234 Two Dialogues by
JOHNS. Sir, it is not of very great importance what your opinion is upon such a question.
REY. But I meant only, Dr. Johnson, to know your opinion.
JOHNS. No, Sir, you meant no such thing ; you meant only to show these gentlemen that you are not the man they took you to be, but that you think of high matters sometimes, and that you may have the credit of having it said that you held an argument with Sam Johnson on predestination and freewill J ; a subject of that magnitude as to have engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed the wisdom of man for these two thousand years 2 ; a subject on which the fallen angels, who had yet not lost their original brightness 3 , find themselves in wander ing mazes lost* 1 . That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what is easily conceivable 5 .
REY. It is so, as you say, to be sure ; I talked once to our friend Garrick upon this subject, but I remember we could make nothing of it.
JOHNS. O noble pair 6 !
REY. Garrick was a clever fellow 7 , Dr. J. ; Garrick, take him altogether, was certainly a very great man.
JOHNS. Garrick, Sir, may be a great man in your opinion,
about free will, and got such answers ' His form had yet not lost
as the following : ' Sir, we know our All her original brightness.'
will is free, and there's an end on't.' Paradise Lost, i. 591.
Life, ii. 82. ' All theory is against the 4 Ib. ii. 561.
freedom of the will ; all experience 5 ' I wonder, Sir, how a gentleman
for it.' Jb. iii. 291. * But, Sir, as to of your piety can introduce this sub-
the doctrine of Necessity, no man ject in a mixed company.' Life, ii.
believes it.' Ib. iv. 329. See also 254.
ib. ii. 104; v. 117 ; and/^/, p. 256. 6 * Par nobile fratrum.' HORACE,
1 Ante, i. 285. 2 Satires, iii. 243.
2 'JOHNSON (with solemn vehe- 7 When Reynolds applied the mence). " Yes, Madam ; this is a epithet clever to Garrick, as a justifi- question [the appearance of ghosts] cation for discussing free-will with which after five thousand years is yet him, Johnson might have replied in undecided; a question, whether in the words of his Dictionary. 'Clever theology or philosophy, one of the is a low word, scarcely ever used but most important that can come before in burlesque or conversation ; and the human understanding.' Life, applied to anything a man likes, iii. 298. without a settled meaning.'
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