tion by extracting regularly from thefe two volumes, in this and future Magazines, fo as to make our readers thoroughly acquainted with Johnson in the character of a familiar letter writer. The following is the first letter which Mrs. Thrale ever received from Dr. Johafon. It is dangerous meddling with the age of women who have nothing elfe to boast but their youth. As Mrs. Piozzi is not one of thefe, and as the lets us fee her age in many parts of thefe volumes, we truft that we shall commit no fin against gallantry if we inform our readers, that Mrs. Thrale feems to have been at this time about twenty-five. Johnfon, who was born in the year nine, was, of course, about fifty-fix. With the following letter, as it was the first of this new correfpondence, we may imagine he would not have taken much more pains had he been writing it for the prefs «Madam, London, Aug. 12, 1765. "If you have really fo good an opinion of me as you exprefs, it will not be neceffary to inform you, how unwillingly I miss the opportunity of coming to Brighthelmitone in Mr. Thrale's company; or, fince I cannot do what with firft, how eagerly I fhall catch the fecond degree of pleasure, by coming to you and him, as foon as I can difmifs my work from my hands. "I am afraid to make promifes even to my felf; but I hope that the week after the next will be the end of my prefent bufinefs. When bafinefs is done, what remains but pleafare? and where thould pleafare be fought, but under Mis. Thrale's influence? "Do not blame me for a delay by which I must fuffer fo much, and by which I fuffer alone. It you cannot think I am good, pray think I am mending; and that in time I may deferve to be, dear Madam, your moft obedient and moft humble fervant, SAM. JOHNSON." Mrs. Piozzi will never be blamed for printing this letter by any reader who wishes to fee the author of The Rambler Jay afide the fernness of his philofophy, and appear in the character of a polite, elegant gentleman. Might not this país for one of Lord Chesterfield's let rers? "No, Sir," we fhould have been told by the unpatronifed author of the English Dictionary-"No, Sir; and I hope to God none of that fellow's "will ever pafs for mine!" (To be continued.) The Doctor was at that time engaged in preparing for the prefs his edition of Shakespeare. 38. A Sermon, written by the late Samuel Johar fon, LL.D. for the Funeral of bis Wife. Pub lifhed by the Rev.Samuel Hayes, A.M. Ufber of Westminster School. 80. THE public curiofity has long been awakened on the subject of Johnson's Sermons; and on this Sermon more particularly than on others. That curiofity will now be fully gratified; and lamentably depraved must be the man who can read the following lines without being delighted and improved: "To bring life and immortality to light, to give fuch proofs of our future existence as may influence the most narrow mind, and fill the most capacious intellect, to open profpects beyond the grave, in which the thought may expatiate without obftruction, and to fupply a refuge and fupport to the mind, aridit all the miferies of decaying nature, is the peculiar excellence of the Gospel of Chrift. Without this heavenly instructor, he who feels himself finking under the weight of years, or melting away by the flow wafte of a lingering difeafe, has no other remedy than obdurate patience, a gloomy refignation to that which cannot be avoided; and he who follows his friend, or whoever there is yet dearer than a friend, to the grave, can have no other confolation than that which he derives from the general mifery; the reflection, that he suffers only what the rest of mankind muft fuffer; a poor confideration, which rather awes us to filence, than foothes us to quiet, and which does not abate the fenfe of our calamity, though it may fometimes make us afhamed to complain. "But, fo much is our condition improved by the Gospel, so much is the fting of death rebated, that we may now be invited to the contemplation of our mortality as to a pleafing employment of the mind, to an exercise delightful and recreative, not only when ca. lamity and perfecution drive us out from the affemblies of men, and forrow and woe re prefent the grave as a refuge and an afylum, but even in the hours of the highest earthly profperity, when our cup is full, and when we have laid up ftores for ourselves; for, in him who believes the promise of the Saviour of the World, it can cause no disturbance to remember, that this night his foul may be required of him; and he who fuffers one of the sharpest evils which this life can fhew, amidst all its varieties of mifery; he that has lately been feparated from the perfon whom a long participation of good and evil had endeared to him; he who has feen kindness fnatched from his arms, and fidelity tora from his bofom; he whole ear is no more to be delighted with tender instruction, and whofe virtue fhall be no more awakened by the feasonable whispers of mild reproof, may yet look, without horror, on the tomb which incofes the remains of what he loved and honoured, Review of New Publications. Honoured, as upon a place which, if it revives the fenfe of his lofs, may calm him with the hope of that state in which there fhall be no more grief or feparation. "The mournful folemnity of the burial of the dead, is inftituted, firft, for the confolation of that grief to which the heft minds, if not fupported and regulated by religion, are moft liable. They who moft endeavour the "happiness of others, who devote their thoughts to tenderness and pity, and ftudioufly maintain the reciprocation of kindness, by degrees mingle their fouls in fuch a manner as lo feel, from feparation, a total deftitution of happiness, a fudden abruption of all their profpects, a ceffation of all their hopes, fchemes, and defires. The whole mind becomes a gloomy vacuity, without any image or form of pleasure, a chaos of confused wishes, directed to no particular end, or to that which, while we with, we cannot hope to obtain; for the dead will not revive; thofe whom God has called away from the prefent ftate of existence can be feen no more in it; we must go to them; but they cannot return to us. Yet, to fhew that grief is vain, is to afford very little comfort; yet this is all that reafon can afford; but religion, our only friend in the moment of diftrefs, in the moment when the help of man is vain, when fortitude and cowardice fink down together, and the fage and the virgin mingle their lamentations; religion will inform us, that for row and complaint are not only vain, but uneasonable and erroneous. — The voice of God, fpeaking by his Son, and his apoftles, will inftruct us, that the, whofe departure we now mourn, is not dead, but fleepeth; that only her body is committed to the ground, but that the foul is returned to God, who gave it; that God, who is infinitely merciful, who hateth nothing that he has made, who defireth not the death of a finner; to that God, who only can compare performance with ability, who alone knows how far the heart has been pure, or corrupted, how inadvertency has furprifed, fear has begrayed, or weakness has impeded; to that God, who marks every afpiration after a better state, WHO HEARS THE PRAYER WHICH THE VOICE CANNOT UTTER, RECORDS THE PURPOSE THAT PERISHED WITHOUT OPPORTUNITY OF ACTION, THE WISH THAT VANISHED AWAY WITH OUT AT TAINMENT; who is always ready to receive the penitent, to whom fincere contrition is never late, and who will accept the tears of a returning finner.” One more paragraph we tranfcribe with truly fympathetic feelings: "Among those who have died with hope and refignation," fays our admirable moralift, "The furely may be remembered whom we have followed hither to the tomb, to pay her, the last honours, and to refign her to the grave; the, whom many who now hear me 235 have known, and whom none, who were capable of diftinguishing either moral or intellectual excellence, could know without efteem or tenderness. To praife the extent of her knowledge, the acuteness of her wit, the accuracy of her judgment, the force of her fentiments, or the elegance of her expreffion, would ill fuit with the occafion.Such praise would little profit the living, and as little gratify the dead, who is now in a place where vanity and competition are forgotten for ever; where he finds a cup of water given for the relief of a poor brother, a prayer uttered for the mercy of God to those whom he wanted power to relieve, a word of inftruction to ignorance, a fmile of comfort to mifery, of more avail than all thofe accompliments which confer honour and diftinction among the fons of Folly.Yet, let it be remembered, that her wit was never employed to fcoff at goodness, nor her reafon to difpute against truth. In this age of wild opinions fhe was as free from fcepticifm as the cloiftered virgin. She never wifhed to fignalife herfelf by the fingularity of paradox. She had a just diffidence of her own reason, and defired to practife rather than to dispute. Her practice was fuch as her opinions naturally produced. She was exact and regular in her devotions, fill of confidence in the divine mercy, fubmiflive to the difpenfations of Providence, extensively charitable in her judgments and opinions, grateful for every kindness that the received, and willing to impart affistance of every kind to all whom her little power enabled her to benefit." Who will not now be happy to be informed, that " many other Sermons" by Dr. Johnfon have come into the hands of Mr. Hayes by the death of Dr. Taylor? 39. The Works, in Verfe and Profe, of Leonard Welfted, Ejq. fome Time Clerk in O dinary at the Office of Ordnance in the Tower of London. Now first collected, with Hiflorital Nores, and Biographical Memoirs of the u thor, by John Nichols. 8vo. - THIS is another of the books for which the publick is indebted to Mr. Urban's printer. If this Magazine were not a book in which Mr. N. is well known to lay the publick under many other obligations, the Reviewer of Welfted's Works would fay more of what is due to the Editor for this collec tion. The reader may try its merit in this manner. Leonard Welfied at prefent only lies upon the reader's memory Great chofe to gibbet in The Dunciad : as one of thofe whom Alexander the he only recollects poor Welfted along with "unabashed Defoe," and "Tutchin "flagrant from the lafh." Perhaps the reade. reader knows Welfted only in the following line, iffued out to pofterity by this tyrannical and felf-deified Alexander of the poetical world: "Flow, Welfted, flow, like thine infpirer "BEER." Now the fact is this: whatever provocation Leonard Welfted gave Alexander Pope (and it rather feems as if he did declare war fift), our dunciadized poet certainly wrote many things which vell deferved prefervation, and fome which the readers of this volume will perufe more than once. Let readers of this volume be henceforth upon their guard against that foul and wicked ty Yanny which Pope and fome of his friends undoubtedly confpired to exercife over their contemporaries. They will be found to have ruined the fames, perhaps have literally broken the hearts, of many who gave them no offence; and, if thefe tyrants revenged themfelves upon thofe who had offended them in the fame manner that Pope revenged himself on Welfted, much will not remain to be faid for their justice. For the purpofe of ridiculing and expofing Welfted it is very manifeft, from Mr. Nichols's Memoirs prefixed to this volume, that Pope condefcended, knowingly, to bring fuch falfe and perjured evidence as a man would be fentenced to the pillory for, in any other court but that of Painting or of Poetry. Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi femper fuit aqua poteftas. Mr. Weifted, who certainly was a gentleman, and affociated with fome friends as great as any of Pope's, is handed down to us as having been "in"fpired by beer," and as having written a poem in praife either of a cellar or a garret;" becaufe he addreffed Oixopapia to the Duke of Dorfet (p. 109), and which perhaps raifed the jealoufy of Pope and Swift, as the reader will find it may bear perufing after their beft things of this kind. The perusal of it will alfo ftrike the reader fomething like walking over one of the houfes in Herculaneum. We fee exactly, in 1788, how Mr. Welfted's houfe was furnished, from top to bottom, in 1725. Goldfmith thought well of it; for, in The DeJerted Village, he clearly came to p. 110 for "Broken tea-cups, wifely kept for show, "Rang'do'er the chimney, gliften'd in a "row;" and for fome other parts of the furni ture which his Mufe, minutely elegant, defcribes almost in the words of Welfted. The gentleman employed upon the great Oxford Dictionary of our language will think it neceffary, we fuppofe, to explain many words in this curious poem, which half a century has rendered unintelligible or obfcure. Goldfmith is not the only elegant writer who has thought our beer-infpire Bard worthy imitation. Two other of Welfted's poems, "Pa"læmon to Cælia," and "Acon and "Lavinia," were certainly remembered by Thomfon; particularly when he wrote his "Palamon and Lavinia."Thomfon did not borrow with the ftealing hand of Pope, or it should feem that he took from Welfted upon the principle that "dead men tell no tales," being of opinion Pope had effectually killed poor Welfted. The poem On the Victory of Au "denarde" contains an image at which thofe poets, who have not, like Chatterton, tied up their hands from picking and ftealing, would feel their fingers itch-- "Defpair and Fear "Hang on their flight, and hover o'er their "rear." P. 5. The poem "On the Death of J. "Philips" contains the following lines at p. 24, 5, which we will tranfcribe for the fake of modern poets, who may chance to get ftarved like Chatterton, or hung up to undeferved infamy like Welfied: "Since then much poverty and little fame Is all the dowry that a Mufe can claim; Since that fublime invigorating heat. That makes the Poet's pulfe divinely beat, At laft rewards him but with barren praise, Which Envy fullies, and which Want allays; Here, weeping o'er thy tomb in mournful verfe And shedding roses on thy honour'd hearfe, The following palage from "The "Summum Bonum," p. 302, may well be given as a specimen of Weifted's powers. In fome refpects our language cannot boaft many paffages that better merit a perufal. They might certainly pafs for his enemy's (Pope's). "On rapturous vifions long had Berkeley* fed: The lemon-groves were ever in his head. "The benevolent Dean of Down, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, died Jan. 14, 17535 Review of New Publications. He vanish'd views, and owns the airy schemes: Down; "Is this the end, my hope, and labour's crown? Too bleft the fwain, o'er Ormond's flowery vales Who roves at eafe, or fleeps in Derry's dales! A fcholar will continually fee that Welfted was one; by the many delicate and filent allufions to the ancient claffics: and he was not ignorant of our modern claffics, any more than Gray: And bees their honey redolent of spring ' Dryden And every field is redolent of spring." Welfted, p. 61. Gray. And redolent of joy and youth." In the following paffages did Pope think of Welfted, or Welfted of Pope? “The gay parterres, the proud alcoves,” Welfted, p. 83. "Gallant and gay in Clifden's proud alcove." Pope. It appears that Welfted's line was printed in 1722, Pope's not till 1733 The merit of the "Epiftles to Pope" accounts for Pope's virulence. Welted wrote too well to be forgiven. In the Preface to Smith's Tranflation of Longinus, edit. 1770, we read, "The present tranflation was FINISHED before I knew of any prior attempt to make Longinus fpeak English. The first tranflation of him I met with, was published by Mr. Welfted, in 1724. But I was very much forprised, upon a perufal, to find it only Boileau'stranflation mitreprefented and mangled. For every beauty is impaired, if not totally effaced, and every error (even down to thofe of the printer) moft injudiciously preserved.” See Waller's poem, called, "The Bar<de of the Summer Itlands." 237 Now we pofitively deny that every "beauty is impaired, if not totally ef"faced;" and we would have believed .no one but the tranflator, that he did not compare his verfion throughout with poor Welfted's. We have compared many pages, and find a great refemblance, and not fo great a fuperiority as might have been expected from the nonum prematur in annum, which We adDr. Smith's Preface boafts. vise young men, for their own fake and Welled's, to go regularly over Longinus and these two tranflations. Such an exercife must always do good; here it might do justice. After informing the publick that few men's Works have ever been laid before them with more general claim to praife than Welfted's, we must again fay, that it feems as if Welfted gave Pope the firft provocation. Yet, we maintain that Pope revenged himself like that tyrant which he certainly was: this tyrant he fhewed himself ftill more unjustly to poor Aaron Hill, and many of his rivals and, fhould fuch drawcanfiring be attempted in thefe days of freedom (we have fufpected it once or twice), Sidney's motto fhall be found to be ours: Manus hæc inimica tyrannis, Enfe [the literary fword is a pen] petit placidam fub libertate quietem. 40. Six Anthems in Score, with a Favourite Morning and Evening Service, &c. by the late Dr. Nares. With a strong Likeness of the Author, and fame Account of bis Life and Werks. THE Service and Anthems of which this volume confifts were, by the author, defigned and prepared for publi cation. The final correction of the manufcript for that purpofe employed and amufed him during the confinement of his laft illness; to the very end of which, in fpite of bodily infirmities, his foul retained her vigour, and, as it were, afferted her fuperiority. Happy they who, at fuch a period, ftill enjoying the ftrength of their faculties and the activity of their genius, can employ them in works which at once are proofs of ability and exercifes of devotion. By the author's death, the task of publication devolved on "one who, amidst the "regret infeparable from the occafion, "feels fome confolation in the fair and "honourable opportunity, thus afforded, "of bearing teftimony to the merits of a parent whom, if he had not loved and "honoured, honoured, he would have been unworthy of the life he derived from him." The excellencies of the heart, above all things, deferve, and above all things require, to be commemorated. They are not, like abilities in the elegant arts, difplayed in permanent works, but exerted in tranfient acts; the teftimony of which is daily weakened, and is liable to be gradually obliterated. That Dr. Nares was eminent as a profeffor of mufic, this work, among others, will doubtlefs teftify abundantly; but it is juft that it should be recorded alfo, while numbers are alive who can confirm it, that he ranked no les honourably as a man; that he displayed, in every relation of life, those excellent qualities which a fon ought to be most bappy to celebrate, and moft ambitious to inherit. "Dr. James Nares was born in the year 1715. The place of his birth, as well as that of his brother, the late Mr. Juftice Nares, was Stanwell, in Middlefex. From which fituation the family foon after removed into Oxfordshire. A cafual offer of Mr. Gates, then master of the King's Chorifters, determined a parent, who had little fortune to bestow on his family but that of a strictly confcientious fteward, to breed his elder fon a musician, in which line he ftudied first under Mr. Gates in the Chapel, and afterwards under the celebrated Dr. Pepufch. The place of organift in the Cathedral at York was his firft preferment; and in that fituation, after fome continuance in it, be married. There the prefent worthy Dean of York, Dr. Fountayne, became his friend and patron; by whofe interest, in the year 1756, he was appointed to fucceed Dr. Greene in the places of Organift and Compofer to his Majefty; and about the fame time he was honoured, by the University of Cambridge, with the degree of Doctor in Mufc. The refignation of Mr. Gates, in October 1757, opened to Dr. Nares the place of Matter of the Boys alfo. In this fituation he continued, diftinguished by ftrict attention to the duties of his feveral places, by the talents he displayed in executing them, and by his various compofitions, particidarly thole for the church, till July 1781, when declining health induced him to refign Sir George Nares, Knt. one of his Majefty's Juftices in the Court of Common Fleas, was born in 1716, and died in 1786. See a particular account of him in our vol. LVI. p. 612. "The most striking characteristics of this worthy man were, a natural chearfulness of temper, an earnest and generous zeal for every thing praiseworthy, with a fimilar degree of averfion and contempt for every thing flagitious or bafe. The friends his merit açquired, his integrity preferved; while the competence his abilities and diligence pro cured maintained his independence, fupported and provided for his family. In mufic, which accident had made his profeffion, the verfatility of his genius enabled him to excel; but his pailion was for literature, in which the requifites he poffeffed would poffibly have raised him to a ftill more confpi chous eminence." 3. A Set of eafy Leffons for the Harpfi"chord, Three in Number;" with a Dedication to the Publick, figned J. M. 4. "A Treatife on Singing" fmall fize. 5. "Il Principio; or, A Regular Intro❝duction to playing on the Harpsichord or "Organ." This was the first fet of progreffive le fons published on a regular plan. 6." The Royal Paftoral, a Dramatic Ode;" dedicated to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. 7. "Catches, Canons, and Glees;" dedicated to Lord Mornington. 8. Six Fugnes, with introductory Volun "taries for the Organ or Harpfichord.” 9. "A concife and eafy Treatife on Singing, with a Set of English Duets for Beginners." A different work from the for mer ímall treatife. Twenty Anthems in Score, for 1, 2, 3, 4, and Voices." Compoted for the ufe of his Majefty's Chapels Royal. 1778. 11. The prefent Work. this fet, which are calculated to be perConcerning thofe three Anthems in formed without an organ, the author expreffed himself to this effect, in a pawritten in 1782: per "Having often been an auditor in country churches, where what they called Anthema Were |