"I was very anxious," fays he, "that all should be well; and begged of my friend to avoid three topicks, as to which they differed very widely: Whiggifm, Prefbyterianifm, and-Sir John Pringle. He faid courteously, "I fhall certainly not talk on fubjects which I am told are difagreeable to a gentleman under whofe roof I am; efpecially, I fhall not do fo to your father."

Yet, notwithitanding this fair promife of good manners, we foon find that Dr. Johnson was ftill Dr. Johnson. The venerable Judge and the reverend Doctor came to a collifion, as Mr. Bofwell calls it. "If I recollect right," fays he, "the conteft began while my father was fhewing him his collection of medals; and Oliver Cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced Charles the First, and Toryifm. They became exceedingly warm, and violent, and I was very much diftreffed by being prefent at fuch an altercation between two men, both of whom I reverenced; yet I durft not interfere. It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father and my respected friend, as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the public; and therefore I fupprefs what would, I dare fay, make an interesting scene in this dramatic fketch."

it

Here, within a few pages of its conclusion, we fhall finish our tour through Mr. Bofwell's entertaining and truly curious book. As we obferved in our firft remarks upon it, certainly abounds with many most original ftrokes of the outre, and with others of a more reprehenfible nature. We are pleased with the delicacy with which he suppresses the detail of the quarrel between his father and the Doctor, which, from the hints he gives, feems to have been rude and outrageous enough. Mr. Bofwell fays well, when he thus expreffes himself: "It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father and my refpected friend, as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the public." But, was his father the only perfon on earth that common decency, in reporting converfation, was due to? To the Doctor himself, at other times to many others, he feems to have thought that nothing was due. Indeed, he has one method to blunt the edge of complaint, for he has taken the fame freedoms with himself. But ftill that is no true apology; for if a man is willing to publifh his own abfurdities, that is no reason why he should lay before the public what may give uneafinefs, and, perhaps, be even injurious to others. Befides, it is a fact well known, that there is a vast difference between a thing faid in company, where the

tout ensemble of manner and occafion, and even the humour the company were in, are entirely loft when reported to another company even the next day. And after all, the fecond-hand reporter only gives it through the medium of his own conceptions: and hence it frequently happens, nay, can hardly mifs happening, that the fame converfation reported by different people, has a very different appearance. This obfervation is strongly verified on the very fubject before us. Mrs. Piozzi and Mr. Bofwell have little tales of the Doctor in common; but though they moftly tend to confirm each other in the substance, the features and the impreffion made by them are different. Duelling, it is faid, preferves good manners among the great; but were Bofwell's and Piozzi's method of laying every thing they hear before the world adopted, we cannot think it would tend to the freedom, the gaiety, the pleasure of converfation, the very fpirit of which confifts in the idea that you are only speaking to the present circle, and not before the awful tribunal of the pub. lic. But if the practice of Mr. Bofwell be thus unfriendly to converfation, a higher charge, we deem, yet remains against it; that of raking up the weaknesses of a great character, and spreading them before the public, particularly if that character was the celebrated champion of chriftianity and morality. Whatever Mr. Bofwell may think, he has leffened his friend in the eyes of the public, and the difciples of infidelity and Hume are highly delighted at the weak fuperftitions and terrors, or rather horrors of death, that poffeffed the great mind of Dr. Johnson. What service would that man do the world, who raked up all the human frailties that have adhered to the most exalted characters, either for science, wifdom or virtue! No work could be more agreeable and comfortable to the profligate and the worthlefs. Such anecdotes, it is well known, are confolation to the depraved and abandoned; and surely -if departed ghosts

Are e'er permitted to review this worldthat of the Doctor, whatever it thought in its embodied state, will owe little thanks for many parts of his memorialift's work. We now conclude with recommending to Mr. Bofwell, to avoid the evil tendencies we have been careful in pointing cut; and, at the fame time, to preserve the vivacity and pleafantnefs of narrative which we admire in the work before us, in his promifed life of Dr. Johnfon, which, we hear, is in forwardness for the prefs.

compel him to ferve; or pafs any law which fhall place him under the neceffity of producing it, any more than you would a native of France, Spain, or Holland? Does not this circumftance prefent the certainty of a conftant fcene of confufion, an opening left for every British feaman who is not abfolutely known, or by fome peculiarity evidently diftinguished, to take advantage of, and thereby

avoid the fervice?" Thefe, added to many other arguments which might be brought to prove the illegality of imprefling men, which militates againtt every principle of the conftitution, will, we hope, induce thofe in power to do away a custom which has not even the villainous plea of neceffity for its defence,

clamatory a ftile, the Author exhibits the caufes of that wretchedness and profligacy which exift among the poor in London and its vicinity; the defects in the present system both of parochial and penal laws, from which the increase of robbery and other crimes refult; and points out the means of redreffing thefe public grievances.

In his opinion, the obliging every parish to maintain the poor refiding in it at the time they become chargeable, would be attended with many advantages: it would not only be a means of faving the poor wretches themfelves the numberless inconveniencies attending removals to diftant places of abode, but would likewife prevent much litigation about difputable fettlements, introduce a fpirit of parochial œconomy, and relieve the public from that fwarm of beggars that now infeft the streets, under the pretence of not being able to apply to the parish where they are for relief. He would have the money collected for the maintenance of the poor, amounting to the amazing sum of near three millions, lodged in the hands of Government, or in proper pertons appointed by it, for the purpofe of taking care of the poor, and preventing its being embezzled or mifapplied. The neceffity of fome fieps being taken, will appear from the following melancholy

truths:

66

"On a moderate calculation," fays our author, it may be computed, that, at least, one eighth part of the immenfe fum annually levied on the inhabitants of London and its environs for the maintenance of the poor, is expended in feafting the collectors and their adherents, and other mifapplications and im. pofitions to which the public is liable; for heavy and arbitrary fines are levied on thofe, who, difdaining to abet a fpecies of robbery they are unable to prevent, refuse to serve with fuch unworthy colleagues. Parishoffices are ufually performed by a junto of mercenary tradefmen and, mechanics, who, not content with expending the money with

principal bufinefs of those meetings to contrive unneceffary plans of parochial expence, of which themfelves are to be the projectors, the comptrollers, the operators, and the paymaiters."

To those who think this estimate of parochial gluttony and impofitions too high, the following fact, which, the author fays, can be established by inconteftible evidence, is fubmitted:

"In a parish not many miles from London, the inhabitants paid, in the year 1783, as a compofition for repairing the highways, upwards of 1201. of which fum 751, were prøved to have been spent in different entertainments, at the fame time that fome of the roads in that parish were not only impaffable, but a nuifance to the inhabitants who had hou'es contiguous to them, and who paid their part of the compofition. But then the reader is requested to remember, that there were not high-ways, but by-ways; and therefore it could not be fuppofed the furveyors would make a mifapplication of the public money, by laying out any part of it in mend ing them."

Mr. Lufon next proceeds to confider our penal laws, which he withes to have revised and amended, as in their prefent state they are in many inftances, he thinks, not only inconvenient but abfurd.

Capital punishments he is defirous of con fining to murder, burglary, forgery, robberies attended with wanton cruelty, and unnatural crimes. Inftead of tranfporting thofe coa victed of letter offences, he would have them confined for a time, proportioned to their crimes, in penitentiary houses, erected for that purpofe, and made to work; the furplus of the produce of their labour, after defraying the expences of their own maintenance, to go towards fupporting their families; and, if not fufficient for the purpofe, the deficiency to be provided by the state, in order to prevent fuch families from being further corrupted. The author has added

MARY

many observations, equally judicious, and propofed many alterations meriting attention.

his plan for reducing the national debt is an additional proof that nos omnia pałunus

TH

HE Reverend Enquirer ftrenuously combats the opinion of Dr. Price, who perfifts in maintaining that inclosures are inimical to population, notwithstanding the refpectable teftimonies tha: have been repeatedly given on the other fide of the queftion. In farther confirmation of thefe teftimonies, and to bring the matter to a clear itfoe, Mr. Howlett procured a lift of the Enclofure Bilis from the Journals of the Houfe of Commons, by which he found, to his great furprize, that between the years 1750 and 1781 they amounted to near a thoutand. He then wrote to the Clergy of the enclosed parishes, but did not receive anfwers from above ninety. From thefe, however, he has formed a table, and compared these parishes with others not recently enclofed.

In this calculation he has not, for felf-evident reafons, included the large manufac turing towns. From this table, which in cludes two claffes of parifhes, 89 that have been lately enclosed, and 490 not lately enclofed, it appears that the recently enclosed parishes have vaftly the advantage of the others.

"The baptifms," fays our author, “in the 89 parishes of the former description, during the five years beginning with the year 1760, to the baptisms during the five years beginning with 1775 or 1776, are nearly as 100 to 121; whereas in the 490 of the latter, for the fame periods refpectively, the advance is only as 100 10 109; that is, the enclosures are increased more than one-fixth, the non-inclosures fcarcely one-tenth. This is furely little lefs than abfolute demonftration of the point in question-the influence of enclosures upon the population of the kingdom, and that fo far from having diminished, they have increafed it. It is alfo to be obferved, that the increase from hence arifing, is certainly greater than here appears; because those enclofures which converted arable to pasture, mutt have leffened the employment of the inhabitants, and, of course, their number, in the feveral parishes in which they refpectively took place, and proportionably augmented and employed those in parishes where enclosures had not taken place.”

THIS Laureat, whofe poetical claims to

that dignity are not remarkably well founded, poffeties, however, a tolerable fhare of humour, which he exercifes pretty freely at the expence of his patrons, the officers of the horfe-guards. The following extract from the dedication may ferve as a fpecimen.

"To the Officers of the Horfe-Guards, &c.

"My worthy patrons,

"I have often perplexed myself in endeavouring to trace out the origin of an appellation fo frequently applied to your corps, I mean that of unfortunate gentlemen. I never have been happy enough to meet with a fingle fatisfactory anfwer to the numberlefs enquiries I have made on the fubject; and probably might have remained eternally in the dark, but for one of thofe lucky incidents that throw a fudden light upon a question, which perhaps has been the object of an endless and fruitless inveftigation. Cafting my eye by

* Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, &c,