Letter[1],' which I am confident was never printed. I think it will not do by itself, or in any other place, so well as the Mag. Extraordinary[2]. If you will have it at all, I believe you do not think I set it high, and I will be glad if what you give, you will give quickly.
'You need not be in care about something to print, for I have got the State Trials, and shall extract Layer, Atterbury, and Macclesfield from them, and shall bring them to you in a fortnight; after which I will try to get the South Sea Report.'
[No date, nor signature.]
I would also ascribe to him an 'Essay on the Description of China, from the French of Du Halde[3].'†
His writings in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1743, are, the 'Preface[4]'† the 'Parliamentary Debates,'† 'Considerations on the Dispute between Crousaz[5] and Warburton, on Pope's Essay on Man;'† in which, while he defends Crousaz, he shews an admirable metaphysical acuteness and temperance in controversy[6]; 'Ad Lauram parituram Epigramma[7];'*
- ↑ I have not discovered what this was. Boswell.
- ↑ The Mag-Extraordinary is perhaps the Supplement to the December number of each year.
- ↑ This essay contains one sentiment eminently Johnson. The writer had shown how patiently Confucius endured extreme indigence. He adds:—'This constancy cannot raise our admiration after his former conquest of himself; for how easily may he support pain who has been able to resist pleasure.' Gent. Mag. xii. 355.
- ↑ In this Preface there is a complaint that has been often repeated—'All kinds of learning have given way to politicks.'
- ↑ In the Life of Pope (Johnson's Works, viii. 287) Johnson says that Crousaz, 'however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist.'
- ↑ It is not easy to believe that Boswell had read this essay, for there is nothing metaphysical in what Johnson wrote. Two-thirds of the paper are a translation from Crousaz. Boswell does not seem to have distinguished between Crousaz's writings and Johnson's. We have here a striking instance of the way in which Cave sometimes treated his readers. One-third of this essay is given in the number for March, the rest in the number for November.
- ↑ Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas, Mox uteri pondus depositura grave, Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti. Neve tibi noceat prœnituisse Deœ
