Notes and Drafts of Material Included in ‘Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life Recollected, and Received after the Second Edition Was Printed’

[M 155: 13] Talking once at Cambridge of Dr. Hurd he said ‘How Hurd came to prefer rhime to blank verse I c nnot tell for it is right Sir. He must have got at the right by some wrong way.’

At another time he observed ‘Hurd Sir is of a school where every thing is to be accounted for a priori; for instance when it was the fashion to wear scarlet breeches they would have explained to you how it must have happened that Scarlet breeches should be worn precisely at that time.’

He however when Mr. Langton told him that he had been introduced to Dr. Hurd said ‘Hurd Sir is a valuable acquaintance for any man to obtain.’

‘Down with the breeches.’

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[M 158, p. 12] He once borrowed Sixpence of me saying ‘This not to be repaid.’

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[M 146: 6] Johnson ask’d [Mr. Cambridge>] Richard Owen Cambridge Esqr. if he had read the Spanish translation of Sallust, said to be written by a Prince of Spain, with the assistance of his Tutor, who is professedly the author of a Treatise annexed on the Phœnician language.

Mr. Cambridge commended the work particularly as he thought the Translator understood his Author better than is commonly the case with Translators. But said, He was disappointed in the purpose for which he borrow’d the book To see whether a Spaniard could be better furnishd with Inscriptions from monuments coins or other antiquities which he might more probably find on a coast so immediately opposite to Carthage than the [Antiquarians>] Antiquaries of any other countries. [Johnson>] JOHNSON. ‘I am very sorry you was not gratified in your expectations.’ [Cambridge>] CAMBRIDGE. ‘The Language would have been of little use as there is no History existing in that [language>] tongue to ballance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us.’ Johnson. ‘No Sir. They have not been partial. they have told their own story without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy.