'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie _was_ a reasoner, and _a
reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'_ BOSWELL.
For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see _ante_, i.
68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that Johnson should have
pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but
they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere
dialectical skill he had very few superiors.' Macaulay's _England_, ed.
1874, v. 81, note. Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson
describes in his _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 28), and
continues:--'Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly.
Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from
the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord
Bolingbroke thus writes (_Works_, in. 45):--'Let neither the polemical
skill of Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to
put on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false
gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to pieces by
it.
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