SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

Died Dec:13-1784. t. 75.

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M. DCC.LXXXVII.

Died in 17

1

1

1

THE
HE general sense of mankind, and the practice
of the learned in all ages, have given a fanction
to biographical history, and concurred to recommend
that precept of the wife fon of Sirach, in which we are
exhorted to praise famous men, such as by their
counsels and by their knowledge of learning were meet
for the people, - and were wife and eloquent in their in-
structions, and fuch as recited verses in writing*.' In
each of these faculties did the person, whose history I
am about to write, so greatly excel, that, except for my
presumption in the attempt to difplay his worth, the
undertaking may be thought to need no apology; efpe-
cially if we contemplate, together with his mental endow-
ments, those moral qualities which diftinguished him,
and reflect that, in an age when literary acquisitions and

* Ecclus. Chap. XLIV. Verse 1, et seqq.

VOL. I.

B

scientific