'Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound philosophy aside.'
Pope's Satires, ii. 5.
[1388] Mackintosh (Life, i. 71) said that 'Burke's treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful is rather a proof that his mind was not formed for pure philosophy; and if we may believe Boswell that it was once the intention of Mr. Burke to have written against Berkeley, we may be assured that he would not have been successful in answering that great speculator; or, to speak more correctly, that he could not have discovered the true nature of the questions in dispute, and thus have afforded the only answer consistent with the limits of the human faculties.'
[1389] Goldsmith's Retaliation.
[1390] I have the following autograph letter written by Johnson to Dr. Taylor three weeks after Boswell's departure.
'DEAR SIR,
'Having with some impatience reckoned upon hearing from you these two last posts, and been disappointed, I can form to myself no reason for the omission but your perturbation of mind, or disorder of body arising from it, and therefore I once more advise removal from Ashbourne as the proper remedy both for the cause and the effect.
'You perhaps ask, whither should I go? any whither where your case is not known, and where your presence will cause neither looks nor whispers. Where you are the necessary subject of common talk, you will not safely be at rest.
'If you cannot conveniently write to me yourself let somebody write for you to
'Dear Sir,