'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Nov. 26, 1774.'
In his manuscript diary of this year, there is the following entry:—
'Nov. 27. Advent Sunday. I considered that this day, being the beginning
of the ecclesiastical year, was a proper time for a new course of life.
I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses every
Sunday. This day I began the Acts.
'In this week I read Virgil's Pastorals. I learned to repeat the Pollio and Gallus. I read carelessly the first Georgick.'
Such evidences of his unceasing ardour, both for 'divine and human lore,' when advanced into his sixty-fifth year, and notwithstanding his many disturbances from disease, must make us at once honour his spirit, and lament that it should be so grievously clogged by its material tegument. It is remarkable, that he was very fond of the precision which calculation produces[846]. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, '12 pages in 4to. Gr. Test, and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprize the whole in 40 days.'
'DR. JOHNSON TO JOHN HOOLE, Esq.[847]
'DEAR SIR,
'I have returned your play[848], which you will find underscored with red, where there was a word which I did not like. The red will be washed off with a little water.
'The plot is so well framed, the intricacy so artful, and the disentanglement so easy, the suspense so affecting, and the passionate parts so properly interposed, that I have no doubt of its success.