Mrs. Piozzi’s ’Collection of Johnson s Letters.’

(Vol. ii, p. 43, n. 2.)

MR. BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY. 
’Feb. 9, 1788.

’I am ashamed that I have yet seven years to write of his life. ...  Mrs.  (Thrale) Piozzi’s Collection of his letters will be out soon. ...  I saw a sheet at the printing-house yesterday...  It is wonderful what avidity there still is for everything relative to Johnson.  I dined at Mr. Malone’s on Wednesday with Mr. W. G. Hamilton, Mr. Flood, Mr. Windham, Mr. Courtenay, &c.; and Mr. Hamilton observed very well what a proof it was of Johnson’s merit that we had been talking of him all the afternoon.’  —­Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 309.

Johnson on romantic virtue.

(Vol. ii, P. 76.)

’Dr. Johnson used to advise his friends to be upon their guard against romantic virtue, as being founded upon no settled principle.  “A plank,” said he, “that is tilted up at one end must of course fall down on the other.” ‘—­William Seward, Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, ii. 461.’

’Old’ Baxter on toleration.

(Vol. ii, p. 253.)

The Rev. John Hamilton Davies, B.A., F.R.H.S., Rector of St. Nicholas’s, Worcester, and author of The Life of Richard Baxter of Kidderminster, Preacher and Prisoner (London, Kent & Co., 1887), kindly informs me, in answer to my inquiries, that he believes that Johnson may allude to the following passage in the fourth chapter of Baxter’s Reformed Pastor:—­

’I think the Magistrate should be the hedge of the Church.  I am against the two extremes of universal license and persecuting tyranny.  The Magistrate must be allowed the use of his reason, to know the cause, and follow his own judgment, not punish men against it.  I am the less sorry that the Magistrate doth so little interpose.’

England barren in good historians.

(Vol. ii, p. 236, n. 2.)

Gibbon, writing of the year 1759, says: 

’The old reproach that no British altars had been raised to the muse of history was recently disproved by the first performances of Robertson and Hume, the histories of Scotland and of the Stuarts.’ —­Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 103.

An instance of Scotch nationality.

(Vol. ii, p. 307.)

Lord Camden, when pressed by Dr. Berkeley (the Bishop’s son) to appoint a Scotchman to some office, replied:  ’I have many years ago sworn that I never will introduce a Scotchman into any office; for if you introduce one he will contrive some way or other to introduce forty more cousins or friends.’  —­G.  M. Berkeley’s Poems, p. ccclxxi.

Mortality in the Foundling Hospital of London.

(Vol. ii, p. 398.)

’From March 25, 1741, to December 31, 1759, the number of children received into the Foundling Hospital is 14,994, of which have died to December 31, 1759, 8,465.’—­A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, ed. 1769, vol. ii, p. 121.  A great many of these died, no doubt, after they had left the Hospital.