from lord North: Sir Robert having got into his hands fome treasonable letters of his inveterate enemy, Will. Shippen, one of the heads of the Jacobite faction, he fent for him, and burned them before his face. Some time afterwards, Shippen had occafion to take the oaths to the government in the house of commons, which, while he was doing, Sir Robert, who stood next him, and knew his principles to be the fame as ever, fmiled:- Egad Robin,' faid Shippen, who had obferved him, that's hardly fair.'

It is not a little wonderful, that Sir Robert Walpole could preferve fuch an equanimity under the greatest provocations, as he is known to have done, or that he could entertain a kindness for any one, seeing he is known to have afferted, that every man has his price; to which I will add, from unquestionable authority, that fome time before his death, he uttered this fentiment- that fo great is the depravity of the human heart, that minifters, who only ⚫ could know it, were, in charity to mankind, bound to keep it a fecret.'--Agreeable to this of Dr. Young,

Heav'n's Sovereign faves all Beings but himself,
That hideous fight, a naked human heart.'

Night Thoughts, Narciffa.

In the year 1775, Johnfon received from the univerfity of Oxford the highest teftimony of esteem, which that learned body could confer, in a diploma creating him adoctor in the faculty of law. The inftrument bears date the thirtieth day of March, in the above year, and recites the motives for this honourable diftinction in

the following eulogium:- Sciatis, virum illuftrem, Samuelem Johnson, in omni humaniorum literarum genere eruditum, omniumque fcientiarum comprehenfione feliciffimum, fcriptis fuis, ad popularium 'mores formandos fummâ verborum elegantiâ ac fententiarum gravitate compofitis, ita olim inclaruiffe, ut dignus videretur cui ab academiâ fuâ eximia quædam laudis præmia deferrentur, quique in venerabilem magiftrorum ordinem fummâ cum dignitate co-optaretur. Cum vero eundem clariffimum virum tot poftea tantique labores, in patriâ præfertim linguâ ornandâ et ftabiliendâ feliciter impenfi, ita infigniverint, ut in literarum republicâ princeps jam et primarius jure habeatur, Nos Cancellarius, &c.'

In the fummer of the fame year, Johnfon accepted of an invitation from his friend Mr. Thrale, to make one of a party with him and his wife, in a tour to Paris. No memoirs of this journey, in his own hand-writing, are extant; nor is the want thereof to be regretted, unless it were certain, that he was enough master of the French language to be able to converfe in it*, and that he had noted down the reflections he may be fupposed to have made in a vifit to a strange country, and a refidence among a people whofe national character differs from our own. His garb and mode of dreffing, if it could be called dreffing, had long been fo inflexibly determined, as

I have some reason to think, that at his first coming to town, and while he had lodgings in the Strand, he frequented Slaughter's coffee-house, with a view to acquire a habit of speaking French, but he never could attain to it. Lockman ufed the fame method, and fucceeded, as Johnson himself once told me.

to

to refift all the innovations of fafhion. His friends. had therefore great difficulty in perfuading him to fuch a compliance in this refpect, as might ferve to keep them in countenance, and fecure him from the danger of ridicule: he yielded to their remonftrances fo far as to drefs in a fuit of black and a Bourgeois wig, but refifted their importunity to wear ruffles*.

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In the course of this narrative it has been fhewn, that although, and that by his own declarations, the literary faculties of Johnson were, at most times, inert, and that he could feldom be stimulated to the exercise of his pen, but by the immediate profpect of gain; yet, he was ever ready to affift the publication of any work that had either novelty or any intrinfic worth, with a life of the author, a dedication, preface, or an introduction tending to recommend it, as in the case of Afcham's Pieces,' the last edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Chriftian Morals,' and Kennedy's Scripture Chronology,' and many more, all of which he ushered into the world, and, for aught that appears, without any recompence. With a like benevolent difpofition, he was ready to affift with a prologue, or an epilogue, the representation of a play written by a friend; or with an occasional address of the fame kind, under circumstances that put it in his power to promote the interefts of the family of a deceased author: accordingly, he wrote, for his friend Goldsmith, a prologue to a comedy written by him, called 'The Goodnatured Man,' and acted in 1769; and, for the grand-daughter of Milton, a prologue to Comus, exhibited on the fifth day of April, 1750.

By a note in his diary it appears, that he laid out near thirty pounds in cloaths for this journey,

L13

The

The fame good office he performed for the wife and children of Mr. Hugh Kelly, the author of a comedy called, A Word to the Wife,' which, in the year 1770, was brought on the ftage, but, by the malice of a party, was obstructed in the reprefentation, and configned to oblivion. This perfon, it is faid, was originally a stay-maker, but, being a man of wit and parts, he quitted that unmanly occupation, and having, as we must fuppofe, fome flender means to enable him thereto, he betook himfelf to reading and study, and, at a time when the difcipline of the inns of court was fcandaloufly lax, got himself called to the bar, and practised at the quarter-feffions under me, but with little fuccefs. In aid of this profeffion, he became the conductor of a paper called

The Public Ledger,' and took up that precarious one of a writer for the ftage, in which he met with fome encouragement, till it was infinuated, that he was a penfioner of the minifter, and, therefore, a fit object of patriotic vengeance. He died in the year 1769, and leaving a wife and five children unprovided for, the proprietors of Covent-garden theatre, in 1777, with their ufual generofity, permitted to be acted at their house, for the benefit of his family, the comedy above-mentioned; and, to foften the hearts of the audience, Johnfon was eafily prevailed on to write upon the occafion the following very fine lines:

This night presents a play, which public rage,
Or right or wrong, once hooted from the stage:
From zeal, or malice, now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead*.
• A generous

To the affertion contained in this line, I here note an ex

ception,

A generous foe regards with pitying eye

The man whom fate has laid where all must lie.
To wit, reviving from it's author's duft,

Be kind, ye judges, or at least be just : 'Let no renew'd hoftilities invade,

Th' oblivious grave's inviolable fhade.
Let one great payment every claim appease,
And him who cannot hurt, allow to please;
To please by scenes, unconscious of offence,
By harmless merriment, or useful sense.

Where aught of bright or fair the piece difplays,
Approve it only-'tis too late to praife.

If want of fkill or want of care appear,
Forbear to hifs-the poet cannot hear.

ception. Whoever has viewed the monument of Camden in the fouth tranfept of Weftminster abbey, muft, till very lately, have remarked, that his buft thereon was defaced, the nose having been ftricken off. This was no recent accident, but a defigned injury to his memory, done to it by an exafperated young man who lived at the time of its erection. The fact is related by Dr. Thomas Smith, in his life of Camden, prefixed to his letters, 4to. 1691, and is to this effect. Camden, in his annals, fub anno 1595, had related, that a young lady, whose name he fuppreffed, but whom I conjecture to have been the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and one of queen Elizabeth's maids of honour, had been feduced by the arts of a young man of high rank, to whom he was afterwards married, and who became diftinguished for his bravery and learning, Sir Walter Raleigh, as I fuppofe. This fact, though notorious in the court, gave fuch offence to the young man above-mentioned, who was a relation of the lady, as induced him to revenge himself on the author's memory by mutilating his effigy. The injury done to it has, however, been lately repaired, and the feature restored, by the direction, and at the expence of a friend to the memory of Camden.