Reasons would have moved me but I knew at the first sight that neither one nor t'other belonged to that Message Now the Bishop may see how little I regard his Message for I will name Persons when I have just Occasion though it chance to be his Lordship But at that time I confess I was so wrap'd up with the hopes of a Happy Reign to come and that the evil Instruments about the King would at least at the Instance of the Parliament be dismissed that I was got into Mephibosheth's Elevation let Ziba take all the Land to himself I care neither for the purloyned half nor the remaining half Let Shimei live and mend they are not worth their Halters why then should the Nation be at that Expence Let them go to the end of the World why should we stop them And so they had gone if Great Men from Court had not sent to them to pray them stay In short I was so intenâ— upon the Publick Welfare and ever inclined to give that the precedence that I could not snatch and catch at the Advantages of a Revolution as others did to whom they were not due but when my Friends urged me to mind my own Business my constant Answer was that it would keep cold I have â—eason to remember it because an honest Yonker in my own House has since upbraided me that my Business has catch'd cold I have taken this freedom with the Bishop of Salisbâ—ry because he has taken a greater latitude with Me and has given me out for a Mad-man above these four Years But I speak the words of Truth and Soberness which are always well-weighed That I will sooner prove him a Betrayer of England and a Publick Enemy than he shall prove me a Mad-man It is an ugly Imputation if it be but laid upon a Dog because of the ill Consequence of it for it amounts to the knocking out his Brains but it is still worse to place it upon a Man because it makes a Fool of all his wisest Discourse which is the end of a Man's living here for if they dislike any thing he says they have Authority to call it Raving and if they chance to like it it shall only have the allowance of lucid Intervals Besides it effectually ruins all a Man's Preferment because it Unqualifies him whereby his Posterity suffers for it to the end of the World so that the Madman fares worse in that Case than the Mad Dog because that Imputation never affects his Breed But I am not the only Person who has been so serv'd the Courtiers of this Reign serve every body so if they do not like them I appeal to the House of Commons whether Sir Peter Coryton a worthy Member of that Honourable House and since intrusted by them as one of their Commissioners to supervise all the Publick Accounts of the Nation which is a Charge that requires some Brains as well as all Honesty ought to suffer under such an Imputation and whether it be not at least Breach of Privilege And yet he lost a Considerable Government in the West-Indies by being so represented to his Majesty after the King had promised it him with which Suggestion the King was so far imposed upon and so fully possessed with it that he pitied the poor Gentleman And so Kendal had the Government a Man no doubt more for these Courtiers turn and not blemished with that sort of Insufficiency I have not Evidence for what I am now going to say but I am morally assured of it that the Great Wallop was thus hindred from being made a Judg of whom I will say the less because his own Integrity in the worst of Times has Eterniz'd him And if he be not Honoured for it in these Times then they are the worst To pass by a Hundred more of his Sayings his comparing King Iames's Declaration upon the very Spot to the Scaffolding of Paul's Church was so wise so weighty so seasonable and so useful a Saying that that New Paul's when it is built shall want new Scaffolding again before that Saying is forgot by the wise and honest part of this Nation One Mr. Stephens another brave Man has been put into the List though I am certain Sir Matthew Hales was of another Opinion when he made him his Executor but one would sooner take him to be a Witch than a Madman when he talkt of the Cart being Bewitch'd I will not mention all the People of Quality that have been so used They themselves may look after their own dry Godfathers who have given them that Name out of Baptism I know mine and I will stick to him and though I have burnt all my Reading yet he shall know when ever he pleases to put me to it that I have an odd Remnant of honest Intellectuals still left at his Service It is the cunningest Accusation in the World because it oftentimes proves it self for to treat a Man like a Madman is enough to make him so But I would advise them not to multiply their Madmen too fast for the sake of a Story that I know There was a Fellow of Magdalen-College in Oxford who had the misfortune to be really crazed and either was or at least thought himself to be ill used by the other Fellows and when another of the Fellows fell Mad he was wonderfully pleased with it and being ask'd the reason of his Joy Oh says he we shall be a Majority in time and then we will use the other Fellows as they used me I think I shall never finish my intended Story for these Impertinencies which continually cross my way but in short after the Grand Jury had dismissed the Bill of Indictment against my Lord Shaftsbury for the Oxford Plot the Court had not done with him so but invented a New thing and made the Earth open its Mouth upon him I mean their dirty Abhorrers I know that Great Men have fall'n under
more out of Flanders than some such ill-favoured Story of what a strong way of Encamping the French have Butâ— what Business had we there The Sea is our Element where our Shipping was lately more Numerous than any Nations in the World and better built being of English Oak and our Seamen Heart of Oak Such a Strength well managed and well applied is fit to give Laws to all the World And till now from King Edgar's Time who had a Fleet of three Thousand Ships to justify his Claim we have always pretended to be Masters of the Sea and should have scorn'd Dutch Help to fight the French Fleet and to go to War upon Crutches for how can Impotent Men stir if their Crutches at any time be out of the way and be not ready Or how if the Dutch and we should ever fall out or the French and they be Friends where are we then And therefore we are No Nation till we can stand upon our own Legs but we live precariously and had need to have very kind-hearted Neighbours about us To know where our Strength lies is a first Principle of Nature and the dullest Creatures are not without it I never saw an Ass offer to butt with his Ears though they are as long as Horns but I have seen him strike with his sullen Hoof because the Instinct of Nature led him to use that part which would do most Execution And therefore it could not be out of Ignorance but for sinister Ends that our Naval Force has been so Neglected which is our known Strength and that the Treasure of the Nation has been diverted into Foreign Channels For many Millions spent upon the Fleet would not be two Pence loss to the Nation but is as cheap as a Man's playing at Cards with his Wife and Children where none of the Winnings go out of the House It is true that heretofore this Nation alone has been an Overmatch for all France by Land as well as by Sea and our Kings have cleared up their Title to that Kingdom in the Heart of it but those Days are done for we were then a Land of Souldiers and there was not a Man in the Kingdom who was not expert and knew how to handle his Arms from Sixteen But the Artillery of the World being changed since that Time we shall never be a warlike Nation more till all our excellent Laws about Bows and Arrows which are wholly disused shall be applied to the use of Fire-Arms For though such a raw thing as our present Militia which will then be another thing does well enough to keep House yet it must be a well-trained if not a Veteran Army that shall do any great Matters abroad What then shall we have a Mercenary Army to supply this Defect and lose Old England to win France I hope not but so it would be for a standing Army plainly destroys this Government There are no Quarters nor is there room in England for an Army If they be Quartered in Houses it is a forcible Entry and Disseysin of a Man's Freehold if they Encamp at Hounslow-heath it is a Rout Riot and Unlawful Assembly A fourth part of the Petition of Right which only asserts our Fundamental Rights is spent against Billetting of Souldiers There was indeed a Confederacy in the late Tyranny betwixt the Court and the Justices of Peace to put this Difficulty upon Publick Houses either to receive Souldiers or to lose their Licences though Licences ought not to be taken away except for a Forfeiture which refusing of Souldiers is not but a Right But such Frauds and Abusions of the Law never wrought any thing else but Abdication Knute than whom there never lookt any thing liker a Conqueror and put an end to Disputed Titles in the Severn at the desire of the English Barons sent his Army back to Denmark for which see Bracton's Englescheria the finest Point of Law in our English Constitution almost in the same words and exactly to the same sense as King William the First 's Laws Bracton Lib. 3. De Corona Cap. 15. Fol. 134. b. Sect. 3. Causa vero Inventionis murdrorum talis fuit quod in diebus Canuti regis Danorum qui post Angliam acquisitam pacificatam rogatu baronum Anglorum remisit ad Daciam exercitum suum ipsi barones Angliae erga ipsum regem Canutum fidejussores extiterunt q. quotquot rex in Anglia secum retineret firmam pacem per omnia haberent ita q. si quis Anglorum aliquem hominum quos rex secum adduxit interficeret si se super hoc defendere non posset Juditio Dei s. aqua vel ferro fieret de eo Justitia si autem aufugeret capi non posset soluerentur pro eo 66. marcae colligebantur in villa ubi quis esset interfectus ideo quia interfectorem non habuerunt si in tali villa pro paupertate colligi non possent colligerentur in hundredo in thesauro regis deponendae Sect. 4. Et dicitur murdrum extraneorum occisio notorum quia sive notus sit vel extraneus ille qui interfectus est semper reputabitur Francigena nisi Englescheria rite fuerit coram justitiariis praesentata per hoc quod sciri possit quod Anglicus extiterit Et qualiter Englescheria praesentari debeat infra plenius dicetur suo loco Knyghton pag. 2358. Lin. 40. Williel 1. Leges Item Murdra quidem inventa fuerunt in Diebus Cnuti regis Dani qui post Adquisitam Angliam pacificam rogatu baronum Anglorum remisit ad Daciam exercitum suum Ipsi vero barones erga regem suum existerent fidejussores quatinus quotquot in terra secum retinerent firmam pacem haberent per omnia verumptamen si quis Anglorum aliquem illorum interfecerit si se super hoc defendere non posset in Deo scilicet aqua vel ferro fieret de eo Justitia sin autem fugeret solveretur ut supradictum est I do not love Digressions because they interrupt all discourse but I could not well avoid this because the mentioning the Bill of Exclusion led me into it though my Business was not so much the Bill of Exclusion as what befel upon the Rejection of that Bill being another Instance of the Oppressions and Invasions of those Times I appeal to every Noble Lord now living who has sworn to this Government whether an Exclusion then had not been better than an Exclusion now and whether they had not better have done that to an Heir Presumptive which they have been since forced to do to an Actual King For they were even then known to be both the self-same Man After the Bill was Rejected with as large a Scrowl of Protestors as perhaps was ever seen in the Lords Journal it came to Equivalents and Expedients for the Security of the Nation And amongst many other things which were Ordered by the House of Lords to annul the Power of a