Covent-garden theatre, it was now exhibited for one night, for the benefit of the author's widow and children. To conciliate the favour of the audience was the intention of Johnson's prologue, which, as it is not long, I shall here insert, as a proof that his poetical talents were in no degree impaired.

"This night presents a play, which public rage,
Or right or wrong, once hooted from the stage:
From zeal or malice now no more we dread,
For English vengeance wars not with the dead.
A generous foe regards with pitying eye
The man whom fate has laid where all must lie.
To wit, reviving from its author's dust,
Be kind, ye judges, or at least be just:
Let no renewed hostilities invade
Th' oblivious grave's inviolable shade.
Let one great payment every claim appease,
And him who cannot hurt, allow to please;
To please by scenes, unconscious of offence,
By harmless merriment or useful sense.
Where aught of bright or fair the piece displays,
Approve it only; 'tis too late too praise.
If want of skill or want of care appear,
Forbear to hiss; the poet cannot hear.

By all, like him, must praise and blame be found,
At last, a fleeting gleam or empty sound:
Yet then shall calm reflection bless the night

When liberal pity dignified delight;

When pleasure fired her torch at virtue's flame,
And mirth was bounty with an humbler name." (1)

(1) Mr. Murphy related in Dr. Johnson's hearing one day, and he did not deny it, that when Murphy joked him for having been so diligent of late between Dodd's sermon and Kelly's prologue, Dr. Johnson replied, "Why, Sir, when they come to me with a dead staymaker and a dying parson, what can a man do?". PIOZZI.

Dr. Watts.

Harry Jackson.”. Sidney's "Arcadia." · Projected Trip to the Baltic. Grief for the Loss of Relatives and Friends. Incomes of Curates. Johnson's humane and zealous Interference in behalf of Dr. Dodd.

A CIRCUMSTANCE which could not fail to be very pleasing to Johnson occurred this year. The tragedy of "Sir Thomas Overbury," written by his early companion in London, Richard Savage, was brought out with alterations at Drury-lane theatre. (1) The prologue to it was written by Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan; in which, after describing very pathetically the wretchedness of

"Ill-fated Savage, at whose birth was given

No parent but the Muse, no friend but Heaven,"

he introduced an elegant compliment to Johnson on

(1) Our author has here fallen into a slight mistake. The prologue to this revived tragedy being written by Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Boswell very naturally supposed that it was performed at Drury-lane theatre. But in fact, as Mr. Kemble observes to me, it was acted at the theatre in Covent-garden. — M.

his Dictionary, that wonderful performance which cannot be too often or too highly praised; of which Mr. Harris, in his "Philological Inquiries (part i. chap. iv.), justly and liberally observes, "Such is its merit, that our language does not possess a more copious, learned, and valuable work." The concluding lines of this prologue were these:

"So pleads the tale (1) that gives to future times
The son's misfortunes and the parent's crimes;
There shall his fame (if own'd to-night) survive,
Fix'd by the hand that bids our language live."

Mr. Sheridan here at once did honour to his taste and to his liberality of sentiment, by showing that he was not prejudiced from the unlucky difference which had taken place between his worthy father and Dr. Johnson. (2) I have already mentioned that Johnson was very desirous of reconciliation with old Mr. Sheridan. It will, therefore, not seem at all surprising that he was zealous in acknowledging the brilliant merit of his son. While it had as yet been displayed only in the drama, Johnson proposed him as a member of the Literary Club, observing, that "He who has written the two best (3) comedies

(1) "Life of Richard Savage, by Dr. Johnson."-Sheridan. (2) He likewise made some retribution to Dr. Johnson for the attack he had meditated, about two years before, on the pamphlet he had published about the American question, entitled, "Taxation no Tyranny." Some fragments found among Sheridan's papers show that he had intended answering this pamphlet in no very courteous way. See Moore's Life, vol. i.

p. 152.

HALL.

(3) ["Whatever Sheridan has done has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (the Duenna, in my mind, far before the Beggar's Opera), the best farce (the Critic), and