"6. To read books of Divinity, either its use. The pious gratitude with which speculative or practical.

the true effects of religious discipline, we | tion, even so trite a thing as the plan cannot but venerate in Johnson one of of a magazine. the most exercised minds that our holy religion hath ever formed. If there be any thoughtless enough to suppose such exercise the weakness of a great understanding, let them look up to Johnson, and be convinced that what he so earnestly practised must have a rational foundation.

His works this year were an abstract or epitome, in octavo, of his folio Dictionary, and a few essays in a monthly publication, entitled, "The Universal Visiter." Christopher Smart, with whose unhappy vacillation of mind he sincerely sympathised, was one of the stated undertakers of this miscellany; and it was to assist him that Johnson sometimes employed his pen. All the essays marked with two asterisks have been ascribed to him; but I am confident, from internal evidence, that of these, neither "The Life of Chaucer," "Reflections on the State of Portugal," nor an "Essay on Architecture," were written by him. I am equally confident, upon the same evidence, that he wrote " Further Thoughts on Agriculture;" (b) being the sequel of a very inferiour essay on the same subject, and which, though carried on as if by the same hand, is both in thinking and expression so far above it, and so strikingly peculiar, as to leave no doubt of its true parent; and that he also wrote "A Dissertation on the State of Literature and Authours,"(b) and "A Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope." (a) The last of these, indeed, he afterwards added to his "Idler." Why the essays truly written by him are marked in the same manner with some which he did not write, I cannot explain; but with deference to those who have ascribed to him the three essays which I have rejected, they want all the characteristical marks of Johnsonian composition.

His original essays are, "An Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain ;"(b) "Remarks on the Militia Bill;"(b) " Observations on his Britannick Majesty's Treaties with the Empress of Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel;" (b) " Observations on the present State of Affairs;" (b) and, "Memoirs of Frederick III. King of Prussia." (b) In all these he displays extensive political knowledge and sagacity, expressed with uncommon energy and perspicuity, without any of those words which he sometimes took a pleasure in adopting, in imitation of Sir Thomas Browne; of whose "Christian Morals" he this year gave an edition, with his "Life" (a) prefixed to it, which is one of Johnson's best biographical performances. In one instance only in these essays has he indulged his Brownism. Dr. Robertson, the historian, mentioned it to me, as having at once convinced him that Johnson was the authour of the " Memoirs of the King of Prussia." Speaking of the pride which the old king, the father of his hero, took in being master of the tallest regiment in Europe, he says, "To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure; and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he immediately com: manded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity." For this Anglo-Latian word procerity, Johnson had, however, the aushority of Addison.

His reviews are of the following books: "Birch's History of the Royal Society;" (b)" Murphy's _Gray's-Inn Journal;" (b) "Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Vol. I.” (b) "Hampton's Translation of Poly. bius;" (b) "Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus;" (b) "Russel's NaHe engaged also to superintend and tural History of Aleppo ;"(b) "Sir Isaac contribute largely to another monthly Newton's Arguments in Proof of a publication, entitled "The Literary Ma- Deity;" (b) "Borlase's History of the gazine, or Universal Review;" (a) the Isles of Scilly ;"(b) "Holme's Experifirst number of which came out in May ments on Bleaching:"(b) "Browne's this year. What were his emoluments Christian Morals;"(b)" Hales on Disfrom this undertaking, and what other tilling Sea Water, Ventilators in Ships, writers were employed in it, I have not and Curing an ill Taste in Milk;" (b) discovered. He continued to write in "Lucas's Essay on Waters;"(b)"Keith's it, with intermissions, till the fifteenth Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops;"(b) number; and I think that he never "Browne's History of Jamaica;" (b) gave better proofs of the force, acute- "Philosophical Transactions, Volume ness, and vivacity of his mind than in XLIX. ;"(b) " Mrs. Lennox's Translathis miscellany, whether we consider tion of Sully's Memoirs" (a) "Mishis original essays, or his reviews of cellanies by Elizabeth Harrison;" (b) the works of others. The "Preliminary "Evans's Map and Account of the MidAddress" (b) to the publick is a proof dle Colonies in America;" (b) "Letter how this great man could embellish, on the Case of Admiral Byng;" (a) with the graces of superiour composi- "Appeal to the People concerning Ad.

miral Byng;" (a) "Hanway's Eight Days Journey, and Essay on Tea ;" (a) "The Cadet, a Military Treatise;" (b) "Some further Particulars in Relation to the Case of Admiral Byng, by a Gentleman of Oxford;" (a) "The Conduct of the Ministry relating to the present War impartially examined;" (b) "A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil." (a) All these, from internal evidence, were written by Johnson: some of them I know he avowed, and have marked them with an Italick (a) accordingly. Mr. Thomas Davies, indeed, ascribed to him the Review of Mr. Burke's "Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful;" and Sir John Hawkins, with equal discernment, has inserted it in his collection of Johnson's works: whereas it has no resemblance to Johnson's composition, and is well known to have been written by Mr. Murphy, who has acknowledged it to me and many others.

ficial effect of which the present reign afforded an illustrious example, when addresses from all parts of the kingdom controuled an audacious attempt to introduce a new power subversive of the crown.

A still stronger proof of his patriotick spirit appears in his review of an "Essay on Waters, by Dr. Lucas, of whom, after describing him as a man well known to the world for his daring defiance of power, when he thought it exerted on the side of wrong, he thus speaks: "The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a proclamation, in which they charge him with crimes of which they never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence.

"Let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time that they may rob, but cannot impoverish."

Some of his reviews in this Magazine are very short accounts of the pieces noticed, and I mention them only that Dr. Johnson's opinion of the works may be known; but many of them are examples of elaborate criticism, in the most masterly style. In his review of the "Memoirs of the Court of Augustus," he has the resolution to think and speak from his own mind, regardless of the cant transmitted from age to age, in praise of the ancient Romans. Thus: "I know not why any one but a school boy in his declamation should whine over the Com

It is worthy of remark, in justice to Johnson's political character, which has been misrepresented as abjectly submissive to power, that his "Observations on the present State of Affairs" glow with as animated a spirit of constitutional liberty as can be found any where. Thus he begins: "The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed of the national affairs; and in which he has a right to have that expectation gratified. For, whatever may be urged by ministers, or those whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the necessity of confidence in our governours, and the presumption of pry-monwealth of Rome, which grew great ing with profane eyes into the recesses of policy, it is evident that this reverence can be claimed only by counsels yet unexecuted, and projects suspended in deliberation. But when a design has ended in miscarriage or success, when every eye and every ear is witness to general discontent, or general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to disentangle confusion and illustrate obscurity; to show by what causes every event was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate; to lay down with distinct particularity what rumour always huddles in general exclamation, or perplexes by indigested narratives; to show whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected; and honestly to lay before the people what inquiry can gather of the past, and conjecture can estimate of the future."

Here we have it assumed as an incontrovertible principle, that in this country the people are the superintendents of the conduct and measures of those by whom government is administered; of the bene

only by the misery of the rest of man. kind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves and of one another." Again, " A people, who while they were poor robbed mankind; and as soon as they became rich robbed one another." In his review of the Miscellanies in prose and verse, published by Elizabeth Harrison, but written by many hands, he gives an eminent proof at once of his orthodoxy and candour. "The authours of the essays in prose seem generally to have imitated, or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxuriance of Mrs. Rowe. This, however, is not all their praise; they have laboured to add to her brightness of imagery her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr. Watts before their eyes; a writer who, if he stood not in the first class of genius, compensated that defect by a ready application of his powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first

made by Mr. Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora ; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not allow him time for the cultivation of style; and the completion of the great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first who taught the Dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing them that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both done honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well make their failings be forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world wish for communion. They were pure from all the heresies of an age to which every opinion is become à favourite that the universal church has hitherto detested!

"This praise the general interest of mankind requires to be given to writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not weary. But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom I believe applauded by angels, and numbered with the just."

His defence of tea against Mr. Jonas Hanway's violent attack upon that elegant and popular beverage shows how very well a man of genius can write upon the slightest subject, when he writes, as the Italians say, con amore: I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank of it at all hours was so great that his nerves must have been uncommonly strong not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it. He assured me that he never felt the least inconvenience from it; which is a proof that the fault of his constitution was rather a too great tension of fibres than the contrary. Mr. Hanway wrote an angry answer to Johnson's review of his Essay on Tea, and Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, made a reply to it; the only instance, I believe, in the whole course of his life, when he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against him. I suppose, when he thought of any of his little antagonists, he was ever justly aware of the high sentiment of Ajax in Ovid:

"Iste tulit pretium jam nunc certaminis hujus, Qui, cum victus erit, mecum certasse feretur." But, indeed, the good Mr. Hanway laid himself so open to ridicule that Johnson's animadversions upon his attack were chiefly to make sport.

The generosity with which he pleads the cause of Admiral Byng is highly to the honour of his heart and spirit. Though Voltaire affects to be witty upon the fate of that unfortunate officer, observing that he was shot " pour encourager les

autres," the nation has long been satis-
fied that his life was sacrificed to the
political fervour of the times. In the
vault belonging to the Torrington family,
in the church of Southill, in Bedford-
shire, there is the following Epitaph upon
his monument, which I have transcribed;
"TO THE PERPETUAL DISGRACE
OF PUBLIC JUSTICE,

THE HONOURABLE JOHN BYNG, ESQ.
ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE,
FELL A MARTYR TO POLITICAL
PERSECUTION,

MARCH 14, IN THE YEAR 1757;
WHEN BRAVERY AND LOYALTY
WERE INSUFFICIENT SECURITIES
FOR THE LIFE AND HONOUR OF
A NAVAL OFFICER."

Johnson's most exquisite critical essay in the Literary Magazine, and indeed any where, is his review of Soame Jenyns's "Inquiry into the Origin of Evil." Jenyns was possessed of lively talents and a style eminently pure and easy, and could very happily play with a light subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most difficult and excruciating question, the Origin of Evil, he "ventured far beyond his depth," and, accordingly, was exposed by Johnson both with acute argument and brilliant wit. I remember when the late Mr. Bicknell's humorous performance, entitled "The Musical Travels of Joel Collyer," in which a slight attempt is made to ridicule Johnson, was ascribed to Soame Jenyns, "Ha! (said Johnson) I thought I had given him enough of it."

His triumph over Jenyns is thus described by my friend Mr. Courtenay in his "Poetical Review of the literary and moral Character of Dr. Johnson;" a performance of such merit that, had I not been honoured with a very kind and partial notice in it, I should echo the sentiments of men of the first taste loudly in its praise:

"When specious sophists with presumption

scan

The source of evil hidden still from man;
To rival St. John, and his scholar Pope:
Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope
Though mataphysicks spread the gloom of
By reason's star he guides our aching sight;
night,
The bounds of knowledge marks, and points
To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages
Where, like a farthing link-boy, Jenyns stands,
stray;
And the dim torch drops from his feeble
hands*."

the way

Some time after Dr. Johnson's death, there appeared in the newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in Mr. Soame Jenyns, very unworthy of that genthe form of an Epitaph, under the name of tleman, who had quietly submitted to the

As one of the little occasional advantages which he did not disdain to take by his pen, as a man whose profession was literature, he this year accepted of a guinea from Mr. Robert Dodsley, for writing the introduction to "The London Chronicle," an evening newspaper; and even in so slight a performance exhibited peculiar talents. This Chronicle still subsists, and from what I observed, when I was abroad, has a more extensive circulation upon the Continent than any of the English newspapers. It was constantly read by Johnson himself; and it is but just to observe, that it has all along been distinguished for good sense, accuracy, moderation, and delicacy.

This year Mr. William Payne, brother of the respectable bookseller of that name, published "An Introduction to the Game of Draughts," to which Johnson contributed a Dedication to the Earl of Rochford,(a) and a Preface,(a) both of which are admirably adapted to the treatise to which they are prefixed. Johnson, I believe, did not play at draughts after leaving College, by which he suffered; for it would have afforded him an innocent soothing relief from the melancholy which distressed him so often. I have heard him regret that he had not learned to play at cards; and the game of draughts we know is peculiarly calculated to fix the attention without straining it. There is a composure and gravity in draughts which insensibly tranquillizes the mind; and, accordingly, the Dutch are fond of it, as they are of smoking, of the sedative influence of which, though he himself never smoked, he had a high opinion *. Besides, there is in draughts some exercise of the faculties; and, accordingly, Johnson wishing to dignify the subject in his Dedication with what is most estimable in it, observes, "Triflers may find or make any thing a trifle: but since it is the great characteristick of a wise man to see events in their causes, to obviate | consequences, and ascertain contingencies, your Lordship will think nothing a trifle by which the mind is inured to caution, foresight, and circumspection." critical lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was In the College of Dublin, four quarterly then become an avowed, and (as my Lord examinations of the students are held in each Bishop of London, who had a serious conver-year, in various prescribed branches of literasation with him on the subject, assures me) a ture and science; and premiums, consisting sincere Christian. He could not expect that of books impressed with the College Arms, Johnson's numerous friends would patiently are adjudged by examiners to those who have bear to have the memory of their master stig- most distinguished themselves in the several matized by no mean pen, but that, at least, classes, after a very rigid trial, which lasts two one would be found to retort. Accordingly, days. This regulation, which has subsisted this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph was met in about seventy years, has been attended with the same public field by an answer, in terms the most beneficial effects. by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only could justify:

"EPITAPH,

"Prepared for a creature not quite dead yet,
"Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf,
Who, judging only from its wretched self,
Feebly attempted, petulant and vain,
The Origin of Evil,' to explain.

A mighty genius, at this elf displeased,
With a strong critick grasp the urchin
squeezed,

For thirty years its coward spleen it kept,
Till in the dust the mighty Genius slept;
Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff,
And blink'd at JOHNSON with its last poor
puff."

Another instance of the same nature has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Campbell, who has done himself considerable credit by his own writings. "Sitting with Dr. Johnson one morning alone, he asked me if L had known Dr. Madden, who was authour of the premium-scheme in Ireland. On my answering in the affirmative, and also that I had for some years lived in his neighbourhood, &c. he begged of me that when I returned to Ireland, I would endeavour to procure for him a poem of Dr. Madden's, called Boulter's Monument.' The reason (said he) why I wish for it is this; when Dr. Madden came to London, he submitted that work to my castigation; and I remember I blotted a great many lines, and might have blotted many more without making the poem worses. However, the Doctor was very thankful and very generous, for he gave me ten guineas, which was to me at that time a great sum."

Dr. Samuel Madden was the first proposer of premiums in that University. They were instituted about the year 1734. He was also one of the founders of the Dublin Society for the encouragement of arts and agriculture. In addition to the premiums which were and are still annually given by that society for this purpose, Dr. Madden gave others from his own fund. Hence he was usually called "Premium Madden." M.

Dr. Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of Ireland. He died Sept. 27, 1742, at which time he was, for the thirteenth time, one of the Lords Justices of that kingdom. Johnson speaks of him in high terms of commendation, in the Life of Ambrose Philips. J. B.-O.

§ Dr. Madden wrote very bad verses. V. : Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. those prefixed to Leland's Life of Philip of Macedon, 4to. 1758. K.

P. 48.