of action; and Rassela Christos, the general of sultan Sequed, mentioned in that work, most probably suggested the name of the prince.  The author wanted to set out on a journey to Lichfield, in order to pay the last offices of filial piety to his mother, who, at the age of ninety, was then near her dissolution; but money was necessary.  Mr. Johnston, a bookseller, who has, long since, left off business, gave one hundred pounds for the copy.  With this supply Johnson set out for Lichfield; but did not arrive in time to close the eyes of a parent whom he loved.  He attended the funeral, which, as appears among his memorandums, was on the 23rd of January, 1759.

Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses.  He gave up his house in Gough square.  Mrs. Williams went into lodgings.  He retired to Gray’s inn, and soon removed to chambers in the Inner Temple lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of literature:  “Magni stat nominis umbra.”  Mr. Fitzherbert, the father of lord St. Helens, the present minister at Madrid, a man distinguished, through life, for his benevolence and other amiable qualities, used to say, that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending, from his chambers, to send a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he found an author by profession, without pen, ink, or paper.  The present bishop of Salisbury was also among those who endeavoured, by constant attention, to sooth the cares of a mind, which he knew to be afflicted with gloomy apprehensions.  At one of the parties made at his house, Boscovich, the jesuit, who had then lately introduced the Newtonian philosophy at Rome, and, after publishing an elegant Latin poem on the subject, was made a fellow of the Royal Society, was one of the company invited to meet Dr. Johnson.  The conversation, at first, was mostly in French.  Johnson, though thoroughly versed in that language, and a professed admirer of Boileau and La Bruyere, did not understand its pronunciation, nor could he speak it himself with propriety.  For the rest of the evening the talk was in Latin.  Boscovich had a ready current flow of that flimsy phraseology, with which a priest may travel through Italy, Spain, and Germany.  Johnson scorned what he called colloquial barbarisms.  It was his pride to speak his best.  He went on, after a little practice, with as much facility as if it was his native tongue.  One sentence this writer well remembers.  Observing that Fontenelle, at first, opposed the Newtonian philosophy, and embraced it afterwards, his words were:  “Fontinellus, ni fallor, in extrema senectute, fuit transfuga ad castra Newtoniana.”