Intaminatis fulget honoribus; I have read, converfed, and thought much upon the fubject, and would recommend to all who are capable of conviction, an excellent Tract by my learned and ingenious friend John Ranby, Efq. entitled "Doubts on the Abolition of the Slave Trade," To Mr. Ranby's Doubts," I will apply Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's expreffion in praise of a Scotch Law Book, called Dirleton's Doubts;" "HIS Doubts, (faid his Lordship,) are better than moft people's Certainties." My Readers will probably be furprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnfon could amuse himself with fo flight and playful a fpecies of compofition as a Charade. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. Barnard, now Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me with so much intimacy and focial ease, that I may prefume to call him not only my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus paid to his Lordship by Johnson. CHARA D E. "My first fhuts out thieves from your house or your room, "My Second expreffes a Syrian perfume. 8 "My whole is a man in whose converse is shar'd, "The strength of a Bar, and the sweetness of Nard." • Bar. 7 Nard. -8 Barnard. Johnfon Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Efq. if he had read the Spanish tranflation of Salluft, faid to be written by a Prince of Spain, with the affiftance of his tutor, who is profeffedly the authour of a treatise, annexed on the Phoenician language. Mr. Cambridge commended the work particularly, as he thought the Tranflator understood his authour better than is commonly the cafe with Tranflators. But faid, he was difappointed in the purpose for which he borrowed the book; to fee whether a Spaniard could be better furnished with infcriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he might more probably find on a coaft, fo immediately oppofite to Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON, JOHNSON, "I am very forry you was not gratified in your expectations." CAMBRIDGE, "The language would have been of little use, as there is no hiftory exifting in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us." JOHNSON, "No Sir. They have not been partial, they have told their own ftory, without fhame or re gard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Æneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian." I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from Mr. Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, a few miles diftant from London, a numerous *b 2 and and excellent library, which he accurately knows and reads, a choice collection of pictures, which he understands and relishes, an eafy fortune, an amiable family, an extenfive circle of friends and acquaintance, diftinguished by rank, fashion and genius, a literary fame, various, elegant, and still increasing, colloquial talents rarely to be found, and with all these means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health and vigour of body, ferenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be addressed fortunate fenex! I know not to whom, in any age, that expreffion could with propriety have been ufed. Long may he live to hear and to feel it! . Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon all occafions, calling them pretty dears," and giving them sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his difpofition. was His uncommon kindness to his fervants, and ferious concern, not only for their comfort in this World, but their happiness in the next, another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately acquainted with him, knew to be true. Nor would it be juft, under this head, to omit the fondness which he fhewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never fhalk forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge his cat: for whom he himself ufed to go out and buy Oifters, left the fervants having that trouble fhould take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of thofe who have an antipathy to a cat, fo that I am uneafy when when in the room with one, and I own, I frequently fuffered a good deal from the prefence of this fame Hodge. I recollect him one day fcrambling up Dr. Johnson's breaft, apparently with much fatisfaction, while my friend fmiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I obferved he was a fine cat, faying, "why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this," and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a fhrewd and judicious remark to Mr. Langton, who, after having been for the first time in company with a well known wit about town, was warmly admiring and praifing him, "See him again," faid Beauclerk. His refpect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the Dignitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited in the courfe of this work. Mr. Seward faw him prefented to the ArchBishop of York, and defcribed his Bow to an ARCH-BISHOP, as fuch a ftudied elaboration of homage, fuch an extenfion of limb, fuch a flexion of body, as have feldom or ever been equalled. I cannot help mentioning without much regret, that by my own negligence I loft an opportunity of having the hiftory of my family from its founder Thomas Bofwell, in 1504, recorded and illustrated by Johnson's pen. Such was his goodness to me, that when I prefumed to folicit him for fo great a favour, *b 3 a favour, he was pleased to say, " let me have all the materials you can collect, and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be printed. and copies of it be deposited in various places for fecurity and preservation." I can now only do the best I can to make up for this lofs, keeping my great Master steadily in view. Family hif tories, like the imagines majorum of the Ancients, excite to virtue; and I wish that they who really have blood, would be more careful to trace and afcertain its courfe. Some have affected to laugh at the history of the house of Yvery: it would be well if many others would tranfmit their pedigrees to pofterity, with the fame accuracy and generous zeal, with which the Noble Lord, who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry, A CHRO |