azines. A short account of his life is prefixed to his
lectures on natural philosophy, "A Plain Elementary and Practical System
of Natural Experimental Philosophy. By the late Rev. John Ewing.
Philadelphia, 1809. Revised by Robert Patterson." John Ewing was born
June 22, 1732, in Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland; was graduated
from Princeton 1752; received the degree of D.D. from Edinburgh; enjoyed
the friendship of Robertson, the historian, and died in Philadelphia,
September 8, 1802. An interesting anecdote is related in the life of Dr.
Ewing (page 16). In 1773 he dined at Dilly's with Dr. Johnson. He
remembered the silence that fell when Johnson entered the room. "He
attended to nothing but his plate; ... having eaten voraciously, he
raised his head slowly, and looking round the table surveyed the guests
for the first time." The conversation turning upon America, Ewing
defended the colonies. "What do you know, sir, on the subject?" Johnson
demanded. Ewing had been cautioned to avoid contradiction, but the
warning was forgotten. "Sir, what do you know in America; you never
read; you have no books there," thundered on the "great cham." "Pardon
me, sir," blandly replied the Philadelphian, "we have read the
'Rambler.'" This civility instantly pacified him.

This anecdote reminds us that the Americans did not always fall their
crests when in the presence of Dr. Johnson. It is a familiar story that
when Johnson demanded of Gilbert Stuart, "Sir, where did you learn
English?" the ready-witted young artist replied, "Out of your
dictionary, sir." Bishop William White, first Bishop of Pennsylvania,
has left, in a letter to Bishop Hobart, his memory of an interview with
"that giant of genius and literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson." "Having dined
in company with him in Kensington, at the house of Mr. Elphinstone, well
known to scholars of that day, and returning in the stage-coach with the
doctor, I mentioned to him there being a Philadelphia edition of his
'Prince of Abyssinia.' He expressed a wish to see it. I promised to send
him a copy on my return to Philadelphia, and did so. He returned a
polite answer, which I printed in Mr. Boswell's second edition of his
'Life of the Doctor.'" Richard Rush relates in the _Port Folio_ that
when his father, Dr. Benjamin Rush, attended a meeting of "The Club" in
London, Goldsmith asked him a question about the North American Indians,
when Johnson remarked that there was not an Indian in North