Read Ebook: Lives of the English Poets From Johnson to Kirke White Designed as a Continuation of Johnson's Lives by Cary Henry Francis

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From Boswell I have collected an account of the little journeys with which he from time to time relieved the uniformity of his life. They will be told in order as they occur, and I hope will not weary the reader. The days of a scholar are frequently not distinguished by varieties even as unimportant as these. Johnson found his mind grow stagnant by a constant residence in the neighbourhood of Charing-cross itself, where he thought human happiness at its flood: and once, when moving rapidly along the road in a carriage with Boswell, cried out to his fellow-traveller, "Sir, life has few things better than this." In the winter of 1766 he went to Oxford, where he resided for a month, and formed an intimacy with Chambers, afterwards one of the judges in India. During this period, no publication appeared under his own name; but he furnished Miss Williams with a Preface to her Poems, and Adams with another for his Treatise on the Globes; and wrote the dedication to the King, prefixed to Gough's London and Westminster Improved. He seems to have been always ready to supply a dedication for a friend, a task which he executed with more than ordinary courtliness. In this way, he told Boswell, that he believed he "had dedicated to all the royal family round." But in his own case, either pride hindered him from prefixing to his works what he perhaps considered as a token of servility, or his better judgment restrained him from appropriating, by a particular inscription to one individual, that which was intended for the use of mankind.

In February, 1767, there happened one of the most remarkable incidents in Johnson's life which gratified his monarchical enthusiasm, and which he loved to relate with all its circumstances, when requested by his friends. This was his being honoured by a private conversation with his Majesty in the library at the Queen's house. He had frequently visited those splendid rooms, and noble collection of books, which he used to say was more numerous and curious than he supposed any person could have made in the time which the King had employed. Mr. Barnard, the librarian, took care that he should have every accommodation that could contribute to his ease and convenience, while indulging his literary taste in that place: so that he had here a very agreeable resource at leisure hours.

His Majesty having been informed of his occasional visits, was pleased to signify a desire that he should be told when Dr. Johnson came next to the library. Accordingly the next time that Johnson did come, as soon as he was fairly engaged with a book, on which, while he sat by the fire, he seemed quite intent, Mr. Barnard stole round to the apartment where the King was, and, in obedience to his Majesty's commands, mentioned that Dr. Johnson was then in the library. His Majesty said he was at leisure, and would go to him: upon which Mr. Barnard took one of the candles that stood on the King's table, and lighted his Majesty through a suite of rooms, till they came to a private door into the library, of which his Majesty had the key. Being entered, Mr. Barnard stepped forward hastily to Dr. Johnson, who was still in a profound study, and whispered him, "Sir, here is the King." Johnson started up, and stood still. His Majesty approached him, and at once was courteously easy.

His Majesty began by observing, that he understood he came sometimes to the library; and then mentioning his having heard that the Doctor had been lately at Oxford, asked him if he was not fond of going thither. To which Johnson answered, that he was indeed fond of going to Oxford sometimes, but was likewise glad to come back again. The King then asked him what they were doing at Oxford. Johnson answered, he could not much commend their diligence, but that in some respects they were mended, for they had put their press under better regulations, and were at that time printing Polybius. He was then asked whether there were better libraries at Oxford or Cambridge. He answered, he believed the Bodleian was larger than any they had at Cambridge; at the same time adding, "I hope, whether we have more books or not than they have at Cambridge, we shall make as good use of them as they do." Being asked whether All-Souls or Christ-Church library was the largest, he answered, "All-Souls library is the largest we have, except the Bodleian." "Ay, that is the public library."

His Majesty inquired if he was then writing any thing. He answered, he was not, for he had pretty well told the world what he knew, and must now read to acquire more knowledge. The King, as it should seem with a view to urge him to rely on his own stores as an original writer, and to continue his labours, then said, "I do not think you borrow much from any body." Johnson said, he thought he had already done his part as a writer. "I should have thought so too, if you had not written so well."--Johnson observed to me, upon this, that "No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive." When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, "No, Sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign." Perhaps no man who had spent his whole life in courts could have shewn a more nice and dignified sense of true politeness than Johnson did in this instance.

His Majesty having observed to him that he supposed he must have read a great deal; Johnson answered, that he thought more than he read; that he had read a great deal in the early part of his life, but having fallen into ill health, he had not been able to read much, compared with others: for instance, he said, he had not read much, compared with Dr. Warburton. Upon which the King said, that he heard Dr. Warburton was a man of such general knowledge, that you could scarce talk with him on any subject on which he was not qualified to speak; and that his learning resembled Garrick's acting, in its universality. His Majesty then talked of the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, which he seemed to have read, and asked Johnson what he thought of it. Johnson answered, "Warburton has most general, most scholastic learning; Lowth is the more correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names best." The King was pleased to say he was of the same opinion; adding, "You do not think then, Dr. Johnson, that there was much argument in the case." Johnson said, he did not think there was. "Why truly, when once it comes to calling names, argument is pretty well at an end."

His Majesty then asked him what he thought of Lord Lyttelton's history, which was then just published. Johnson said, he thought his style pretty good, but that he had blamed Henry the Second rather too much. "Why, they seldom do these things by halves." "No, Sir, not to Kings." But fearing to be misunderstood, he proceeded to explain himself: and immediately subjoined, "That for those who spoke worse of Kings than they deserved, he could find no excuse; but that he could more easily conceive how some might speak better of them than they deserved, without any ill intention; for, as Kings had much in their power to give, those who were favoured by them would frequently, from gratitude, exaggerate their praises: and as this proceeded from a good motive, it was certainly excusable, as far as errour could be excusable."

The King then asked him what he thought of Dr. Hill. Johnson answered that he was an ingenious man, but had no veracity; and immediately mentioned, as an instance of it, an assertion of that writer, that he had seen objects magnified to a much greater degree by using three or four microscopes at a time than by using one. "Now, every one acquainted with microscopes knows, that the more of them he looks through, the less the object will appear." "Why, this is not only telling an untruth, but telling it clumsily; for, if that be the case, every one who can look through a microscope will be able to detect him."

"I now, began to consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation of his Sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that might be more favourable." He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was, notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean expedients to raise his reputation.

The King then talked of literary journals, mentioned particularly the "Journal des Savans," and asked Johnson if it was well done. Johnson said, it was formerly very well done, and gave some account of the persons who began it, and carried it on for some years: enlarging at the same time, on the nature and use of such works. The King asked him if it was well done now. Johnson answered, he had no reason to think that it was. The King then asked him if there were any other literary journal published in this kingdom, except the Monthly and Critical Reviews; and on being answered there was no other, his Majesty asked which of them was the best: Johnson answered that the Monthly Review was done with most care, the Critical upon the best principles; adding that the authours of the Monthly Review were enemies to the Church. This the King said he was sorry to hear.

The conversation next turned on the Philosophical Transactions, when Johnson observed that they had now a better method of arranging their materials than formerly. "Ay, they are obliged to Dr. Johnson for that;" for his Majesty had heard and remembered the circumstance, which Johnson himself had forgot.

His Majesty expressed a desire to have the literary biography of this country ably executed, and proposed to Dr. Johnson to undertake it. Johnson signified his readiness to comply with his Majesty's wishes.

During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. After the King withdrew, Johnson shewed himself highly pleased with his Majesty's conversation and gracious behaviour. He said to Mr. Barnard, "Sir, they may talk of the King as they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen." And he afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, "Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth, or Charles the Second."

Nothing in this conversation betrays symptoms of that state which he complains of in his devotional record when he says that he had been disturbed and unsettled for a long time, and had been without resolution to apply to study or to business. Half of this year he passed at a distance from the metropolis, and chiefly at Lichfield, where he prayed fervently by the death-bed of the old servant of his family, Catherine Chambers, leaving her with a fond farewell, and many tears. There was no greater proof of the goodness of Johnson's nature, than his attachment to his domestics. Soon after this he placed Francis Barber, a negro boy who waited on him, at a school at Hertfordshire; and, during his education there, encouraged him to good behaviour by frequent and very kind letters. It is on such occasions that we are ready to allow the justice of Goldsmith's vindication of his friend, that he had nothing of the bear but the skin.

In the two succeeding years he continued to labour under the same restlessness and anxiety; again sought for relief in a long visit to Oxford, and another to Brighthelmstone with the Thrales; and produced nothing but a Prologue to one of Goldsmith's comedies.

The repeated expulsion of Wilkes from his seat, by a vote of the House of Commons, had thrown the nation into a ferment. Johnson was roused to take the side of the ministry; and endeavoured in a pamphlet, called the False Alarm, as much by ridicule as by argument, to support a violent and arbitrary measure. It appears, both from his conversation and his writings, that he thought there was a point at which resistance might become justifiable; and, surely it is more advisable to check the encroachments of power at their beginning, than to delay opposition, till it cannot be resorted to without greater hazard to the public safety. The ministry were happily compelled to give way. They were, however, glad to have so powerful an arm to fight their battles, and, in the next year employed him in a worthier cause. In his tract on the Falkland Islands, the materials for which were furnished him by Government, he appears to have much the better of the argument; for he has to shew the folly of involving the nation in a war for a questionable right, and a possession of doubtful advantage; but his invective against his opponents is very coarse; he does not perform the work of dissection neatly: he mangles rather than cuts. When he applies the word "gabble" to the elocution of Chatham, we are tempted to compare him to one of the baser fowl, spoken of by an ancient poet, that clamour against the bird of Jove.

About this time, there was a project for enabling him to take a more distinguished part in politics. The proposition for bringing him into the House of Commons came from Strahan the printer, who was himself one of the members; Boswell has preserved the letter in which this zealous friend to Johnson represented to one of the Secretaries of State the services which might reasonably be expected from his eloquence and fidelity. The reasons which rendered the application ineffectual have not been disclosed to us; but it may be questioned whether his powers of reasoning could have been readily called forth on a stage so different from any to which he had been hitherto accustomed; whether so late in life he could have obtained the habit of attending to speakers, sometimes dull, and sometimes perplexed; or whether that dictatorial manner which easily conquered opposition in a small circle, might not have been borne down by resentment or scorn in a large and mixed assembly. Johnson would most willingly have made the experiment; and when Reynolds repeated what Burke had said of him, that if he had come early into parliament, he would certainly have been the greatest speaker that ever was there, exclaimed, "I should like to try my hand now." That we may proceed without interruption to the end of Johnson's political career, it should here he told that he published a short pamphlet in support of his friend, Mr. Thrale, who at that time was one of the candidates in a contested election, and a zealous supporter of the government. But his devotion to the powers that be, never led him to so great lengths as in the following year , when he wrote Taxation no Tyranny: an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. Now that we look back with impartiality and coolness to the subject of dispute between the mother country and her colonies, there are few, I believe, who do not acknowledge the Americans to have been driven into resistance by claims, which, if they were not palpably unlawful, were at least highly inexpedient and unjust. But Johnson was no statist. With the nature of man taken individually and in the detail, he was well acquainted; but of men as incorporated into society, of the relations between the governors and the governed, and of all the complicated interests of polity and of civil life, his knowledge was very limited. Biography was his favourite study; history, his aversion. Sooner than hear of the Punic war , he would be rude to the person that introduced the subject; and, as he told Mr. Thrale, when a gentleman one day spoke to him at the club of Catiline's conspiracy, he withdrew his attention, and thought about Tom Thumb. In his Taxation no Tyranny, having occasion to notice a reference made by the American Congress to a passage in Montesquieu, he calls him in contempt the fanciful Montesquieu. Yet this is the man, of whom Burke, when his just horror of every thing fanciful in politics was at its height, has passed the noblest eulogium that one modern has ever made on another, and which the reader will pardon me if in my veneration for a great name I place here as an antidote to the detraction of Johnson.

It is to be feared, that the diploma of Doctor of Laws, which was sent to Johnson in the same year , at the recommendation of Lord North, at that time Chancellor of the University, and Prime Minister, was in some measure intended to be the reward of his obsequiousness. In this instrument, he is called, with an hyperbole of praise which the University would perhaps now he more cautious of applying to any individual, "In Literarum Republica Princeps jam et Primarius."

He had long meditated a visit to Scotland, in the company of Boswell, and was, at length , prevailed on to set out. Where he went, and what he saw and heard, is sufficiently known by the relation which he gave the world next year, in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, and in his letters to Mrs. Thrale. It cannot be said of him, as he has said of Gray, that whoever reads his narrative wishes that to travel and to tell his travels had been more of his employment. He seems to have proceeded on his way, with the view of finding something at every turn, on which to exercise his powers of argument or of raillery. His mind is scarcely ever passive to the objects it encounters, but shapes them to his own moods. After we lay down his book, little impression is left of the places through which he has passed, and a strong one of his own character. With his fellow-traveller, though kindness sometimes made him over-officious, he was so well pleased, as to project a voyage up the Baltic, and a visit to the northern countries of Europe, in his society. He had before indulged himself with a visionary scheme of sailing to Iceland, with his friend Bathurst. In 1774, he went with the Thrales to the extremity of North Wales. A few trifling memoranda of this journey, which were found among his papers, have been lately published; but, as he wrote to Boswell, he found the country so little different from England, that it offered nothing to the speculation of a traveller. Such was his apathy in a land

Where each old poetic mountain Inspiration breathes around, Every shade and hallow'd fountain Murmurs deep a solemn sound.

This was the last of his literary labours; nor do we hear of his writing any thing for the press in the meanwhile, except such slight compositions as a prologue for a comedy by Mr. Hugh Kelly, and a dedication to the King of the Posthumous Works of Pearce, Bishop of Rochester.

His body was weighed down with disease, and his mind clouded with apprehensions of death. He sought for respite from these sufferings in the usual means--in short visits to his native place, or to Brighthelmstone, and in the establishment of new clubs. In 1781, another of these societies was, by his desire, formed in the city. It was to meet at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Churchyard; and his wish was, that no patriot should be admitted. He now returned to the use of wine, which, when he did take it, he swallowed greedily.

On his return to London, he was confined to the house by a fit of the gout, a disorder which had once attacked him, but with less violence, ten years before, and to which he was now reconciled, by being taught to consider it as an antagonist to the palsy. To this was added, a sarcocele, which, as it threatened to render excision necessary, caused him more uneasiness, though he looked forward to the operation with sufficient courage; but the complaint subsided of itself.

When he was able to go about again, that society might be insured to him at least three days in the week, another club was founded at the Essex Head, in Essex street, where an old servant of Mr. Thrale's was the landlord. "Its principles were to be laid in frequency and frugality; and he drew up a set of rules, which he prefaced with two lines from a Sonnet of Milton.

To-day resolve deep thoughts with me to drench, In mirth that after no repenting draws."

The number was limited to twenty-four. Each member present engaged himself to spend at least sixpence; and, to pay a forfeit of three-pence if he did not attend. But even here, in the club-room, after his sixpence was duly laid down, and the arm chair taken, there was no security for him against the intrusion of those maladies which had so often assailed him. On the first night of meeting he was seized with a spasmodic asthma, and hardly made his way home to his own house, where the dropsy combined with asthma to hold him a prisoner for more than four months. An occurrence during his illness, which he mentioned to Boswell, deserves notice, from the insight which it gives into his peculiar frame of mind. "He had shut himself up, and employed a day in particular exercises of religion--fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden, he obtained extraordinary relief, for which he looked up to heaven with grateful devotion. He made no direct inference from the fact; but from his manner of telling it," adds Boswell, "I could perceive that it appeared to him as something more than an incident in the common course of events." Yet at this time, with all his aspirations after a state of greater perfectness, he was not able to bear the candour of Langton, who, when Johnson him desired to tell him sincerely wherein he had observed his life to be faulty, brought him a sheet of paper, on which were written many texts of Scripture, recommendatory of Christian meekness.

At the beginning of June he had sufficiently rallied his strength to set out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse, there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as there had ever been.

Several of his friends were now anxious that he should escape the rigour of an English winter by repairing to Italy, a measure which his physicians recommended, not very earnestly indeed, and more I think in compliance with his known wishes, than in expectation of much benefit to his health. It was thought requisite, however, that some addition should previously be made to his income, in order to his maintaining an appearance somewhat suitable to the character which he had established throughout Europe by his writings. For this purpose, Boswell addressed an application to the Ministry, through Lord Thurlow, who was then Chancellor. After some accidental delay, and some unsuccessful negotiation on the part of Lord Thurlow, who was well disposed to befriend him, during which time Johnson was again buoyed up with the prospect of visiting Italy, an answer was returned which left him no reason to expect from Government any further assistance than that which he was then receiving in the pension already granted him. This refusal the Chancellor accompanied with a munificent offer of supply out of his own purse, which he endeavoured to convey in such a manner as should least alarm the independent spirit of Johnson. "It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man should perish for want of the means to take care of his health." The abilities of Thurlow had always been held in high estimation by Johnson, who had been heard to say of him, "I would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet with him, I should wish to know a day before." One day, while this scheme was pending, Johnson being at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was overcome by the tenderness of his friends, and by the near view, as he thought, of this long-hoped Italian tour being effected, and exclaimed with much emotion, "God bless you all;" and then, after a short silence, again repeating the words in a form yet more solemn, was no longer able to command his feelings, but hurried away to regain his composure in solitude.

After all these efforts, Johnson was fated to disappointment; and the authors of his disappointment have incurred the sentence denounced on them by the humanity of Thurlow. In this, Dr. Brocklesby, the physician, has no share; for by him a noble offer of ?100 a year was made to Johnson during his life.

In the meantime he had paid the summer visit, which had now become almost an annual one to his daughter-in-law, at Lichfield, from whence he made an excursion to Dr. Taylor's, at Ashbourne, and to Chatsworth, still labouring under his asthma, but willing to believe that as Floyer, the celebrated physician of his native city, had been allowed to pant on till near ninety, so he might also yet pant on a little longer. Whilst he was on this journey, he translated an ode of Horace, and composed several prayers. As he passed through Birmingham and Oxford, he once more hailed his old schoolfellow Hector, and his fellow collegian, Adams. It is delightful to see early intimacies thus enduring through all the accidents of life, local attachments unsevered by time, and the old age and childhood of man bound together by these natural charities. The same willow tree which Johnson had known when a boy, was still his favourite, and still flourishing in the meadow, near Lichfield. Hector still met him with the same, or perhaps more cordiality than in their first days; and the virtues of Adams, which he had seen opening in their early promise, had now grown up to full maturity. To London he returned, only to prove that death was not the terrible thing which he had fancied it. He arrived there on the 15th of November. In little more than a fortnight after, when Dr. Brocklesby was paying him a morning visit, he said that he had been as a dying man all night, and then with much emphasis repeated the words of Macbeth:

To which Brocklesby promptly returned the answer, which is made by the doctor in that play,

--Therein the patient Must minister unto himself.

He now committed to the flames a large mass of papers, among which were two 4to. volumes, containing a particular account of his life, from his earliest recollections.

His few remaining days were occasionally cheered by the presence of such men as have been collected about a death-bed in few ages and countries of the world--Langton, Reynolds, Windham, and Burke. Of these, none was more attentive to him than Mr. Langton, of whom he had been heard to say, I could almost wish "anima mea sit cum Langtono," and whom he now addressed in the tender words of Tibullus,

Te teneam moriens deficiente manu.

At another time, Burke, who was sitting with him in the company of four or five others, expressed his fear that so large a number might be oppressive to him, "No, Sir," said Johnson, "it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when your company would not be a delight to me." Burke's voice trembled, when he replied, "My dear Sir, you have always been too good to me." These were the last words that passed between them. Mr. Windham having settled a pillow for him, he thanked him for his kindness.

This will do all that a pillow can do. Of Sir Joshua Reynolds he made three requests, which were readily granted; to forgive him thirty pounds which he had borrowed of him; to read the Bible; and never to use his pencil on a Sunday. The church service was frequently read to him by some clergyman of his acquaintance. On one of these occasions, when Mr. Nichols was present, he cried out to Mr. Hoole, who was reading the Litany, "Louder, my dear Sir, louder, I entreat you, or you pray in vain;" and when the service was done, he turned to a lady who had come to pray with him, and said to her with much earnestness, "I thank you, Madam, very heartily, for your kindness in joining me in this solemn service. Live well, I conjure you, and you will not feel the compunction at the last which I now feel."

He entreated Dr. Brocklesby to dismiss any vain speculative opinions that he might entertain, and to settle his mind on the great truths of Christianity. He then insisted on his writing down the purport of their conversation; and when he had done, made him affix his signature to the paper, and urged him to keep it for the remainder of his life. The following is the account communicated to Boswell by this affectionate physician, who was very free from any suspicion of fanaticism, as indeed is well shewn by Johnson's discourse with him.

He desired Dr. Brocklesby to tell him whether he could recover, charging him to give a direct answer. The Doctor having first asked whether he could bear to hear the whole truth, told him that without a miracle he could not recover. "Then," said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, or even opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded." He not only kept this resolution, but abstained from all food, excepting such as was of the weakest kind. When Mr. Windham pressed him to take something more generous, lest too poor a diet should produce the effects which he dreaded, "I will take any thing," said he, "but inebriating sustenance."

Mr. Strahan, the clergyman, who administered to him the comforts of religion, affirmed that after having been much agitated, he became tranquil, and continued so to the last.

On the eighth and ninth of December, he made his will, by which he bequeathed the chief of his property to Francis Barber, his negro servant. The value of this legacy is estimated by Sir John Hawkins, at near ?1500. From this time he languished on till the twelfth. That night his bodily uneasiness increased; his attendants assisted him every hour to raise himself in his bed, and move his legs, which were in much pain; each time he prayed fervently; the only support he took was cyder and water. He said he was prepared, but the time to his dissolution seemed long. At six in the morning he inquired the hour; and, being told, observed that all went on regularly, and that he had but a few hours to live. In two hours after, he ordered his servant to bring him a drawer, out of which he chose one lancet, from amongst some others, and pierced his legs; and then seizing a pair of scissars that lay near him, plunged them into both his calves, no doubt with the hopes of easing them of the water; for he had often reproached his medical attendants with want of courage in not scarifying them more deeply. At ten he dismissed Mr. Windham's servant, who was one of those who had sat up with him, thanking him, and desiring him to bear his remembrance to his master. Afterwards a Miss Morris, the daughter of one of his friends, came into the room to beg his blessing; of which, being informed by his servant Francis, he turned round in his bed, and said to her, "God bless you, my dear." About seven in the evening he expired so quietly, that those about him did not perceive his departure. His body being opened, two of the valves of the aorta were found to be ossified; the air cells of the lungs unusually distended; one of the kidneys consumed, and the liver schirrous. A stone, as large as a common gooseberry, was in the gall-bladder.

On the 20th of December, he was interred in Westminster Abbey, under a blue flagstone, which bears this inscription.

He was attended to his grave by many of his friends, particularly such members of the Literary Club as were then in London; the pall being borne by Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Windham, Langton, Sir Charles Bunbury, and Colman. Monuments have been erected to his memory, in the cathedrals of Lichfield and St. Paul's. That in the latter consists of his statue, by Bacon, larger than life, with an epitaph from the pen of Dr. Parr.

Samueli Johnson Grammatico et Critico Scriptorum Anglicorum litterate perito Poetae luminibus sententiarum Et ponderibus verborum admirabili Magistro virtutis gravissimo Homini optimo et singularis exempli. Qui vixit ann. lxxv. Mens. il. Dieb. xiiiil. Decessit idib. Dec. ann. Christ. clc. lccc. lxxxiiil. Sepult. in AED. Sanct. Petr. Westmonasteriens. xiil. Kal. Januar. Ann. Christ, clc. lccc. lxxxv. Amici et Sodales Litterarii Pecunia Conlata H.M. Faciund. Curaver.

In the hand there is a scroll, with the following inscription:--

Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty.

A small Book of Precepts and Directions for Piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton's exercise.

History of Criticism, as it relates to judging of authors, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art: of the different opinions of authors, ancient and modern.

Translation of the History of Herodian.

New Edition of Fairfax's Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.

Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present; with notes, explanatory of customs, &c. and references to Boccace, and other authors from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

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