me with the means of satisfying your inquiry on the
subject of Dr. Johnson's opinion, I have till now delayed my answer to
your last; but the information is not yet come, Mr. Newton having
intermitted a week more than usual since his last writing. When I
receive it, favourable or not, it shall be communicated to you; but I
am not very sanguine in my expectations from that quarter. Very
learned and very critical heads are hard to please. He may perhaps
treat me with levity for the sake of my subject and design, but the
composition, I think, will hardly escape his censure. Though all
doctors may not be of the same mind, there is one doctor at least, whom
I have lately discovered, my professed admirer. He too, like Johnson,
was with difficulty persuaded to read, having an aversion to all
poetry, except the _Night Thoughts_; which, on a certain occasion, when
being confined on board a ship he had no other employment, he got by
heart. He was, however, prevailed upon, and read me several times
over; so that if my volume had sailed with him, instead of Dr. Young's,
I might perhaps have occupied that shelf in his memory which he then
allotted to the Doctor; his name is Renny, and he lives at Newport
Pagnel.

"It is a sort of paradox, but it is true: we are never more in danger
than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure
than when we seem to be most in danger. Both sides of this apparent
contradiction were lately verified in my experience. Passing from the
greenhouse to the barn, I saw three kittens (for we have so many in our
retinue) looking with fixed attention at something, which lay on the
threshold of a door, coiled up. I took but little notice of them at
first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when
behold--a viper! the largest I remember to have seen, rearing itself,
darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the afore-mentioned hiss at
the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the
hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him,
and returning in a few seconds missed him: he was gone, and I feared
had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat watching immovably upon
the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that, sliding between the door
and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the
yard. I went round immediately, and there found him in close
conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity being excited