compose too great a part of his works; but in a
treatise that admitted "more thinking, more knowledge," &c. he
naturally exerted all his powers.--Let us hear the author himself on
this point.

"The greatest part of that book was finished above thirteen years
since, (1696) which is eight years before it was published. The author
was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in
his head." And again: "Men should be more cautious in losing their
time, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually
requireth more pains and skill, more wit, learning and judgement, than
were employed in writing it.--And the author assureth those gentlemen,
who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is
the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of
_several years_; that he often blotted out more than he left; and if
his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must
still have undergone more severe corrections." _An Apology for the
Tale of a Tub._--With respect to this work being the production of
Swift, see his letter to the printer, Mr. Benjamin Tooke, dated
Dublin, June 29, 1710, and Tooke's Answer on the publication of _the
Apology_ and a new edition of the _Tale of a Tub_. Hawkesworth's
edition of Swift's Works, 8vo. vol. xvi. p. 145.

Doctor Hawkesworth mentions, in his preface, that the edition of _A
Tale of a Tub_, printed in 1710, was revised and corrected by the Dean
a short time before his understanding was impaired, and that the
corrected copy was, in the year 1760, in the hands of his kinsman, Mr.
Deane Swift.

[24] _Johnson._ "I would tell truth of the two Georges, or of that
_scoundrel_, King William." Boswell's _Tour to the Hebrides_, p. 312.

[25] See his letter to Lord Thurlow, in which he seems to approve of
the application (though he was not previously consulted), thanks his
Lordship for having made it, and even expresses some degree of
surprize and resentment on the proposed addition to his pension being
refused.

[26] "If (added Dr. Johnson) GOD had never spoken figuratively, we
might hold that he speaks literally, when he says, "This is my body."
Boswell's _Tour_, p. 67.--Here his only objection to transubstantiation
seems to rest on the style of the Scripture being figurative elsewhere
as well as in this passage. Hence we may infer, that he would
otherwise have believed in it.--But Archbishop Tillotson and Mr. Locke
reas