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O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits and in thy mercy. Forgive and accept my late converfion; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establifhment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son Jefus Chrift effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Blefs my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me by the grace of thy Holy Spirit in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; and receive me at my death to everlafting happinefs, for the fake of Jefus Chrift. Amen.

APOPHTHEGMS, SENTIMENTS,

OPINIONS,

AND

OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS.

O 2

APOPHTHEGMS, SENTIMENTS,

OPINIONS, &c.

DR

R. JOHNSON faid he always mistrusted romantick virtue, as thinking it founded on no fixed principle.

He used to say, that where fecrecy or mystery began, vice or roguery was not far off; and that he leads in general an ill life, who ftands in fear of no man's obfervation.

When a friend of his who had not been very lucky in his first wife, married a fecond, he faidAlas! another inftance of the triumph of hope over experience.

Of Sheridan's writings on Elocution, he faid, they were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried fucceffion of difappointments.

Of mufick, he faid, -It is the only fenfual pleafure without vice.

He used to say, that no man read long together with a folio on his table:-Books, faid he, that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.-He would fay, fuch books form the man of general and easy reading.

He was a great friend to books like the French Efprits d'un tel; for example, Beauties of Watts, &c. &c. at which, faid he, a man will often look and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger fize, and of a more erudite appearance.

Being once asked if he ever embellished a story— No, faid he, a ftory is to lead either to the knowledge of a fact or character, and is good for nothing if it be not strictly and literally true.

Round numbers, faid he, are always falfe.

Watts's Improvement of the Mind was a very favourite book with him; he used to recommend it, as he alfo did Le Dictionnaire portatif of the Abbé

L'Avocat.

He has been accufed of treating lord Lyttelton roughly in his life of him; he affured a friend, however, that he kept back a very ridiculous anecdote. of him, relative to a queflion he put to a great

divine of his time.

Johu.fon's account of lord Lyttelton's envy to Shenflone for his improvements in his grounds, &c. was confirmed by an ingenious writer. Spence was in the home for a fortnight with the Lytteltons, before they offered to thew him Shenstone's place.

When accused of mentioning ridiculous anecdotes in the lives of the poets, he faid, he should not have been an exact biographer if he had omitted them. The bufinefs of fuch a one, faid he, is to give a complete account of the perfon whofe life he is writing, and to difcriminate him from all other perfons

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