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Aetat. 33]
Ad Lauram parituram Epigramma.
181

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];'*

  1. I have not discovered what this was. Boswell.
  2. The Mag-Extraordinary is perhaps the Supplement to the December number of each year.
  3. 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.
  4. In this Preface there is a complaint that has been often repeated—'All kinds of learning have given way to politicks.'
  5. In the Life of Pope (Johnson's Works, viii. 287) Johnson says that Crousaz, 'however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist.'
  6. 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.
  7. Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas,
    Mox uteri pondus depositura grave,
    Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti.
    Neve tibi noceat prœnituisse Deœ

and,