ier fought
without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr.
Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made:
at last he said, 'But, Sir, what do you think of Leslie?' JOHNSON.
'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie _was_ a reasoner, and _a
reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'_ BOSWELL.

For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see _ante_, i.
68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that Johnson should have
pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but
they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere
dialectical skill he had very few superiors.' Macaulay's _England_, ed.
1874, v. 81, note. Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson
describes in his _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 28), and
continues:--'Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly.
Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from
the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord
Bolingbroke thus writes (_Works_, in. 45):--'Let neither the polemical
skill of Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to
put on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false
gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to pieces by
it.' Leslie is described by Macaulay, _History of England_, v. 81.

[885] Burnet (_History of his own Time_, ed. 1818, iv. 303) in 1712
speaks of Hickes and Brett as being both in the Church, but as shewing
'an inclination towards Popery.' Hickes, he says, was at the head of the
Jacobite party. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25.

[886] 'Only five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell
would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a
good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other
nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to
hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most decisive proof that
they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874,
v. 81.

[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