ount of a difference
between himself and Johnson. Johnson sent to ask him to call on him,
but Baretti was leaving town. When he returned the time for a
reconciliation had passed, for Johnson was dead.

_English pulpit eloquence_.

(Vol. iii, p. 248.)

'Upon the whole, which is preferable, the philosophic method of the
English, or the rhetoric of the French preachers? The first (though
less glorious) is certainly safer for the preacher. It is difficult
for a man to make himself ridiculous, who proposes only to deliver
plain sense on a subject he has thoroughly studied. But the instant
he discovers the least pretensions towards the sublime or the pathetic,
there is no medium; we must either admire or laugh; and there are so
many various talents requisite to form the character of an orator that
it is more than probable we shall laugh.'
--_Memoirs of Edward Gibbon_, ed. 1827, i. 118.

_Bishop Percy's communications to Boswell relative to Johnson_.

(Vol. iii, p. 278, n. 1.)

'JAMES BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY.

"9 April, 1790.

"As to suppressing your Lordship's name when relating the very few
anecdotes of Johnson with which you have favoured me, I will do anything
to oblige your Lordship but that very thing. I owe to the authenticity
of my work, to its respectability, and to the credit of my illustrious
friends [? friend] to introduce as many names of eminent persons as I
can... Believe me, my Lord, you are not the only bishop in the number
of great men with which my pages are graced. I am quite resolute as to
this matter."
'--Nichols's _Literary History_, vii. 313.

_Sir Thomas Brown's remark 'Do the devils lie? No; for then Hell could
not subsist._'

(Vol. iii, p. 293.)

This remark, whether it is Brown's or not, may have been suggested by
Milton's lines in _Paradise Lost_, ii. 496-9, or might have suggested
them:--

'O shame to men! devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational.'

_Johnson on the advantages of having a profession or business_.

(Vol. iii, p. 309, n. 1.)

'Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the happiest as well as the most
virtuous persons were to be found amongst those who united with a
business or profession a love of literature.'
--Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 599.

_Johnson's trips to the country_.

(Vol. iii, p. 453.)

I have omitted to mention Johnson's visit to 'Squire Dilly's mansion
at Southill in June, 1781 (_a