of his rhetoric than of his logic, and often gives his reader high-founding declamation instead of fair argument. In perufing his representations of those who differed from him on political fubjects, we are fometimes inclined to affent to a propofition of his own, that "there is no credit due to a rhetorician's account, either of good or evil." Many pofitions are laid down in admirable language, and in highly-polished periods, which are inconfiftent with the principles of the British conftitution, and repugnant to the common rights of mankind. It must always be regretted, that a man of Johnson's intellectual powers, fhould have had fo ftrong a propenfity to defend arbitrary principles of government. But, on this subject, the ftrength of his language was not more manifeft, than the weakness of his arguments. In apology for him, it may be admitted, that he was a Tory from prin

ciple, and that most of what he wrote, was conformable to his real fentiments.

But

to defend all that was written by him, his warmeft friends will find impoffible.

In his pofthumous writings, there is little that can be faid to be interesting to fcience or criticifm. His Letters are valuable, as we find in them the picture, which, without intending it, he has left of himself, to be that of a man, who, to great intellectual powers, added extraordinary piety, and many excellent moral qualities. Of letter writing, he gives his idea in the following paffage: "Some, when they write to their friends, are all affection; fome are wife and fententious; fome ftrain their powers for effects of gravity; some write news; and fome write fecrets; but to make a letter without affection,, without wisdom, without gravity, without news, and without fecrets, is doubtless the great epiftolic ftyle. There is a pleasure

in correfponding with a friend, where doubt and miftrust have no place, and every thing is faid as it is thought. Thefe are the letters by which fouls are united, and by which minds, naturally in unifon, move each other, as they are moved themfelves. Let me know where you are, how you got thither, how you live there? and every thing that one friend loves to know of another." Such is the account of his Letters. The value of them is, that we have the man before us for near twenty years. We fee him in his undrefs, that is, the undrefs of his mind, which, unlike that of his body, was never flovenly. We fee him in health and in fickness, and in all the petty bufinefs of life. From himfelf, and in his own words, we are enabled to collect the trueft and best information. He writes always in his own ftyle. His words are now and then too pompous for familiar letters; but his skill in letter writ

ing comes out fully in this collection, and entitles him to rank with the best epistolary writers of our nation. His letters on the death of Mrs. Salufbury (mother of Mrs. Piozzi), and Mr. Thrale's eldest fon, are at once moral and pathetic. They flow from a man, who loved them, and the furviving family. His folicitude for Mr. Thrale, during a long illness, and his feelings at his death, do honour to the memory of Mr. Thrale, and to Johnson's gratitude and sensibility. I am afraid," he fays, "of thinking what I have loft :

I never had fuch a friend before." To Mrs. Thrale, he fays, "To fee and hear you, is always to hear wit and fee virtue." He seems at times to think her regard for him is abated; and a letter of kindness from her appears to have revived and comforted him. After lamenting the lofs of Williams and Levett, he fays: "Such

fociety I had with them, and fuch I had

more."

where I am never likely to have it When I came to "love and honour," in your letter, I faid to myself, "How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails me not." Shall we never again exchange our thoughts by the firefide ?" After seeing him struggle with illness and morbid melancholy, it is comfortable to hear him say, almost at the close of life " Attention and refpect give pleasure, however late, and however ufelefs. But they are not useless, even when they are late; it is reasonable to rejoice as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.”

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His Prayers and Meditations, published by Mr. Strahan, at his own request," have occafioned much concern, disquietude, and offence in the minds of many, who apprehend that the cause in which he ftood forth, will fuffer by the infirmities of the advocate being exposed in this publi