JOHNSON. 'I believe I should not either;
but Mr. M'Queen and I are cowards[660]. It would not be from tenderness
of heart; for the heart is as tender when a man is in health as when he
is sick, though his resolution may be stronger[661]. Sixtus Quintus was
a sovereign as well as a priest; and, if the criminals deserved death,
he was doing his duty to the last. You would not think a judge died ill,
who should be carried off by an apoplectick fit while pronouncing
sentence of death. Consider a class of men whose business it is to
distribute death:--soldiers, who die scattering bullets. Nobody thinks
they die ill on that account.'
Talking of Biography, he said, he did not think that the life of any
literary man in England had been well written[662]. Beside the common
incidents of life, it should tell us his studies, his mode of living,
the means by which he attained to excellence, and his opinion of his own
works. He told us, he had sent Derrick to Dryden's relations, to gather
materials for his Life[663]; and he believed Derrick[664] had got all
that he himself should have got; but it was nothing. He added, he had a
kindness for Derrick, and was sorry he was dead.
His notion as to the poems published by Mr. M'Pherson, as the works of
Ossian, was not shaken here. Mr. M'Queen always evaded the point of
authenticity, saying only that Mr.
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