o remove this inconvenience, an annual sale will be
appointed, to which every man may send his works, and send them, if he
will, without his name. These works will be reviewed by the committee
that conduct the exhibition. A price will be secretly set on every
piece, and registered by the secretary. If the piece exposed is sold for
more, the whole price shall be the artist's; but if the purchaser's
value is at less than the committee, the artist shall be paid the
deficiency from the profits of the exhibition.

OPINIONS ON QUESTIONS OF LAW.

The following opinions on cases of law may be regarded as among the
strongest proofs of Johnson's enlarged powers of mind, and of his
ability to grapple with subjects, on general principles, with whose
technicalities he could not be familiar. Of law, as a science, he ever
expressed the deepest admiration, and an author who combines an accurate
knowledge of the practical details of jurisprudence with the most
philosophical views of legal principles, has quoted Dr. Johnson, as
pronouncing the study of law "the last effort of human intelligence
acting upon human experience." We allude to the eloquent and excellent
Sir James Mackintosh's Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and
Nations, p. 58. Lord Bacon, in his two books on the Advancement of
Learning, has affirmed, that professed lawyers are not the best law
authors; and the comprehensive and lucid opinions which Dr. Johnson has
here given, and which, in many instances, have been subsequently
sanctioned by legislative authority, seem to establish the remark.

The first Case in the present edition, involves an ingenious defence of
the right of abridgment, founded on considerations on Dr. Trapp's
celebrated sermons "on the nature, folly, sin, and danger of being
righteous over-much." These discourses, about the year 1739, when
methodism was a novelty, attracted much attention. Mr. Cave, always
anxious to gratify his readers, abridged and extracted parts from them,
and promised a continuation. This never appeared; stopped, perhaps, by
threats of prosecution on the part of the original publishers of the
sermons. It was, in all probability, on this occasion, that Dr. Johnson
wrote the following paper.--Gent. Mag. July, 1787. It is a subject with
whose bearings he might be presumed to be practically conversant; and,
accordingly, we find, in his memoirs, many recorded arguments of his, on
literary property. They uniformly exhibi