If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the
existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained;
for that would be to put an end to all improvement. But if we should
discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many
boys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to
finish the debate there.'
Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed poem, on
repairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, which he
thought would please Johnson, as affording clear evidence that Mallet
had appeared even as a literary character by the name of _Malloch_; his
changing which to one of softer sound, had given Johnson occasion to
introduce him into his _Dictionary_, under the article _Alias_[667].
This piece was, I suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preserved
in his works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, from
the beginning of it, where there were some common-place assertions as to
the superiority of ancient times;--'How false (said he) is all this, to
say that in ancient times learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it is
now.
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