press, which you know is a constant topick[179]. Suppose you and I and two
hundred more were restrained from printing our thoughts: what then? What
proportion would that restraint upon us bear to the private happiness of
the nation[180]?'

This mode of representing the inconveniences of restraint as light and
insignificant, was a kind of sophistry in which he delighted to indulge
himself, in opposition to the extreme laxity for which it has been
fashionable for too many to argue, when it is evident, upon reflection,
that the very essence of government is restraint; and certain it is,
that as government produces rational happiness, too much restraint is
better than too little. But when restraint is unnecessary, and so close
as to gall those who are subject to it, the people may and ought to
remonstrate; and, if relief is not granted, to resist. Of this manly and
spirited principle, no man was more convinced than Johnson himself[181].

About this time Dr. Kenrick[182] attacked him, through my sides, in a
pamphlet, entitled _An Epistle to James Boswell, Esq., occasioned by his
having transmitted the moral Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson to Pascal
Paoli, General of the Corsicans_[183]. I was at first inclined to answer
this pamphlet; but Johnson, who knew that my doing so would only gratify
Kenrick, by keeping alive what would soon die away of itself, would not
suffer me to take any notice of it[184].

His sincere regard for Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant, made
him so desirous of his further improvement, that he now placed him at a
school at Bishop Stortford, in Hertfordshire. This humane attention does
Johnson's heart much honour. Out of many letters which Mr. Barber
received from his master, he has preserved three, which he kindly gave
me, and which I shall insert according to their dates.