norous, and everywhere
and always is he "the friend of the wise and teacher of the good."

No man was more ready to give forcible expression to his amusing
prejudices, as when he exclaimed that "the noblest prospect which a
Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England," but to
be able to assert of any act of man that Dr. Johnson in solemn
seriousness condemned it, is for ever to arraign that act in the court of
human morals; and so the judicious must concede that when his authority
can be cited in fierce and glowing denunciation of vivisectors they are
left in a demersed condition.

I took occasion when giving evidence before the last Royal Commission on
Vivisection to rehearse Dr. Johnson's philippic which I now reproduce
below, and the dejected and deflated aspect of the vivisectors on the
commission when I had finished it caused that moment to be one of those I
shall always recall with exhilaration! Not a word had one of them to say
while I waited for any comment they might adventure, and after a
diverting and eloquent silence Lord Selby from the chair remarked, "That
leaves no doubt about Dr. Johnson's view in his day." It most certainly
does not!

The _Idlers_ that sport only with inanimate nature may claim some
indulgence; if they are useless, they are still innocent; but there
are others, whom I know not how to mention without more emotion than
my love of quiet willingly admits. Among the inferior professors of
medical knowledge is a race of wretches whose lives are only varied
by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to
tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in
various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of
the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more
acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies
are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the
veins, it is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of
the tender mind with images like these. If such cruelties were not
practised it were to be desired that they should not be conceived;
but, since they are published every day with ostentation, let me be
allowed once to mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence.
_Mead_ has invidiously remarked of _Woodward_ that he gathered shells
and stones, and would pass for a philosop