[380] See post, beginning of 1770.
[381] See post, March 21, 1775.
[382] In the Weekly Miscellany, October 21, 1738, there appeared the following advertisement:--'Just published, Proposals for printing the History of the Council of Trent, translated from the Italian of Father Paul Sarpi; with the Authour's Life, and Notes theological, historical, and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which are added, Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations from various Authours, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 1. The work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes in quarto, printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18s. each volume, to be paid, half-a-guinea at the delivery of the first volume, and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. 3. Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It may be had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three guineas; one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the delivery of the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. The work is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Subscriptions are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Rivington in St. Paul's Church-yard, by E. Cave at St. John's Gate, and the Translator, at No. 6, in Castle-street by Cavendish-square.' BOSWELL.
[383] They afterwards appeared in the Gent. Mag. [viii. 486] with this title--'Verses to Lady Firebrace, at Bury Assizes.' BOSWELL.
[384] Du Halde's Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave in weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the embellishment of the Magazine. NICHOLS. BOSWELL.
[385] The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the Divine Attributes is here alluded to. NICHOLS. BOSWELL.
[386] The Compositors in Mr. Cave's printing-office, who appear by this letter to have then waited for copy. NICHOLS. BOSWELL.
[387] Twenty years later, when he was lodging in the Temple, he had fasted for two days at a time; 'he had drunk tea, but eaten no bread; this was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 4, 1773. See post, Aug. 5, 1763.
[388] Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323. BOSWELL.
[389] See post, under Dec. 30, 1747, and Oct. 24, 1780.
[390] See post, 1750.
[391] This book was published. BOSWELL. I have not been able to find it.
[392] The Historie of four-footed beasts and serpents. By Edward Topsell. London, 1607. Isaac Walton, in the Complete Angler, more than once quotes Topsel. See p. 99 in the reprint of the first edition, where he says:--'As our Topsel hath with great diligence observed.'
[393] In this preface he describes some pieces as 'deserving no other fate than to be hissed, torn, and forgotten. Johnson's Works, v. 346.
[394] The letter to Mr. Urban in the January number of this year (p. 3) is, I believe, by Johnson.
[395] 'Yet did Boerhaave not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention from others; anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany.' Johnson's Works, vi. 276. See post, under Sept. 9, 1779.
[396] Gent. Mag. viii. 210, and Johnson's Works, i. 170.
[397] What these verses are is not clear. On p. 372 there is an epigram Ad Elisam Popi Horto Lauras carpentem, of which on p. 429 there are three translations. That by Urbanus may be Johnson's.
[398] Ib. p. 654, and Johnson's Works, i. 170. On p. 211 of this volume of the Gent. Mag. is given the epigram 'To a lady who spoke in defence of liberty.' This was 'Molly Aston' mentioned ante, p. 83.
[399] To the year 1739 belongs Considerations on the Case of Dr. T[rapp]s Sermons. Abridged by Mr. Cave, 1739; first published in the Gent. Mag. of July 1787. (See post under Nov. 5, 1784, note.) Cave had begun to publish in the Gent. Mag. an abridgment of four sermons preached by Trapp against Whitefield. He stopped short in the publication, deterred perhaps by the threat of a prosecution for an infringement of copy-right. 'On all difficult occasions,' writes the Editor in 1787, 'Johnson was Cave's oracle; and the paper now before us was certainly written on that occasion.' Johnson argues that abridgments are not only legal but also justifiable. 'The design of an abridgment is to benefit mankind by facilitating the attainment of knowledge ... for as an incorrect book is lawfully criticised, and false assertions justly confuted ... so a tedious volume may no less lawfully be abridged, because it is better that the proprietors should suffer some damage, than that the acquisition of knowledge should be obstructed with unnecessary difficulties, and the valuable hours of thousands thrown away.' Johnson's Works, v. 465. Whether we have here Johnson's own opinion cannot be known. He was writing as Cave's advocate. See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773.
[400] In his Life of Thomson Johnson writes:--'About this time the act was passed for licensing plays, of which the first operation was the prohibition of Gustavus Vasa, a tragedy of Mr.