Pd. £5 to Mr. Newton.
The exact amount claimed, as is Shewn by the letter, dated Jan. 31, 1735, was £5 6s. 4d. There is a yet earlier letter demanding payment of £5 6s. 4d. as 'due to me' for books, signed D. Johnson, dated Swarkstone, Aug. 21, 1733. It must be the same account. Perhaps D. Johnson was the executor. He writes from Ashby, where Michael Johnson had a branch business. But I know of no other mention of him or of James Bate. John Newton was the father of the Bishop of Bristol. Post, June 3,1784, and Bishop Newton's Works, i. I.
[240] Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, dated Aug. 18, 1763, advised him, in some trouble that he had with his wife, 'to consult our old friend Mr. Howard. His profession has acquainted him with matrimonial law, and he is in himself a cool and wise man.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 342. See post, March 20, 1778, for mention of his son.
[241] See post, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by Johnson's lines (post, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family.
[242] Mr. Warton informs me, 'that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the Gent. Mag. (vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of:
'My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.' &c.
He died Aug, 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, one of the Prebendaries. BOSWELL.
[243] Johnson's Works, vii. 380.
[244] See post, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'
[245] See post, 1743.