Johnson, according to my usual custom. It
seemed to me, that there was always something peculiarly mild and placid
in his manner upon this holy festival, the commemoration of the most
joyful event in the history of our world, the resurrection of our LORD
and SAVIOUR, who, having triumphed over death and the grave, proclaimed
immortality to mankind.

I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaintance, who
maintained, that her husband's having been guilty of numberless
infidelities, released her from conjugal obligations, because they were
reciprocal. JOHNSON. 'This is miserable stuff, Sir. To the contract of
marriage, besides the man and wife, there is a third party--Society;
and if it be considered as a vow--GOD: and, therefore, it cannot be
dissolved by their consent alone. Laws are not made for particular
cases, but for men in general. A woman may be unhappy with her husband;
but she cannot be freed from him without the approbation of the civil
and ecclesiastical power. A man may be unhappy, because he is not so
rich as another; but he is not to seize upon another's property with his
own hand.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, this lady does not want that the contract
should be dissolved; she only argues that she may indulge herself in
gallantries with equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes
care not to introduce a spurious issue into his family. You know, Sir,
what Macrobius has told us of Julia.' JOHNSON. 'This lady of yours, Sir,
I think, is very fit for a brothel.'

Mr. Macbean, authour of the Dictionary of ancient Geography, came in.
He mentioned that he had been forty years absent from Scotland. 'Ah,
Boswell! (said Johnson, smiling,) what would you give to be forty years
from Scotland?' I said, 'I should not like to be so long absent from
the seat of my ancestors.' This gentleman, Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Levet,
dined with us.

Mrs. Williams was very peevish; and I wondered at Johnson's patience
with her now, as I had often done on similar occasions. The truth is,
that his humane consideration of the forlorn and indigent state in which
this lady was left by her father, induced him to treat her with the
utmost tenderness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement,
so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by carrying her with
him to their houses, where, from her manner of eating, in consequence of
her blindness, she could not but offend the delicacy of persons of nice
sensations.

Aft