to be hanged.  An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice.  Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man.  I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years.  Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.’  Boswell.  ’Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?’ Johnson.  ’Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.’

On his favourite subject of subordination, Johnson said, ’So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.’

I mentioned the advice given us by philosophers, to console ourselves, when distressed or embarrassed, by thinking of those who are in a worse situation than ourselves.  This, I observed, could not apply to all, for there must be some who have nobody worse than they are.  Johnson.  ’Why, to be sure, Sir, there are; but they don’t know it.  There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.’

As my stay in London at this time was very short, I had not many opportunities of being with Dr. Johnson; but I felt my veneration for him in no degree lessened, by my having seen multoram hominum mores et urbes.  On the contrary, by having it in my power to compare him with many of the most celebrated persons of other countries, my admiration of his extraordinary mind was increased and confirmed.

The roughness, indeed, which sometimes appeared in his manners, was more striking to me now, from my having been accustomed to the studied smooth complying habits of the Continent; and I clearly recognised in him, not without respect for his honest conscientious zeal, the same indignant and sarcastical mode of treating every attempt to unhinge or weaken good principles.

One evening when a young gentleman teized him with an account of the infidelity of his servant, who, he said, would not believe the scriptures, because he could not read them in the original tongues, and be sure that they were not invented, ’Why, foolish fellow, (said Johnson,) has he any better authority for almost every thing that he believes?’ Boswell.  ’Then the vulgar, Sir, never can know they are right, but must submit themselves to the learned.’  Johnson.  ’To be sure, Sir.  The vulgar are the children of the State, and must be taught like children.’  Boswell.  ’Then, Sir, a poor Turk must be a Mahometan, just as a poor Englishman must be a Christian?’ Johnson.  ’Why, yes, Sir; and what then?  This now is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother, when I first began to think myself a clever fellow; and she ought to have whipt me for it.’