Johnson on romantic virtue.
(Vol. ii, P. 76.)
'Dr. Johnson used to advise his friends to be upon their guard against romantic virtue, as being founded upon no settled principle. "A plank," said he, "that is tilted up at one end must of course fall down on the other." '—William Seward, Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, ii. 461.'
'Old' Baxter on toleration.
(Vol. ii, p. 253.)
The Rev. John Hamilton Davies, B.A., F.R.H.S., Rector of St. Nicholas's, Worcester, and author of The Life of Richard Baxter of Kidderminster, Preacher and Prisoner (London, Kent & Co., 1887), kindly informs me, in answer to my inquiries, that he believes that Johnson may allude to the following passage in the fourth chapter of Baxter's Reformed Pastor:—
'I think the Magistrate should be the hedge of the Church. I am against the two extremes of universal license and persecuting tyranny. The Magistrate must be allowed the use of his reason, to know the cause, and follow his own judgment, not punish men against it. I am the less sorry that the Magistrate doth so little interpose.'
England barren in good historians.
(Vol. ii, p. 236, n. 2.)
Gibbon, writing of the year 1759, says: