seems to criticise Gray, but really laughs at
Johnson. I sent for it and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear what
it means--no recommendation of anything. I rather think the author
wishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of Johnson, and by
the tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The cleverest parody of the
Doctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "is by John Young
of Glasgow, and is very capital."' _Croker Corres_, ii. 34.

[1194] See _ante_, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's imitation.

[1195] See _ante_, ii. 465.

[1196] H.S.E.

MICHAEL JOHNSON,

Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum
patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias
apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et
negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus,
nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures
vel pias, vel castas laesisset, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam
expresserit.

Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi,

Anno MDCLVI.

Obiit MDCCXXXI.

Apposita est SARA, conjux,

Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam;
nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate praecellentem;
aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: aeternitati semper attentam, omne
fere virtutis nomen commendavit.

Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX;

Obiit MDCCLIX.

Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et animi et
corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem pia morte
finivit. Johnson's _Works_, i. 150.

[1197] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone over
his own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body from injury.'
Harwood (_History of Lichfield_, p. 520) says that the stone in St.
Michael's was removed in 1796, when the church was paved. A fresh one
with the old inscriptions was placed in the church on the hundredth
anniversary of Johnson's death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton Road
House, Macclesfield. The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St.
Michael's, suggests to me that the first stone was never set up. It is,
he says, unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treated
so unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during reparations of
the church, a very careful search was made for it, but without result.
There may have been, he thinks, some difficulty in finding the exa