el, ch. v. and vi. in which an account
is given of the punishment of the Philistines for looking into the
ark.

[36] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to
David Hume's _Essay on Miracles_.

[37] From the following letter there is reason to apprehend that Dr.
Adams would not support Mr. S----n, if he should add this to the other
singular anecdotes that he has published relative to Dr. Johnson.

Mr. Urban, Oxford, Oct. 22d, 1785.

In your last month's Review of books, you have asserted, that the
publication of Dr. Johnson's _Prayers_ and _Meditations_ appears to
have been at the instance of Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College,
Oxford. This, I think, is more than you are warranted by the editor's
preface to say; and is so far from being true, that Dr. Adams never
saw a line of these compositions, before they appeared in print, nor
ever heard from Dr. Johnson, or the editor, that any such existed. Had
he been consulted about the publication, he would certainly have given
his voice against it: and he therefore hopes, that you will clear him,
in as publick a manner as you can, from being any way accessary to it.
Wm. Adams.

[38]
"Debilem facite manu,
Debilem pede, coxa;
Tuber adstrue gibberum;
Lubricos quate dentes;
Vita dum superest, bene est:
Hanc mihi, vel acuta
Si sedeam cruce, sustine." SENEC. EPIST. 101.

Let me but live, the fam'd Maecenas cries,
Lame of both hands, and lame in feet and thighs;
Hump-back'd, and toothless;--all convuls'd with pain,
Ev'n on the cross,--so precious life remain.

Dr. Johnson, in his last illness, is said to have declared (in the
presence of Doctors H. and B.) that he would prefer a state of
existence in eternal pain to annihilation.

[39] "This last comet (which appeared in the year 1680) I may well
call the most remarkable one that ever appeared; since, besides the
former consideration, I shall presently shew, that it is no other than
that very comet, which came by the earth at the time of Noah's deluge,
and _which was the cause of the same_." Whiston's _Theory of the
Earth_, p. 188.

[40] "Since 575 years appear to be the period of the comet that caused
the deluge, what a learned friend who was the occasion of my
examination of this matter, suggests, will deserve to be considered;
viz. Whether the story of the phoenix, that celebrated emblem of the
resurrection in Christian antiquit