able champion, Father O'Leary, has given him so hearty a drubbing. But
I should think myself very unworthy, if I did not at the same time
acknowledge Mr John Wesley's merit, as a veteran 'Soldier of Jesus
Christ', who has, I do believe, 'turned many from darkness into light,
and from the power of Satan to the living God'.] Robertson said,
Whitefield had strong natural eloquence, which, if cultivated, would
have done great things. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, I take it, he was at the
height of what his abilities could do, and was sensible of it. He had
the ordinary advantages of education; but he chose to pursue that
oratory which is for the mob.' BOSWELL. 'He had great effect on the
passions.' JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, I don't think so. He could not
represent a succession of pathetick images. He vociferated, and made
an impression. THERE, again, was a mind like a hammer.' Dr Johnson now
said, a certain eminent political friend of ours was wrong, in his
maxim of sticking to a certain set of MEN on all occasions. 'I can see
that a man may do right to stick to a PARTY,' said he;' that is to
say, he is a WHIG, or he is a TORY, and he thinks one of those parties
upon the whole the best, and that to make it prevail, it must be
generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. He takes
its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than
in the other, though some rotten sticks to be sure; and they cannot
well be separated. But, to bind one's self to one man, or one set of
men (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow), without any general
preference of system, I must disapprove.' [Footnote: If due attention
were paid to this observation, there would be more virtue, even in
politicks. What Dr Johnson justly condemned, has, I am sorry to say,
greatly increased in the present reign. At the distance of four years
from this conversation, 21st February 1777, My Lord Archbishop of
York, in his 'Sermon before the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts', thus indignantly describes the then state of