proportions between language and sentiment, between passion and exclamation; she discovered the defects of every action, and the uncertainty of every conclusion; she knew the malignity of friendship, the avarice of liberality, the anxiety of content, and the cowardice of temerity.

To see all this was pleasant, but the greatest of all pleasures was to show it. To laugh was something, but it was much more to make others laugh. As every deformity of character made a strong impression upon her, she could not always forbear to transmit it to others; as she hated false appearances, she thought it her duty to detect them, till, between wantonness and virtue, scarce any that she knew escaped without some wounds by the shafts of ridicule; not that her merriment was always the consequence of total contempt, for she often honoured virtue, where she laughed at affectation.

For these practices, and who can wonder? the cry was raised against her from every quarter, and to hunt her down, was generally determined. Every eye was watching for a fault, and every tongue was busy to supply its share of defamation. With the most unpolluted purity of mind, she was censured as too free of favours, because she was not afraid to talk with men: with generous sensibility of every human excellence, she was thought cold or envious, because she could not scatter praise with undistinguishing profusion: with tenderness, that agonized at real misery, she was charged with delight in the pain of others, when she would not condole with those whom she knew to counterfeit affliction. She derided false appearances of kindness and of pity, and was, therefore, avoided as an enemy to society. As she seldom commended or censured, but with some limitations and exceptions, the world condemned her as indifferent to the good and bad; and because she was often doubtful, where others were confident, she was charged with laxity of principles, while her days were distracted, and her rest broken, by niceties of honour, and scruples of morality.

Report had now made her so formidable, that all flat

tered, and all shunned her. If a lover gave a ball to his mistress and her friends, it was stipulated, that Floretta should not be invited. If she entered a publick room, the ladies curtsied, and shrunk away, for there was no such thing as speaking, but Floretta would find something to criticise. If a girl was more sprightly than her aunt, she was threatened, that in a little time she would be like Floretta. Visits were very diligently paid, when Floretta was known not to be at home; and no mother trusted her daughter to herself, without a caution, if she should meet Floretta, to leave the company as soon as she could.

With all this Floretta made sport at first, but in time grew weary of general hostility. She would have been content with a few friends, but no friendship was durable; it was the fashion to desert her, and with the fashion what fidelity will contend? She could have easily amused herself in solitude, but that she thought it mean to quit the field to treachery and folly.

Persecution at length tired her constancy, and she implored Lilinet to rid her of her wit: Lilinet complied, and walked up the mountain, but was often forced to stop, and wait for her follower. When they came to the flinty fountain, Floretta filled a small cup, and slowly brought it to her lips, but the water was insupportably bitter. She just tasted it, and dashed it to the ground, diluted the bitterness at the fountain of alabaster, and resolved to keep her wit, with all its consequences.

Being now a wit for life, she surveyed the various conditions of mankind with such superiority of sentiment, that she found few distinctions to be envied or desired, and, therefore, did not very soon make another visit to the fountain. At length, being alarmed by sickness, she resolved to drink length of life from the golden cup. She returned, elated and secure, for though the longevity acquired was indeterminate, she considered death as far distant, and, therefore, suffered it not to intrude upon her pleasures.

But length of life included not perpetual health. She

felt herself continually decaying, and saw the world fading about her. The delights of her early days would delight no longer, and however widely she extended her view, no new pleasure could be found; her friends, her enemies, her admirers, her rivals, dropped one by one into the grave, and with those who succeeded them, she had neither community of joys, nor strife of competition.

By this time she began to doubt whether old age were not dangerous to virtue; whether pain would not produce peevishness, and peevishness impair benevolence. She thought that the spectacle of life might be too long continued, and the vices which were often seen, might raise less abhorrence; that resolution might be sapped by time, and let that virtue sink, which in its firmest state it had not, without difficulty, supported; and that it was vain to delay the hour which must come at last, and might come at a time of less preparation, and greater imbecility.

These thoughts led her to Lilinet, whom she accompanied to the flinty fountain; where, after a short combat with herself, she drank the bitter water. They walked back to the favourite bush, pensive and silent: "And now," said she, "accept my thanks for the last benefit that Floretta can receive." Lady Lilinet dropped a tear, impressed upon her lips the final kiss, and resigned her, as she resigned herself, to the course of nature.

PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS

COMPOSED BY

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

Published from his Manuscripts by George Strahan, D. D. Prebendary of Rochester, and Vicar of Islington.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION IN 1785.

THESE posthumous devotions of Dr. Johnson will be, no doubt, welcomed by the public, with a distinction similar to that which has been already paid to his other works.

During many years of his life, he statedly observed certain days* with a religious solemnity; on which, and other occasions, it was his custom to compose suitable prayers and meditations; committing them to writing for his own use, and, as he assured me, without any view to their publication. But being last summer on a visit at Oxford to the reverend Dr. Adams †, and that gentleman urging him repeatedly to engage in some work of this kind, he then first conceived a design to revise these pious effusions, and bequeathed them, with enlargements, to the use and benefit of others.

Infirmities, however, now growing fast upon him, he at

Viz. New Year's Day; March 28, the day on which his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, died; Good-Friday; Easter-Day; and September the 18th, his own birth-day.

+ Master of Pembroke College, at which Dr. Johnson received part of his education.

length changed this design, and determined to give the manuscripts, without revision, in charge to me, as I had long shared his intimacy, and was at this time his daily attendant. Accordingly, one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them. But the performance of this promise also was prevented, partly by his hasty destruction of some private memoirs, which he afterwards lamented, and partly by that incurable sickness, which soon ended in his dissolution.

As a biographer, he is allowed to have excelled without a rival; and we may justly regret that he who had so advantageously transmitted to posterity the memories of other eminent men, should have been thus prevented doing equal honour to his own. But the particulars of this venerable man's personal history may still, in great measure, be preserved; and the public are authorised to expect them from some of his many friends, who are zealous to augment the monument of his fame by the detail of his private virtues *.

That the authenticity of this work may never be called in question, the original manuscript will be deposited in the library of Pembroke College in Oxford. Dr. Bray's associates are to receive the profits of the first edition, by the author's appointment; and any further advantages that accrue, will be distributed among his relations t.

Since this Preface was written, the following publications have appeared, viz.

Anecdotes of the late Dr. Johnson, during the last Twenty Years of his Life, by Hester Lynch Piozzi. 3rd edit. 1786, small 8vo.

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. published with his Works, by sir John Hawkins, 8vo. 1787.

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. by James Boswell, esq. first published in 2 vols. 4to. afterwards (1793) in three. A new edition, with Notes, &c. is preparing by the editor of this edition of his Works, with which it will be printed uniform.

An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Arthur Murphy, esq. 8vo. 1792, prefixed to this edition.

+ The profits of the first edition were accordingly paid to Dr. Bray's associates; and those of the second have been distributed among Dr.