als are defective.'

'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages
of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it
may please them. But it is not necessary.'

'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English
Poets. By, &c.--"The English Poets, biographically and critically
considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."--Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make
another to his mind. May, 1781.'

'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not
inclosed. Of Gay's _Letters_ I see not that any use can be made, for
they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the
Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a
corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how
to put it in, and it is of little importance.'

See several more in _The Gent. Mag._, 1785. The Editor of that
Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to
think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being
preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, _Your_ in
the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his
correspondent's name _Nichols_, _Nichol_, and _Nicol_. In the fourth
paragraph he writes, first _Philips_, and next _Phillips_. His spelling
was sometimes careless, _ante_, i. 260, note 2. In the _Gent. Mag._ for
1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:--'In reading Rowe in
your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little
piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still
more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To
admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had
known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry.
What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not
only appeared in the _Works_ of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope
into the _Miscellanies_ he published in his own name and that of
Dean Swift.'

[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's_ Biographia
Dramatica_. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. _Gent. Mag._ 1782, p. 77.

[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:--'Had I time I could
enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as
requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is
undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to
h