To pay great sums, and to compound the small,

For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?"

No sooner had I settled my new religion than I resolved to profess myself a Catholic. Youth is sincere and impetuous; and a momentary glow of enthusiasm had raised me above all temporal considerations.

Memoirs of my Life and Writings.

P. 232, 1. 8. Determined. In the proper sense, “put an end to."

P. 234, I. 26. Mutually. This word and its congeners have been rightly classed among the greatest cruces of the correct use of English. It does not here form an exception to Gibbon's general impeccableness of style. The opponents respectively regarded confusion and identification as capital errors.

P. 236, l. 13. Dr. Middleton. Conyers Middleton. The book in question, and others of his works, while nominally directed against Rome, were thought to adopt a line of argumeut unfriendly to Christianity generally.

P. 237, L 22. The milkwhite hind. A reference, of course, to Dryden's famous poem.

DR

JAMES BOSWELL.

The

James Boswell of Auchinleck was born in 1740,
travelled, drank, wrote, haunted Johnson, and
practised at the bar till 1795. A paradox in himself,
Boswell has been a great cause of paradoxes.
virtue of his incomparable Life of Johnson, though
apparently parasitic, has been recognized by the best
judges as original. He died in 1795.

CHARACTER OF DR. JOHNSON.

R. SAMUEL JOHNSON'S character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high church of England and monarchial principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in

the schools of declamation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make error permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was conscious of his superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. There is deception in this it is not easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking, in the common step, are awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation. His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined the royal touch could cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy; he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance. He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted-hair-buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings,

and silver buckles. Upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio dictionary; and he carried in his hand a large English oak stick. The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

P. 239, L. 6.

Monarchial. We say now “monarchical," which has prevailed

not merely over “monarchial," but over "monarchal."

R

WITH

SIR PHILIP FRANCIS.

Sir Philip Francis, who ranks here hypothetically as Junius, was born at Dublin in 1740, and after serving in the public offices, in the diplomatic service, and on the council of Bengal, entered parliament. He died in 1818. The Letters of Junius, with which he is credited, are perhaps more famous than excellent, but still excellent.

TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

ITH what force, my Lord, with what protection, are you prepared to meet the united detestation of the people of England? The city of London has given a generous example to the kingdom, in what manner a king of this country ought to be addressed; and I fancy, my Lord, it is not yet in your courage to stand between your sovereign and the addresses of his subjects. The injuries you have done this country are such as demand not only redress, but vengeance. In vain shall you look for protection to that venal vote, which you have already paid for another must be purchased; and to save a minister, the House of Commons must declare themselves not only independent of their constituents, but the determined enemies of the constitution. Consider, my Lord, whether this be an extremity to which their fears will permit them to advance; or, if their protection should fail you, how far you are authorised to rely upon the sincerity of those smiles, which a pious court lavishes without reluctance upon a libertine by profession. It is not indeed the least of the thousand contradictions which attend you, that a man, marked to the world by the grossest violation of all