(said he) great talents in that sulky boy, and I shall endeavour

to bring them out.' Seward's Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons^ ii. 50.

Dr. Johnson always supposed that Mr. Richardson had Mr. Nelson 1 in his thoughts, when he delineated the character of Sir Charles Grandison. Ib. ii. 91.

A friend of Dr. Johnson asked him one day, whose sermons were the best in the English language. 'Why, Sir, bating a little heresy those of Dr. Samuel Clarke 2 .' This great and excellent man had indeed good reason for thus highly praising them, as he told a relation of Dr. Clarke they made him a Christian 3 .

In his opinion Clarke was the most complete literary char acter that England ever produced. Ib. ii. 313.

The late Lord North told Dr. Johnson 4 that Sir Robert Walpole had once got possession of some treasonable letters of Mr. Shippen, and that he sent for him, shewed him the letters, and burnt them before his face. Soon afterwards it

ley] uttered himself again after the almost rushed through, as if it were

same manner, " Dr. Busby, a great almost only one verse. Well, when

man ! he whipped my grandfather ; Handel wrote was just the time when

a very great man ! I should have Queen Caroline, wife of George II,

gone to him myself, if I had not been was supposed to be countenancing

a blockhead ; a very great man ! " ' the people who took the wrong side

The Spectator, No. 329. in the great Trinitarian controversy

1 Robert Nelson, the author of then raging. It would be curious, if

Festivals and Fasts. Ante, \. 221 n. that influenced a composition which,

3 For Clarke's heresy see ante, \. of course, would be talked about in

38, and for Queen Caroline's wish the court of the hero of Dettingen,

to make him a bishop see Life, iii. 1743.' Life and Letters of Dean

248 n. Dean Church, writing of Church, p. 392.

Handel's Te Deum, as performed in 3 For the effect of Law' s Serious

St. Paul's at the Queen's Jubilee, Call to a Holy Life on his mind, see

says : * I noticed one thing which Life, i. 68.

perhaps is an over-refinement. The 4 ' I had once some business to do

least striking bit is the rendering of for government, and I went to Lord

the verses concerning the Three Per- North's. Precaution was taken that

sons " The Father Thine honour- it should not be known. It was dark

able, true, and only Son Also the before I went ; yet a few days after

Holy Ghost, the Comforter." It is I was told, "Well, you have been

not dwelt on, but run through with Lord North."' Ib. v. 248.

VOL. II. X was

�� �