courfe, and that, therefore, the difference between twenty and twenty thousand names was inconfiderable. He further cenfured the clergy very feverely, for not interpofing in his behalf, and said, that their inactivity arofe from a paltry fear of being reproached with partiality towards one of their own order.

Here I cannot forbear remarking, an inconfiftency in the opinion of Johnson respecting the cafe of Dodd. He affifted in the folicitations for his pardon, yet, in his private judgment, he thought him unworthy of it, having been known to fay, that had he been the advifer of the king, he should have told him that, in pardoning Dodd, his juftice, in remitting the Perreaus to their fentence, would have been called in question.

Of his great humanity the above inftances might ferve as proofs: here follows another, which has lately come to my knowledge.

While he was at Paris, in a vifit to a convent in that city, he met with an Englishman, the librarian thereof, an ecclefiaftic of the Romish communion, named Compton, who, with the accustomed civility shewn to strangers by perfons in his ftation, produced to him the books of greatest rarity in his cuftody, and in many other ways gratified his curiofity, and affifted him in his refearches. This perfon, a short time after, came to England, and renounced the errors of popery; but finding no friends, and being in great diftrefs, communicated his wants to the fuperior of the monks in London, who for fome time fupplied them; till, having received inftructions from France no longer to patronize an apoftate, he was obliged to leave him to his fortunes. In this extremity, Mr. Compton recollected his cafual acquaintance at Paris with Johnson, and conceiving a hope of affiftance

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from him, found him, out and made him a vifit. Johnson, at the first interview, heard his ftory, and, with the warmeft expreffions of tenderness and esteem, put into his hand a guinea, affuring him, that he might expect fupport from him till a provifion for him could be found, and which he would make it his business to feek. In pursuance of this promife, Johnson furnished him with decent apparel, and afterwards applied to the prefent bishop of London, who recognized him as a prefbyter of the church of England, and licensed him to preach throughout his diocefe. Moreover, he allowed money for his fupport, till about the beginning of last year, when he got to be morning preacher in the church of Allhallows on the Wall, London, and foon after, upon an atteftation to his character for three years back, by two clergymen of reputation, he was chofen lecturer of the united parishes of St. Alban's Wood ftreet, and St. Olave Silver ftreet, London.

About this time, Dr. Johnfon changed his dwelling in Johnson's court, for a somewhat larger in Bolt court, Fleet street, where he commenced an intimacy with the landlord of it, a very worthy and sensible man, fome time fince deceased, Mr. Edmund Allen the printer. Behind it was a garden, which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was affigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of ftairs floor was made a repofitory for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his refidence at Streatham, he received the vifits of his friends, and, to the most intimate of them, fometimes gave, not inelegant dinners.

Being at eafe in his circumftances, and free from that folicitude which had embittered the former part

of his life, he funk into indolence, till his faculties feemed to be impaired: deafnefs grew upon him long intervals of mental abfence interrupted his converfation, and it was difficult to engage his attention to any fubject. His friends, from these symptoms, concluded, that his lamp was emitting its last rays, but the lapfe of a short period gave them ample proofs to the contrary.

In the year 1774, the long-agitated question of literary property received a final decifion, on an appeal to the fupreme judicature of this kingdom, whereby it was, in effect, declared, that fuch property was merely ideal, and exifted only in imagination

In the arguments in this case, on a special verdict, in the court of King's-bench, it was admitted, that precedents, directly to the point, were wanting: it was, therefore, determined by lord Manffield and two other judges, Yates alone diffenting, upon the fimple principle of natural juftice and moral fitness, that the right contended for did exift; and that these are part of the law of England is afferted, and has ever been understood. Vide Dodderidge's Eng

lish Lawyer,' page 154 to 161, and Doctor and Student' paffim. Nevertheless, in the argument of an appeal to the lords from a decree of the court of Chancery in 1774, it was contended, that, in new cafes, the judges had no right to decide by the rules of moral fitnefs and equitable right, but were to be ruled by precedents alone. An objection the more remarkable, as coming from men who are known to despise the study of antiquity, to have ridiculed the perufal of records, and to have treated with the utmost scorn, what they are pleased to term, black-letter learning. If this be law, and every judicial determination needs a precedent, we are left at a loss to account for those early and original determinations for which no precedent could be found, but which are now become fundamental principles of law: fuch, for inftance, as that a bare right of action is not affignable; that, of things fixed to the freehold, felony cannot be committed; that a release to one trefpaffer is a releafe to all; and numberless others. Lord Hardwicke has been known to direct a fearch for precedents, and, when none could be found, to fay- I will make one.'

The

The immediate confequence of this determination was, a fcramble of the lowest and leaft principled of the bookfellers, for the jewel thus caft among them. Regardless of that obvious rule of natural justice, which gives the poffeffor a right to what he has purchased, they printed books, for the copy-right whereof very large fums had been paid by bookfellers, who, for their liberality to authors, and the encouragement by them given to voluminous works, had been looked on and acknowledged as the patrons of literature.

Among these numerous depredators was one, who projected an edition of the English poets, which, by advertisements conceived in the most hyperbolical terms, and calculated to impose upon the credulity of the ignorant, was obtruded on the public.

The bookfellers, against whofe interest this intended publication was likely to operate, derived their right to the works of many of the poets, included in the above defign, by mefne affignments, from those ever refpectable men the Tonfons, who had purchased them of their authors. To check this attempt therefore, they determined themselves to publish an edition of the poets, and, in order to obtain for it a preference, engaged Johnfon to write the lives of all, or the chief of them; and he undertook and executed the task with great alacrity, and in a manner that argued not the leaft decline of his faculties,

When Johnson had determined on this work, he was to feek for the best mode of executing it. On a hint from a literary lady of his acquaintance and mine, he adopted, for his outline, that form in which the countess D'Aunois has drawn up the memoirs of the French

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French poets, in her Recueils des plus belles pieces

des Poëtes François;' and the foundation of his work was, the lives of the dramatic poets by Langbaine, and the lives of the poets at large by Winftanley, and that more modern one than either, their lives by Giles Jacob, whofe information, in many inftances, was communicated by the perfons themfelves. Nevertheless, the materials which Johnson had to work on were very fcanty. He was never a fedulous enquirer after facts or anecdotes, nor very accurate in fixing dates: Oldys was the man of all others the best qualified for fuch an employment; Johnson's talent was difquifition; a genius like his, difdained fo fervile a labour. Whenever, therefore, he found himself at a lofs for fuch intelligence as his work required, he avled himself of the industry of a friend or two, who took pleasure in furnishing him with fuch particulars as are to be found in the lives of Addison, Prior, Pope, Swift, Gay, and a few others, whose persons, habits, and characters, fome yet, or very lately living, were able, either from their own knowledge, or authenticated tradition, to defcribe.

The book came abroad in the year 1778, in ten fmall volumes, and no work of Johnson has been more celebrated. It has been faid to contain the foundest principles of criticism, and the most judicious examen of the effufions of poetic genius, that any country, not excepting France, has to fhew; and fo much of this is true, that, in our perufal of it, we find our curiofity, as to facts and circumftances, abforbed in the contemplation of thofe penetrating reflections and nice difcriminations, which are far the greater part of it,

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