370 A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Johnson
it assuredly was not in his wish to persecute for speculative notions x . He used to say he had no quarrel with any order of men, unless they disbelieved in revelation and a future state 2 . He would indeed have sided with Sacheverell against Daniel Burgess 3 , if he thought the Church was in danger. His hand and his heart were always open to charity. The objects under his own roof were only a few of the subjects for relief. He was at the head of subscription in cases of distress. His guinea, as he said of another man of a bountiful disposition, was always ready. He wrote an exhortation to public bounty. He drew up a paper to recommend the French prisoners, in the last war but one, to the English benevolence 4 ; which was of service. He implored the hand of benevolence for others 5 ; even when he almost seemed a proper object of it himself.
Like his hero Savage, while in company with him, he is supposed to have formerly strolled about the streets almost house less 6 , and as if he was obliged to go without the cheerful meal of the day, or to wander about for one, as is reported of Homer.
��been permitted to sit and do business since that period.' History of Eng land, ed. 1800, ii. 358.
' The practice continues to the present day [1837] of summoning the clergy to meet in convocation whenever a new parliament is called, and the forms of election are gone through. ... It is the usual practice for the King to prorogue the meeting when it is about to proceed to any business.' Penny Cyclopaedia, 1837, vii. 489.
1 The spirituality at last aroused itself from its long repose in 1852. ... The first action of Convocation as a deliberative body commenced in 1 86 1.' Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., vi. 329.
1 * In short, Sir, I have got no further than this : Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom
��is the test.' L : fe, iv. 12. See also ib. ii. 250, 254.
a * Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy ; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.' Ib. iii. 10.
3 Ib. i. 39. Hearne recorded on March 4, 1709-10: 'The mob are so zealous for Dr. Sacheverell that they have pulled down several meet ing-houses of the dissenters in Lon don, amongst which is the meeting house of that old presbyterian rogue Daniel Burgess.' Reliquiae Her- nianae, 1869, i. 187. See The Tatler, No. 66 (by Swift), where Burgess is ridiculed.
4 Life, i. 353.
5 Ib. ii. 379; iii. 124; iv. 283, 408 n. ; Letters, ii. 64, 66, 113.
6 Life, i. 162 ; ante, i. 371.
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