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venture to style my literary career, nothing can more clearly prove that turned, instinctively, from that tempestuous course, than the equal favour with which I was immediately distinguished by those two celebrated, immortal authours, Dr. Johnson, and the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; whose sentiments upon public affairs divided, almost separated them, at that epoch; yet who, then, and to their last hours, I had the pride, the delight, and the astonishment to find the warmest, as well as the most eminent supporters of my honoured essays. Latterly, indeed, their political opinions assimilated; but when each, separately, though at the same time, condescended to stand forth the champion of my first small work; ere ever I had had the happiness of being presented to either; and ere they knew that
