Though the Idler and his readers have contracted no close friendship, they are, perhaps, both unwilling to part. There are few things not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last. Those who never could agree together, shed tears when mutual discontent has determined them to final separation; of a place which has been frequently visited, though without pleasure, the last look is taken with heaviness of heart; and the Idler, with all his chilness of tranquillity, is not wholly unaffected by the thought that his last essay is now before him.
The secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being, whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful. We always make a secret comparison between a part and the whole; the termination of any period of life reminds us that life itself has likewise its termination; when we have done any thing for the last time, we involuntarily reflect that a part of the days allotted us is past, and that as more is past there is less remaining.
It is very happily and kindly provided, that in every life there are certain pauses and interruptions, which force consideration upon the careless, and seriousness upon the light; points of time where one course of action ends, and another begins; and by vicissitudes of fortune or alteration of employment, by change of place or loss of friendship, we are forced to say of something, this is the last.
An even and unvaried tenour of life always hides from our apprehension the approach of its end. Succession is not perceived but by variation; he that lives to-day as he lived yesterday, and expects that, as the present day is, such will be the morrow, easily conceives time as running in a circle and returning to itself. The uncertainty of our duration is impressed commonly by dissimilitude of condition; it is only by finding life changeable that we are reminded of its shortness.
This conviction, however forcible at every new impression, is every moment fading from the mind; and partly by the inevitable incursion of new images, and partly by voluntary exclusion of unwelcome thoughts, we are again exposed to the universal fallacy; and we must do another thing for the last time, before we consider that the time is nigh when we shall do no more.
As the last Idler is published in that solemn week which the Christian world has always set apart for the examination of the conscience, the review of life, the extinction of earthly desires, and the renovation of holy purposes; I hope that my readers are already disposed to view every incident with seriousness, and improve it by meditation; and that, when they see this series of trifles brought to a conclusion, they will consider that, by out-living the Idler, they have passed weeks, months and years, which are now no longer in their power; that an end must in time be put to every thing great as to every thing little; that to life must come its last hour, and to this system of being its last day, the hour at which probation ceases, and repentance will be vain; the day in which every work of the hand, and imagination of the heart shall be brought to judgment, and an everlasting futurity shall be determined by the past.
This most solemn and impressive paper may be profitably compared with the introduction of Bishop Heber’s first Bampton-Lecture.
THE IDLER. No. 22
Many naturalists are of opinion, that the animals which we commonly consider as mute, have the power of imparting their thoughts to one another. That they can express general sensations is very certain; every being that can utter sounds, has a different voice for pleasure and for pain. The hound informs his fellows when he scents his game; the hen calls her chickens to their food by her cluck, and drives them from danger by her scream.
Birds have the greatest variety of notes; they have, indeed, a variety, which seems almost sufficient to make a speech adequate to the purposes of a life which is regulated by instinct, and can admit little change or improvement. To the cries of birds, curiosity or superstition has been always attentive; many have studied the language of the feathered tribes, and some have boasted that they understood it.
The most skilful or most confident interpreters of the sylvan dialogues have been commonly found among the philosophers of the east, in a country where the calmness of the air, and the mildness of the seasons, allow the student to pass a great part of the year in groves and bowers. But what may be done in one place by peculiar opportunities, may be performed in another by peculiar diligence. A shepherd of Bohemia has, by long abode in the forests, enabled himself to understand the voice of birds; at least he relates with great confidence a story, of which the credibility is left to be considered by the learned.
“As I was sitting” said he, “within a hollow rock, and watching my sheep that fed in the valley, I heard two vultures interchangeably crying on the summit of the cliff. Both voices were earnest and deliberate. My curiosity prevailed over my care of the flock; I climbed slowly and silently from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs, till I found a cavity where I might sit and listen without suffering or giving disturbance.”
“I soon perceived, that my labour would be well repaid; for an old vulture was sitting on a naked prominence, with her young about her, whom she was instructing in the arts of a vulture’s life, and preparing, by the last lecture, for their final dismission to the mountains and the skies.”
“My children,” said the old vulture, “you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowl; you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of man.” “Tell us,” said the young vultures, “where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of a vulture. Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest?” “He is too bulky,” said the mother; “when we find a man, we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground.” “Since man is so big,” said the young ones, “how do you kill him? You are afraid of the wolf and of the bear, by what power are vultures superior to man? is man more defenceless than a sheep?” “We have not the strength of man,” returned the mother, “and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtilty; and the vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other being that feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet and shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are surely destroying one another; you will then find the ground smoking with blood, and covered with carcasses, of which many are dismembered and mangled for the convenience of the vulture.” “But when men have killed their prey,” said the pupil, “why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he has satisfied himself. Is not man another kind of wolf?” “Man,” said the mother, “is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a benefactor to our species.” “If men kill our prey and lay it in our way,” said the young one, “what need shall we have of labouring for ourselves?” “Because man will, sometimes,” replied the mother, “remain for a long time quiet in his den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving close together, like a flock of storks, you may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human blood.” “But still,” said the young one, “I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter. I could never kill what I could not eat.” “My child,” said the mother, “this is a question which I cannot answer, though I am reckoned the most subtle bird of the mountain. When I was young, I used frequently to visit the aerie of an old vulture, who dwelt upon the Carpathian rocks; he had made many observations; he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation; as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly between the rising an
d setting of the summer sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of men. His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really vegetables with a power of motion; and that as the boughs of an oak are dashed together by the storm, that swine may fatten upon the fallen acorns, so men are by some unaccountable power driven one against another, till they lose their motion, that vultures may be fed. Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous beings; and those that hover more closely round them, pretend, that there is, in every herd, one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage. What it is that entitles him to such preeminence we know not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shows by his eagerness and diligence that he is, more than any of the others, a friend to the vultures.”
This was the original No. 22, but on the republication of the work in volumes, Dr. Johnson substituted what now stands under that head.
THE FALSE ALARM
Although having tended to be an opponent of the government early in life, Johnson published a series of pamphlets throughout the 1770s in favour of various government policies. In 1770 he produced The False Alarm, a political pamphlet attacking the radical politician John Wilkes. In 1771, his Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland’s Islands cautioned against war with Spain, while in 1774 the author printed The Patriot, a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism.
Johnson by Joshua Reynolds, close to the time of publication of ‘The False Alarm’, 1772
John Wilkes (1725-1797) was a radical, journalist and politician, who in the Middlesex election dispute fought for the right of voters — rather than the House of Commons — to determine their representatives.
THE FALSE ALARM
One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary terrours, and exemption from false alarms. The unusual appearances, whether regular or accidental, which once spread consternation over ages of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquisitive security. The sun is no more lamented when it is eclipsed, than when it sets; and meteors play their coruscations without prognostick or prediction.
The advancement of political knowledge may be expected to produce, in time, the like effects. Causeless discontent, and seditious violence, will grow less frequent and less formidable, as the science of government is better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of man. It is not, indeed, to be expected, that physical and political truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a state of neutrality, or, at worst, have nothing to encounter but prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without interest. But the politician’s improvements are opposed by every passion that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by hope, and by terrour, by publick faction, and private animosity.
It is evident, whatever be the cause, that this nation, with all its renown for speculation and for learning, has yet made little proficiency in civil wisdom. We are still so much unacquainted with our own state, and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamour, which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many favour it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.
What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion, and incite fury, from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known, by perusing the papers which have been, at once, presented as petitions to the king, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. It may, therefore, not be improper to lay before the publick the reflections of a man, who cannot favour the opposition, for he thinks it wicked, and cannot fear it, for he thinks it weak.
The grievance which has produced all this tempest of outrage, the oppression in which all other oppressions are included, the invasion which has left us no property, the alarm that suffers no patriot to sleep in quiet, is comprised in a vote of the house of commons, by which the freeholders of Middlesex are deprived of a Briton’s birthright — representation in parliament.
They have, indeed, received the usual writ of election; but that writ, alas! was malicious mockery: they were insulted with the form, but denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice:
“Non de vi, neque cæde, nec veneno,
Sed lis est mihi de tribus capellis.”
The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition and impiety.
That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors of the church and state, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief county in England cannot take its representative from a gaol.
Whence Middlesex should obtain the right of being denominated the chief county cannot easily be discovered; it is, indeed, the county where the chief city happens to stand, but, how that city treated the favourite of Middlesex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the city, has no claim to particular consideration. That a man was in gaol for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been, within memory, a sufficient reason why he should not come out of gaol a legislator. This reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to operate on the house of commons. Their notions, however strange, may be justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.
But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character, is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which no human authority can depose him.
Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often in expulsion.
That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of punishment. A member of the house cannot be cited for his conduct in parliament before any other court; and, therefore, if the house cannot punish him, he may attack, with impunity, the rights of the people, and the title of the king.
This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the principles of government. If legislative powers are not coordinate, they cease, in part, to be legislative; and if they be coordinate, they are unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no superiour?
The house of commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation has, of late, been very clamorously told; but while it subsists it is coordinate with the other powers, and this coordination ceases only, when the house, by dissolution, ceases to subsist.
As the particular representatives of the people are, in their publick character, above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject to the jurisdiction of the house; and as the house, in the exercise of its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there i
s no antecedent decision of the whole legislature.
This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact, but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised, probably, from their first institution, but certainly, as their records inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for derogating from their privileges.
It may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences in the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an offence against society, as an offence against the house.
They have, therefore, divested notorious delinquents of their legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment, naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of parliament.
It is allowed, that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament, and the commons probably judged, that, not being bound to the forms of law, they might treat these as felons, whose crimes were, in their opinion, equivalent to felony; and that, as a known felon could not be chosen, a man, so like a felon that he could not easily be distinguished, ought to be expelled.
The first laws had no law to enforce them; the first authority was constituted by itself. The power exercised by the house of commons is of this kind; a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and precedents have made legal.
It will occur, that authority thus uncontroulable may, in times of heat and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who suffers injustice is without redress, however innocent, however miserable.
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 167
