[480] Revelations, xiv. 2.
[481] Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 78, describes man's death as 'a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know.'
[482] This fiction is known to have been invented by Daniel Defoe, and was added to Drelincourt's book, to make it sell. The first edition had it not. MALONE. 'More than fifty editions have not exhausted its popularity. The hundreds of thousands who have bought the silly treatise of Drelincourt have borne unconscious testimony to the genius of De Foe.' Forster's Essays, ii. 70.
[483] See ante, i. 29.
[484] In his Life of Akenside ( Works, viii. 475) he says:—'Of Akenside's Odes nothing favourable can be said…. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared; for to what use can the work be criticised that will not be read?' See post, April 10, 1776.
[485] See post, just before May 15, 1776.
[486] See post, Sept. 23, 1777.
[487] The account of his trial is entitled:—'The Grand Question in Religion Considered. Whether we shall obey God or Man; Christ or the Pope; the Prophets and Apostles, or Prelates and Priests. Humbly offered to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. By E. Elwall. With an account of the Author's Tryal or Prosecution at Stafford Assizes before Judge Denton. London.' No date. Elwall seems to have been a Unitarian Quaker. He was prosecuted for publishing a book against the doctrines of the Trinity, but was discharged, being, he writes, treated by the Judge with great humanity. In his pamphlet he says (p. 49):—'You see what I have already done in my former book. I have challenged the greatest potentates on earth, yea, even the King of Great Britain, whose true and faithful subject I am in all temporal things, and whom I love and honour; also his noble and valiant friend, John Argyle, and his great friends Robert Walpole, Charles Wager, and Arthur Onslow; all these can speak well, and who is like them; and yet, behold, none of all these cared to engage with their friend Elwall.' See post, May 7, 1773. Dr. Priestley had received an account of the trial from a gentleman who was present, who described Elwall as 'a tall man, with white hair, a large beard and flowing garments, who struck everybody with respect. He spoke about an hour with great gravity, fluency, and presence of mind.' The trial took place, he said, in 1726. 'It is impossible,' adds Priestley (Works, ed. 1831, ii. 417), 'for an unprejudiced person to read Elwall's account of his trial, without feeling the greatest veneration for the writer.' In truth, Elwall spoke with all the simple power of the best of the early Quakers.
[488] Boswell, in the Hypochrondriack (London Mag. 1783, p. 290), writing on swearing, says:—'I have the comfort to think that my practice has been blameless in this respect.' He continues (p. 293):— 'To do the present age justice, there is much less swearing among genteel people than in the last age.'
[489] 'The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing…. What such an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger narrative, and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith. [Greek: Togargerasesti Thanonton].' Johnson's Works, vii. 398.