The note upon Justinian and Leonora meant at her. And the story to Lady Bath, turns upon her so strongly, without her perceiving it.-Dr. W. The happiness of life is so nice a thing, that, like the sensitive plant, it shrinks away even upon thinking of it. -Spence. How much Dryden was in the wrong in thinking the Black Prince's recovery of Castile for Pedro the Cruel, from Henry the Liberal, a fine subject for an Epic poem. The passage of the Pyrenees, and the battle of Najarra, are the only material subjects in it. Was he for Pedro, as Carte is, because he was a jure divino tyrant?-Spence. It is an excellent rule! "That when a person does not understand Greek, he should search for the etymology of a word in some language which he does understand." Thus some of the Popish priests, learned in Latin, derive the word heretic, from erro and recto, because he errs from what is right! Others from the word ereiscor, a word in the civil law for dividing: and others again from adhæreo, or adhering, because a heretic adheres obstinately to his See Geddes's Tracts, vol. i. p. 391.-Spence. error. Could Montaigne's Essays give a hint to our Tatler? He begins several of them with a quotation from the Classics, and chats on at his ease. A couple of good Tatlers takeable from chap. 19, lib. i. "on Death."Spence. What a singular book is "The business of the Saints in Heaven," by father Lewis Henriquez: printed at Salamanca in 1631. He attempts to prove, in the twentysecond chapter, "That every saint shall have his particular house in heaven; and Christ a most magnificent palace! That there shall be large streets, and great piazzas, &c." -He says in the twenty-fourth chapter, "That there shall be a sovereign pleasure in kissing and embracing the bodies of the blest; that there shall be pleasant baths, and that they shall bathe themselves in each other's sight. That they shall swim like fishes; and sing as melodiously as nightingales, &c."—He affirms, in the forty-seventh chapter, "That the men and women shall delight themselves in masquerades, feasts, and ballads :"-and in the fiftyeighth," That the angels shall put on women's habits, and appear to the saints in the dress of ladies, with curls and locks, waistcoats and fardingales, &c." See the "Moral practice of the Jesuits," by the doctors of Sorbonne; it has been translated into English, and published in 1671.— Spence. As a probable falsehood is fitter for the drama than an improbable fact. So the appearance to the eye, is to be more followed in gardening than the reality of forms, where advantage is to be had by so doing.-Spence. THIRD MEMORANDUM BOOK, 1757. THAT education, and that politeness, are good for nothing, which do not make a man more knowing, and more pleasing. -Spence. When Dioclesian had quitted the Imperial purple for some time, and they came to petition him to resume it, (on account of the necessities of the state :) "You could not have asked such a thing of me," said he, " had you seen the delightful plantations I have made about my villa, and the fine melons that I have now ripening." aigne, lib. i. cap. 41.-Spence. See Mont Zaleucus ordered that none but scoundrels should wear Milesian stuffs, &c., instead of making a law directly against them. Diod. Sic. lib. xii. cap. 20.-Spence. If a common man should lose his capacity of judging and thinking, he would lose a thing of very little extent, and if the wisest of men were to lose his, he would lose a thing of no great extent. A finishing stroke of the palsy should be looked upon, by a good man, as a coup de grace, that relieves him from the wearisomeness and tortures of a long death-bed sickness.-Spence. Voltaire, like the French in general, showed the greatest complaisance outwardly, and had the greatest contempt for us-inwardly. He consulted Dr. Young about his Essay in English, and begged him to correct any gross faults he might find in it. The Doctor set very honestly to work, marked the passages most liable to censure; and when he went to explain himself about them, Voltaire could not avoid bursting out a laughing in his face.-Dr. Young.-[It was on the occasion of Voltaire's criticism on the episode of Death and Sin, that Dr. Young spoke that couplet to him→→ "Thou'rt so ingenious, profligate, and thin, That thou thyself art Milton's death and sin." According to Mr. Gibbon, Dioclesian gave the following memorable answer to Maximilian, who invited him to re-assume the reins of government: "If I could show you the cabbages I planted with my own hands at Salona, I should be no longer urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power."-Editor. Voltaire's objection to that fine episode was, that death and sin were non-existents.—Spence. Ambrose Philips was a neat dresser, and very vain. After In a conversation between him, Congreve, Swift, and others, the discourse ran a good while on Julius Cæsar. many things had been said to the purpose, Ambrose asked what sort of a person they supposed Julius Cæsar was? He was answered, that from medals, &c., it appeared that he was a small man, and thin-faced." Now, for my part," said Ambrose," I should take him to have been of a lean make, pale complexion, extremely neat in his dress; and five feet seven inches high:" an exact description of Philips himself. Swift, who understood good breeding perfectly well, and would not interrupt anybody while speaking, let him go on, and when he had quite done, said; "And I, Mr. Philips, should take him to have been a plump man, just five feet five inches high; not very neatly dressed, in a black gown with pudding-sleeves."—Dr. Young. Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street, his house very near hers; until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The duchess showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle.-Dr. Young. Lord Granville had long wanted to pass an evening with Mr. Pope: when he at last did so, Mr. P. said that the two hours were wholly taken up by his lordship, in debating and settling, how the first verse in the Æneid was to be pronounced: and whether we should say Cicero or Kikero! This is what is meant in the two lines inserted in the Dunciad, on those learned topics.Dr. Warburton. FOURTH MEMORANDUM BOOK, 1758. OLD Cibber's brother, at Winchester College, in Doctor Young's time, was reckoned ingenious as well as loose, his conduct was so immoral that even Colley used to reprove him. His varying at school, Quam pulchrum est digito monstrari, et dicier hic est ; Hic mihi, quam mæste vox sonat ille fuit. He was a vile rake afterwards, and in the greatest distress; Colley used to reprove him for it. He told Dr. Sim. Burton, on a visit, "that he did not know any sin he had not been guilty of but one, which was avarice; and if the doctor would give him a guinea, he would do his utmost to be guilty of that too."-Dr. Young. As to please in the world, people don't mind what is right, but what is in fashion; so in Gardening, to please in laying out a friend's grounds, one must not mind what the place requires, so much as how to adapt the parts, as well as one can, to what he wants.-Spence. There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called itself "The World." Lord Stanhope, then (now Lord Chesterfield) Lord Herbert, &c. &c. were members. Epigrams were proposed to be written on |