ry man must
be his own casuist. I stared, when I was a boy, to hear grave persons
approve of Sir Walter Scott's downright denial that he was the author of
Waverley, in answer to the Prince Regent's downright question. If I
remember rightly, Samuel Johnson would have approved of the same course.

It is known that, whatever the law gives, it also gives all that is
necessary to full possession; thus a man whose land is environed by land of
others has a right of way over the land of these others. By analogy, it is
argued that when a man has a right to his secret, he has a right to all
that is necessary to keep it, and that is not unlawful. If, then, he can
only keep his secret by denial, he has a right to denial. This I admit to
be an answer against all men except the denier himself; if conscience and
self-respect will allow {21} it, no one can impeach it. But the question
cannot be solved on a case. That question is, A lie, is it _malum in se_,
without reference to meaning and circumstances? This is a question with two
sides to it. Cases may be invented in which a lie is the only way of
preventing a murder, or in which a lie may otherwise save a life. In these
cases it is difficult to acquit, and almost impossible to blame; discretion
introduced, the line becomes very hard to draw.

I know but one work which has precisely--as at first appears--the character
and object of my Budget. It is the _Review of the Works of the Royal
Society of London_, by Sir John Hill, M.D. (1751 and 1780, 4to.). This man
offended many: the Royal Society, by his work, the medical profession, by
inventing and selling extra-pharmacopoeian doses; Garrick, by resenting the
rejection of a play. So Garrick wrote:

"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is;
His farces are physic; his physic a farce is."

I have fired at the Royal Society and at the medical profession, but I have
given a wide berth to the drama and its wits; so there is no epigram out
against me, as yet. He was very able and very eccentric. Dr. Thomson
(_Hist. Roy. Soc._) says he has no humor, but Dr. Thomson was a man who
never would have discovered humor.

Mr. Weld (_Hist. Roy. Soc._) backs Dr. Thomson, but with a remarkable
addition. Having followed his predecessor in observing that the
_Transactions_ in Martin Folkes's time have an unusual proportion of
trifling and puerile papers, he says that Hill's book is a poor attempt at
humor, and glaringly exhibits the feelings