[887] See ante, ii. 321, for Johnson’s estimate of the Nonjurors, and i. 429 for his Jacobitism.

[888] Savage’s Works, ed. 1777, ii. 28.

[889] See ante, p. 46.

[890] See Boswell’s Hebrides, post, v. 77.

[891] I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in The Foundling Hospital for Wit, printed at London, 1749.  It is as follows:—­

     ’EPIGRAM, occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath.

     ’On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high,
        Two wits harangue the table;
      B——­y believes he knows not why. 
        N——­ swears ’tis all a fable. 
      Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree,
        N——­, kiss they empty brother: 
      Religion laughs at foes like thee,
        And dreads a friend like t’other.’

BOSWELL.  The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash and Bentley, the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole.  Croker.  John Wesley in his Journal, i. 186, tells how he once silences Nash.

[892] See ante, ii. 105.

[893] Waller, in his Divine Poesie, canto first, has the same thought finely expressed:—­

     ’The Church triumphant, and the Church below,
      In songs of praise their present union show;
      Their joys are full; our expectation long,
      In life we differ, but we join in song;
      Angels and we assisted by this art,
      May sing together, though we dwell apart.’

      BOSWELL.

[894] See Boswell’s Hebrides, post, v. 45.

[895] In the original, flee.

[896] The sermon thus opens:—­’That there are angels and spirits good and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more considerable and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name of a serpent, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose head, as the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to bruise; that this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet received his death’s wound, but is still permitted, for ends unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit [Colossians, ii. 8], can possibly entertain a doubt of it.’

Having treated of possessions, his Lordship says, ’As I have no authority to affirm that there are now any such, so neither may I presume to say with confidence, that there are not any.’

’But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more peremptory.—­(Then, having stated the various proofs, he adds,) All this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that, if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of the demoniack influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined.’