and indefensible, but still carrying a notion
of _duty_, by which honest minds might easily be caught. 'But there are
now _combinations_ of _individuals_, who, instead of being the sons and
servants of the community, make a league for advancing their _private
interests_. It is their business to hold high the notion of _political
honour_. I believe and trust, it is not injurious to say, that such a
bond is no better than that by which the lowest and wickedest
combinations are held together; and that it denotes the last stage of
political depravity.' To find a thought, which just shewed itself to us
from the mind of _Johnson_, thus appearing again at such a distance of
time, and without any communication between them, enlarged to full
growth in the mind of _Markham_, is a curious object of philosophical
contemplation.--That two such great and luminous minds should have been
so dark in one corner,--that _they_ should have held it to be 'Wicked
rebellion in the British subjects established in America, to resist the
abject condition of holding all their property at the mercy of British
subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common Lord
the King was to be preserved inviolate,--is a striking proof to me,
either that 'He who sitteth in Heaven' [_Psalms_, ii.4] scorns the
loftiness of human pride,--or that the evil spirit, whose personal
existence I strongly believe, and even in this age am confirmed in that
belief by a _Fell_, nay, by a _Hurd_, has more power than some choose to
allow. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole writing on June 10, 1778, after censuring
Robertson for sneering at Las Casas, continues:--'Could Archbishop
Markham in a Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
by fire and sword paint charity in more contemptuous terms? It is a
Christian age.' _Letters_, vii.81. It was Archbishop Markham to whom
Johnson made the famous bow; _ante_, vol. iv, just before April 10,
1783. John Fell published in 1779 _Demoniacs; an Enquiry into the
Heathen and Scripture Doctrine of Daemons_. For Hurd see _ante_, under
June 9,1784.

[89] See Forster's _Essays_, ii 304-9. Mr. Forster often quotes Cooke in
his _Life of Goldsmith_. He describes him (i. 58) as 'a _young_ Irish
law student who had chambers near Goldsmith in the temple.' Goldsmith
did not reside in the temple till 1763 (_ib_. p.336), and Cooke was old
enough to have published his _Hesiod_ in 1728, and to have found a place
in _The Dunciad_ (ii.