6 Mr. Graham's Parting Word to Mr. D'Ifraeli. [Jan. To MR. D'ISRAELI. - Jan. 5. I THOUGHT our correfpondence would have ended before this; but I find in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXIV. p. 996, you there favour me with a parting word; and I take this opportunity of acknowledging it. With refpect to my being able to produce any more decifive facts than what I have done, at this distance of time, it is impoffible. I have given, and I now continue to give you, the beft which ever could be had, and that is, the unequivocal exculpation of the gentleman on whole memorandum this calumny has been fabricated. Had you, Mr. D'Ifraeli, related your anecdote with that moderation and modefty, which a fincere and difinterested love of truth can alone demand, however greatly I might have been fhocked at your narration, 1 fhould not have felt that indig. nation against you which I confefs I did; and I glory in the avowal. If you will take the trouble to recollect the unwarrantable and very abufive terms with which you conveyed your infor mation, you must acknowledge that fuch language was by no means necef. fary. But you go farther; you fas, thefe dilapidations were at length per ceived, and the (Mrs. Macaulay) was watched; and, in confequence of her being detected, she was excluded the Mufeum." This watching, and this detection, must certainly have become a matter of notoriety; and, if the Governors of the Mufeum at that time had done their duty, which you can have no just reafon to charge them with the negJect of, they certainly muft, as you affert, have difffed her the Museum, and that difmiffal would have been en tered in the Minutes of their proceed. ings. To afcertain which, I have taken the only means I could, by apply. jog to Dr. Morton, who was at that time, as he is now, the principal librarian, and through whom fuch an order muft have come. I here fubjoin the Doctor's abfwer; which, if you think it fupports your cause, is much at your fervice. 1 To the Rev. WILLIAM GRAHAM. SIR, 08. 12, 1794: "That Mrs. Maceulay was ever denied access to the Brit:th Mofeum is, I believe, a very calumniðus affection; and it is very eafy, even at this distance of time, to examine the truth of it. All the proceedings of the Trustees of the Museum are faithfully re corded in the refpective Minutes; and, if any order of the above nature was ever made, it will there be found fairly entered "If you, therefore, are defirous to vindicate the refpectable character of Mrs. Macaulay in a manly way, you will do weil monthly committee, and to request that they to apply in perfon, to the Trustees in their will pleafe to direct their fecretary to examine their Minutes; and, if there may be found any fuch order, that they will please to direct their fecretary to give you a copy of it, figned by himfelf; and, on the contrary, if no fuch order doth there exift, that they will be pleased alfo to give you a proper certificate, figned by himself, that no fuch order doth there exift; and thus you will be able to refute, in the most fatisfactory manner, the calumny of which you fɔ justly complain. Your most humble fervant, (Signed) "CHARLES MORTON." In confequence of Dr. Morton's advice, I applied, by letter, to the monthIv committee of the Trustees of the British Museum; and I here add the anfwer I had from their fecretary. "To the Rev. WILLIAM GRAHAM. "SIR, British Mufen, Dec. 15, 1794. "I am ordered by the Trustees of the British Mufeam to inform you, that it does not appear from their Minutes that any ord der to deny Mrs. Macaulay access to the Britith Mufeum was ever made. I am, Sir, your very bumble fervint, (Signed) "S. HARPER, feeresary." In your parting word you charge me, Mr. D'Ifraeli, with low abuse towards you. As for that, I trust I shall always | have fuch a refpect for my own character as to prevent any one from acculing me with justice of fuch a charge. If the perfon I have to contend with happens, either from apparent character or conduct, to be in that fituation to whom the term low may be applied, you certainly afford me another inftance of your unreasonableness, in denying me the privilege of using adequate expreffions to the fubject I am treating of. And now, Mr. D'Ifraeli, as I confider your correfpondence with me to be at an end, I hope you will be more cautious in your conduct for the future; against you ceafes, and I fincerely with and here I declare that my resentment you fuccefs in every virtuous and honeft undertaking you may be engaged in. 1 am, Mr. D'Ifraeli, your very humble fervant, WILLIAM GRAHAM. greeable biographer, having met (LXIV. 623.), with a favourable reception, I am induced to trouble you again upon the fame fubject. In p. 2, of Sir John Hawkins's Life of the lexicographer, he makes Dr. Johnfon coufin-german to Cornelius Ford, the Dranken Parson, in Hogarth's Modern Midnight Conver fation. But, in p. S, Ford is twice. ftvied his uncle. One of thefe being neceffarily a mifreprefentation, one would be apt to conceive that p 2 mifcalls Mrs. Sarah Johnlon, the "fifter of Dr. Jofeph Ford," for his daughter. If fo, Cornelius was uncle to Samuel. But Mr. Bofwell makes them coufins. ift edit. vol. II. p. 263," He was my mother's nephew," Vol. II. p. 450, Mr. Bofwell's quotation from our Burial Service is erroneous: "In the fute and certain hope of a blefed refurrection;" which being put in inverted commas fhews he meant it as a quotation. The original is, “In fure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life:" the meaning of which is, we having, to use an apofile's expreffion, AngoPogia, of which the words in the recital are an elegant, peTriphrafe; we, having a firm and unhaken belief, and a confequent hope, in the comfortable doctrine of fing again to a future happy state of exiftence; do, therefore, commit the body of the deceafed to the ground. I am fure Mr. B. did not mean to mifreprefent the doctrine of the Church of England; but his mifquotation effectually ferves to convince her enemies of the truth of an imputation, which they are not flack at throwing in her teeth. In vol. II. p. 22, there is a pun fo very inexplicable to me, that, having repeatedly read it over, I could not but wonder at my own ftupidity in not finding it out. I next read it over to an ingenious friend; who could make no more of it than I. Then we propofed it to a party of ladies; but the veil ftill remained. Good Mr. Urban, explain it to us. The pun, which is as follows, the fage moralift thought fo excellent, that he advised the author never again to attempt to fay good things, bat "to teft his colloquial fame upon it." Mr. Gwin, the architect, being charged by the Doctor with "taking a church out of the way, that the people might go in a straight line to the bridge;" replied, "No, fir, I am putting the church in the way, that the people may not go out of the way," Had Mr. B. told us what church and bridge were the fubject of difcourfe, I, perhaps, might have been clearer headed in the explication. But I much fear an evaporation; for, as Voltaire very juftly obferves, "La plaifanterie expliqué, cefferoit d'etre plaifanterie." Vol. II. p. 234. Dr. Johnfon met Edwards, the attorney, in 1778, who had been at college with him in 17297 of whom Mr. B. fays, "Having been at Pembroke College together nine-andthirty years ago;" 49 is the difference between thefe dates. I am much obliged by the learned Antiquary's politenefs, E. 728. in noticing my query, and fanctioning my opinion in the criticifm on Dr. Johnson's mistaking the quantity of Balmerino, I had intended addreffing you upon fome other fubjects; but I must defer them for your next Mifcellany. As I have begun therefore with criticifm, fo I will conclude. Having ventured to correct our literary Coloffus in his mistaking application of the plu-perfect tenfe in the auxiliary verb have, p. 623, of your last volume ; I am induced to animadvert upon two other eminent authors, failing in the fame particular. Dr. Johnfon, in his letter to Lord Chefterheld, has, "The notice had it been fooner, had been kiad;" meaning would have been kind. Hume, in his Hiftory of England, p. 295. Charles 1. 1630, has, "To have nes ected them entirely, had it been configent with order and public fafety, bad been [would have been] the wife meafure that could have been embraced. Again, p. 261, Charles I. 162S, fpeaking of the French gentleman, to whom was imputed the death of the Duke of Buckingnam, he fays, "In the hurry of revenge, they had been [would have been] inftantly put to death; had they not been faved by fome of more temper and judgement." In all thete paffages no very keen eye is neceffary to find out, that the bad in the firt part of the fentences, and the bad in the latter, are ufed in very different fenfes. The one is merely declarative, and the other contingent; or, in the old language of grammar, one is in the indicative, the other in the fubjunctive, mood. I wish every man, accustomed to develope hia thoughts to the publick, would ftudy the Lowthean fyftem. He might after wards adhere to it, or diffent from it, as Mr. Horne Tooke and my old acquain tance Dr. Gregory have done. He certainly would be no lofer by an attentive perufal; 8 Burton's Leicestershire. State of Air on 25th of January. [Jan. over perufal; even after, he had read it i may occur, when uncommonly laudable It is fomewhat fingular, that two dif tinct plates of Mr. Bluck (LXIV. 1069.) should have been engraved, and his history be wholly unknown. The Dr. Derham (ibid.) was certainly a fellow of Peter-house, the rectory of Stathern being in their gift. Of Horner I know nothing; but should Yours, &c. like to know his story. it; before the conclufion of his Gram. I mar. E. In his "Sentences," fpeaking of the relative, ed. 1781, p. 138, he gives this example in his own words: "Hod he done this, he had efcaped." The plu-perfect tenfe of the fubjunctive mood, in the Latin language, is often miftaken and mif-tranflated. Lilly's Grammar is very defective in this inflance; and fo all the exercise-books, excepting Turner's, which was not in And owing to ufe in my boyith days. this mistake, it is no wonder Sir Roger L'Etrange, and other tranflators, have made fuch blunders; attributing that to a paft period, which the fpeakers (pake of as a then contingent future one. g. C. Julii Cæf. Com. lib. I. § 35. Quòd fi dife-shifet, ac poffeffionem traaidiffet. Lib. IV. § 8. Peicbant, uti ad eos equites, qui agmen antecefijent, præmitteret; who fesul precede. This latter paffage ought, according to the received notion, to be tranflated. They intreated him to fend the cavalry that bad led up the infantry. Cæfar abounds in hundreds of inftances of this fenfe, in the application of the mood and tenfe in queftion. And it is remarkable, that the fame teníe, in both languages, fhould be fo often mifapplied in one inftance, and misinterpreted in the other. PROTOPLASTIDES. Yours, &c. Jan. 6. M. GREEN. Beaumont-Aros, MaryMr. URBAN, le-bone, Jan. 26. SEND you below the exact state of the air yesterday, taken by two thermometers (Fahrenheit's fea e) exposed` in the open air, in the fhade. Perhaps the greatest degree of cold ever known' in London. A. S. Sunday, January 25, 1795; light air, wind at Ñ. Ñ. E. clear sky, great frofty exhalation. Mercury in thermometer 8 A. M. At 8 4 above o. 플 Barometer 30 P. M. I 17 dito. 2 19 ditto. 3 21 dito. 4 22 N. E. barometer 30 5 23 Small white clouds, E. S. E. at 5 P. M. 6 Water froze almoft folid in a chamber, in which a constant fire is kept, until 3 o'clock; and the froft remained on the infide of the windows, with a large fire in the room, till nearly 4 o'clock. Mr. |