pounds; between simply taking a man’s purse, and murdering him first, and then taking it.  But when one begins to be vicious, it is easy to go on.  Where single women are licentious, you rarely find faithful married women.’  BOSWELL.  ’And yet we are told that in some nations in India, the distinction is strictly observed.’  JOHNSON.  ’Nay, don’t give us India.  That puts me in mind of Montesquieu, who is really a fellow of genius too in many respects; whenever he wants to support a strange opinion, he quotes you the practice of Japan or of some other distant country of which he knows nothing.  To support polygamy, he tells you of the island of Formosa, where there are ten women born for one man[583].  He had but to suppose another island, where there are ten men born for one woman, and so make a marriage between them.[584]’ At supper, Lady Macleod mentioned Dr. Cadogan’s book on the gout[585].  JOHNSON.  ’It is a good book in general, but a foolish one in particulars.  It is good in general, as recommending temperance and exercise, and cheerfulness.  In that respect it is only Dr. Cheyne’s book told in a new way; and there should come out such a book every thirty years, dressed in the mode of the times.  It is foolish, in maintaining that the gout is not hereditary, and that one fit of it, when gone, is like a fever when gone.’  Lady Macleod objected that the author does not practise what he teaches[586].  JOHNSON.  ’I cannot help that, madam.  That does not make his book the worse.  People are influenced more by what a man says, if his practice is suitable to it,—­because they are blockheads.  The more intellectual people are, the readier will they attend to what a man tells them.  If it is just, they will follow it, be his practice what it will.  No man practises so well as he writes.  I have, all my life long, been lying till noon[587]; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.  Only consider!  You read a book; you are convinced by it; you do not know the authour.  Suppose you afterwards know him, and find that he does not practise what he teaches; are you to give up your former conviction?  At this rate you would be kept in a state of equilibrium, when reading every book, till you knew how the authour practised.[588]’ ‘But,’ said Lady M’Leod, ’you would think better of Dr. Cadogan, if he acted according to his principles.’  JOHNSON.  ’Why, Madam, to be sure, a man who acts in the face of light, is worse than a man who does not know so much; yet I think no man should be the worse thought of for publishing good principles.  There is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one’s self.[589]’ I expressed some surprize at Cadogan’s recommending good humour, as if it were quite in our own power to attain it.  JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, a man grows better humoured as he grows older.  He improves by experience.  When young, he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance.