Why did ** ***. I will punish you for it, by telling you that your Latin wants correction". The paffage omitted alluded to a private transaction. 9 This cenfure of my Latin relates to the Dedication, which was as follows: VIRO NOBILISSIMO, ORNATISSIMO, JOANNI, VICECOMITI MOUNTSTUART, ATAVIS EDITO REGIBUS EXCELSE FAMILIE DE BUTE SPEI ALTIRÆS QUUM HOMINES NULLIUS ORIGINIS NATALIUM SPLENDOREM VIRTUTIBUS AUGENTI: JAM LEGATO; IN OPTIMATIUM VERO MAGNE BRITANNIE SENATU, OLIM CONSESSURO: VIM INSITAM VARIA DOCTRINA PROMOVENTE, NEC TAMEN SE VENDITANTE, PRISCA FIDE, ANIMO LIBERRIMO, INSIGNI: IN ITALIE VISITANDE ITINERE, SOCIO SUO HONORATISSIMO, HASCE JURISPRUDENTIE PRIMITIAS MONUMENTUM, D. D. C JACOBUS BOSWELL. In the beginning, Spei altera, not to urge that it fhould be prima, is not grammatical: alteræ should be alteri. In the next line you feem to use genus abfolutely, for what we call family, that is, for illuf trious extraction, I doubt without authority. Homines nullius originis, for Nullis orti majoribus, or, Nullo loco nati, is, I am afraid, barbarous.-Ruddiman is dead. "I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you. Your refolution to obey your father I fincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows: they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject. Take this warning, it is of great importance. "The study of the law is what you very justly term it, copious and generous'; and in adding your name to its profeffors, you have done exactly what I always wished, when I wished you best. I hope that you will continue to purfue it vigorously and conftantly. You gain, at leaft, what is no fmall advantage, fecurity from thofe trouble fome and wearifome difcontents, which are always obtruding themselves upon a mind vacant, unemployed, and undetermined. "You ought to think it no finall inducement to diligence and perfeverance, that they will please your father. We all live upon the hope of pleafing 1 This alludes to the first fentence of the Proamium of my Thefis. JURISPRUDENTI ftudio nullum uberius, nullum generofius: in legibus enim agitandis, populorum mores, variafque fortuna vices ex quibus leges oriuntur, contemplari fimul folemus." 1766 Etat. 57 1766. Etat. 57. fomebody; and the pleasure of pleafing ought to be greateft, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in confequence of our duty. "Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent ; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with fubtilty, muft, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reafons, requires faculties which it has not pleafed our Creator to give us. "If, therefore, the profeffion you have chofen has fome unexpected inconveniencies, console yourfelf by reflecting that no profeffion is without them; and that all the importunities and perplexities of bufinefs are foftnefs and luxury, compared with the inceffant cravings of vacancy, and the unfatis factory expedients of idleness. Hæc funt quæ noftrâ potui te voce monere ; • Vade, age.' "As to your History of Corfica, you have no materials which others have not, or may not have. You have, fomehow, or other, warmed your imagination. I wish there were fome cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which fome fingle idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular poffeffion. Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corficans to theirs. I am, dear Sir, "Your most humble fervant, SAM. JOHNSON." "London, Aug, 21, 1766. To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON. "Much efteemed and dear Sir, "I PLEAD not guilty to "Auchinleck, Nov. 6, 1766. 2 "Having thus, I hope cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I prefume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard. If you have difcharged the arrows of criticifm against an innocent. man, you must rejoice to find they have miffed him, or have not been pointed fo as to wound him. "To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few obfervations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with. "You think I fhould have used spei primæ, inftead of fpei altere. Spes is, indeed, often used to exprefs fomething on which we have a future dependence, as in Virg. Eclog. i. 1. 14, ، modo namque gemellos and in Georg. iii, 1. 473, Spemque gregemque fimul.' for the lambs and the fheep. Yet it is also used to exprefs any thing on which we have a prefent 2 The paffage omitted explained the tranfaction to which the preceding letter had alluded. VOL. I. 1 I i dependence 1768. Etat. 57. *1766. dependence, and is well applied to a man of distinguished influence, our fupport, our refuge, our Atat. 57. præfidium, as Horace calls Mæcenas. So, Æneid xii. 1. 57, Queen Amata addreffes her fon-in-law Turnus: Spes tu nunc una;' and he was then no future hope, for fhe adds, which might have been faid of my Lord Bute fome years ago. Now I confider the prefent Earl of Bute to be Excelfa familia de Bute fpes prima;' and my Lord Mountftuart, as his eldest fon, to bejpes altera.' So in Æneid xii. 1. 168, after having mentioned Pater Æneas, who was the prefent fpes, the reigning fpes, as my German friends would fay, the fpes prima, the poet adds, Et juxta Afcanius, magna fpes altera Roma." "You think altere ungrammatical, and you tell me it fhould have been alteri. You` must recollect, that in old times alter was declined regularly; and when the ancient fragments preferved in the Juris Civilis Fontes were written, it was certainly declined in the way that I use it. This, I fhould think, may protect a lawyer who writes altera in a differtation upon part of his own science. But as I could hardly venture to quote fragments of old law to fo claffical a man as Mr. Johnson, I have not made an accurate fearch into these remains, to find examples of what I am able to pro duce |