Chapter 6

'He has _seen_ ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly (_Life_, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had been established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak, well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among the speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise up panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt to suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into Parliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House], involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, _A Bill to regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day_.' The Bill was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two tellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were £200 for the master of the house, £100 for the moderator of the meeting, and £50 for each of the servants at the door. _Parl. Hist._ xxii. 262, 279.

[302] _St. Matthew_, xxvii. 52.

[303] I _Corinthians_, xv. 37.

[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated _the mysterious_; and therefore took every opportunity of _leading_ Johnson to converse on such subjects. MALONE. See _ante_, i. 406.

[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, _ante_, i. 187) is not in Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the following entry on Monday, April 16:--'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back to tea.'

[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 192) that he said 'a long time after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call _Sam_.' She is so inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that Boswell has recorded above. See also _ante_, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made more of this story of the voice than it could well bear--'Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, ed. 1871, p. 374.

[307]

'One wife is too much for most husbands to bear, But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'