By means of a paper which I have now before me,

I am able to furnish, what I take to have been his method or plan of institution; and, as it may be deemed a curiosity, and may serve the purpose of future instructors of youth, I here infert it:

When the introduction or formation of nouns and verbs is perfectly mastered, the pupils learn

Corderius, by Mr. Clarke; beginning at the fame time to tranflate out of his introduction. They then proceed to

Erasmus, reading him with Clarke's translation. These books form the first class.

Class II. Read Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin with the translation. The first class to repeat by memory, in the morning, the rules they had learned before; and, in the afternoon, the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs. They are also, on Thursdays and Saturdays to be examined in the rules they have learned.

The fecond class does the fame while in Eutropius; afterwards, they are to get and repeat the irregular nouns and verbs; and also, the rules for making and scanning verses, in which they are to be examined as the first class.

Class III. Read Ovid's Metamorphoses in the morning, and Cæfar's Commentaries in the afternoon. Continue the Latin rules till they are perfect in them. Proceed then to Leeds's Greek Grammar, and are ex amined as before.

They then proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to compose themes and verses, and learn Greek, and from thence pass on to Horace, Terence, and Sallust. The Greek authors afterwards read are, firft, those in the Attic dialect, which are Cebes, Ælian, Lucian by Leeds, and Xenophon: next Homer in the Ionic, Theocritus Doric, Euripides Attic and Doric.

From two letters, first inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, and fince in fundry other publications, from Mr. Walmsley to his friend the reverend Mr. Colson, a mathematician, and, in his later years, Lucasian profeffor at Cambridge, little is to be learnt respecting the history of Johnson and Garrick, at this period: the one wants the date of the month, the other that of the year; and though, in the order of their publication, the one immediately follows the other, there must have been fome interval between the times of writing the first and the last, The first is dated in 1737, and, as it contains a recommendation of Garrick to Mr. Colson, for instruction in mathematics, philofophy, and human learning, leads us to fuppofe, that before the time of writing it, Johnson's scheme of taking in boarders had proved abortive. The latter, written in what year we know not, and inferted below, recommends both Johnson and Garrick to his notice, the former as a good scholar and one that gave hopes

* Johnson had through his life a propensity to Latin composition: he shewed it very early at school, and while there made fome Latin verses, for which the Earl of Berkshire, who was a good scholar, and had always a Horace in his pocket, gave him a guinea.

of turning out a fine tragedy-writer; and, we are from good authority assured, that in March, in the year last above-mentioned, they, on horfe-back, arrived in town together.

< Dear Sir,

Lichfield, March 2.

• I had the favour of yours, and am extremely 'obliged to you; but cannot say, I had a greater 'affection for you upon it, than I had before, being * long fince fo much endeared to you, as well by an ' early friendship, as by your many excellent and va* luable qualifications. And, had I a fon of my own, * it would be my ambition, instead of fending him to ' the university, to dispose of him as this young gen

' tleman is.

He and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. S. < Johnfon, fet out this morning for London together. Davy Garrick is to be with you early the next ' week, and Mr. Johnson to try his fate with a tra* gedy, and to fee to get himself employed in some tranflation either from the Latin or the French, < Johnfon is a very good scholar and a poet, and, I ' have great hopes, will turn out a fine tragedywriter. If it should any ways lay in your way, ' doubt not but you would be ready to recommend and assist your countryman.

G. WALMSLEY.'

The hope fuggested in this letter is grounded on a circumstance which will lead us back to about the year before he quitted his school at Edial. It must be imagined, the instruction of so small a number of scholars as were under his care, left him at leifure to pursue his private

D4

private studies and amusements, which, for the most part, consisted in defultory reading. Let it not excite wonder in any that shall peruse these memoirs, to be told, that Burton on Melancholy was a book that he frequently resorted to for the purpose of exhilaration, or that, at times, he should find entertainment in turning over Knolles's voluminous and neglected hiftory of the Turks. In the many hours of leisure which he may be faid rather to have endured than enjoyed, we must suppose some employed in the contemplation of his fortunes, the means of improving them, and of refifting the adverse accidents to which human life is exposed, and of which he had already had fome experience. The stage holds forth temptations to men of genius, which many have been glad to embrace : the profits arising from a tragedy, including the representation and printing of it, and the connections it fometimes enables the author to form, were in Johnson's idea inestimable; and, it is not impossible, but that Garrick, who, before this time, had manifested a propenfity towards the stage, had suggested to him the thought of writing one: certain it is, that during his refidence at Edial, and under the eye of his friend Mr. Walmsley, he planned and completed that poem which gave this gentleman occasion to say, he was likely to become a fine tragedy-writer.

He chose for his story an action related by Knolles in his hiftory above-mentioned with all the powers of the most affecting eloquence: to give it at large would be to transgress the limits I have prescribed myself, and to abridge it would injure it: I will do neither; but referring the reader to the historian himself, will relate it as a bare hiftorical fact.

Mahomet

Mahomet the Great, first emperor of the Turks, in the year 1453 laid siege to the city of Conftantinople, then possessed by the Greeks, and, after an obstinate refiftance, took and sacked it. Among the many young women whom his commanders thought fit to lay hands on and present to him, was one, named Irene, a Greek, of incomparable beauty and fuch rare perfection of body and mind, that the emperor becoming enamoured of her, neglected the care of his government and empire for two whole years, and thereby so exasperated the Janizaries and other of his warlike subjects, that they mutinied, and threatened to dethrone him. To prevent this mischief, Mustapha Bassa, a person of great credit with him, undertook to represent to him the great danger to which he lay expofed by the indulgence of his paffion: he called to his remembrance the characters, actions, and atchievements of many of his predecessors, and the state of his government; and, in short, fo roused him from his lethargy, that he took a horrible resolution to filence the clamours of his people, by the facrifice of this admirable creature: accordingly, on a future day, he commanded her to be dressed and adorned in the richest manner that she and her attendants could devise, and against a certain hour issued orders for the nobility and leaders of his army to attend him in the great hall of his palace. When they were all assembled, himself appeared with great pomp and magnificence, leading his late captive, but now abfolute mistress, by the hand, unconscious of guilt and ignorant of his design. With a furious and menacing look, he gave the beholders to understand, that he knew the cause of their discontent, and that he meant

to