��Though no man perhaps made such rough replies as Dr. John son, yet nobody had a more just aversion to general satire I ; he always hated and censured Swift for his unprovoked bitterness against the professors of medicine 2 ; and used to challenge his friends, when they lamented the exorbitancy of physicians fees, to produce him one instance of an estate raised by physic in England 3 . When an acquaintance too was one day exclaiming against the tediousness of the law and its partiality ; ' Let us hear, Sir (said Johnson), no general abuse ; the law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.'
As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatly expanded, so his first care was for general, not particular or petty morality ; and those teachers had more of his blame than praise, I think, who seek to oppress life with unnecessary scruples 4 : ' Scruples would (as he observed) certainly make men miserable, and seldom make them good. Let us ever (he said) studiously fly from those instructors against whom our Saviour denounces heavy judg ments, for having bound up burdens grievous to be borne, and laid them on the shoulders of mortal men.' No one had however higher notions of the hard task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose daily terror lest he had not done enough, originated in piety, but ended in little less than disease. Reason-
1 Life, iv. 313. Post) p. 327. the Observatory at Oxford, which
2 Of Dr. Arbuthnot, Swift wrote : bear Dr. Radcliffe's name, as well as ' O if the world had but a dozen his foundations at University College, Arbuthnots in it I would burn my are a proof that one doctor at all travels.' Swift's Works, xvii. 212. events raised an estate by physic.
In a poem entitled In Sickness, 'Johnson,' says Boswell, 'had in
Written in Ireland, 1714, he laments general a peculiar pleasure in the
that he is company of physicians.' Ib. iv. 292.
' Remov'd from kind Arbuthnot's In the Life of Garth he says : ' I
aid, believe every man has found in phy-
Who knows his art but not his sicians great liberality and dignity
trade.' Ib. x. 157. of sentiment, very prompt effusion of
Johnson, in his Life of Swift, says beneficence, and willingness to exert
nothing of this * unprovoked bitter- a lucrative art where there is no hope
ness.' P'or his attacks on Swift see of lucre.' Works, vii. 402. Life, ii. 65, 318 ; iv. 61 ; v. 44. 4 Ante, p. 38.
3 The Library, the Infirmary and
able
�� �
