"The greatest part of that book was finished above thirteen years since, (1696) which is eight years before it was published. The author was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head." And again: "Men should be more cautious in losing their time, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually requireth more pains and skill, more wit, learning and judgement, than were employed in writing it.—And the author assureth those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out more than he left; and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must still have undergone more severe corrections." An Apology for the Tale of a Tub.—With respect to this work being the production of Swift, see his letter to the printer, Mr. Benjamin Tooke, dated Dublin, June 29, 1710, and Tooke's Answer on the publication of the Apology and a new edition of the Tale of a Tub. Hawkesworth's edition of Swift's Works, 8vo. vol. xvi. p. 145.
Doctor Hawkesworth mentions, in his preface, that the edition of A Tale of a Tub, printed in 1710, was revised and corrected by the Dean a short time before his understanding was impaired, and that the corrected copy was, in the year 1760, in the hands of his kinsman, Mr. Deane Swift.
[[24]] Johnson. "I would tell truth of the two Georges, or of that scoundrel, King William." Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, p. 312.
[[25]] See his letter to Lord Thurlow, in which he seems to approve of the application (though he was not previously consulted), thanks his Lordship for having made it, and even expresses some degree of surprize and resentment on the proposed addition to his pension being refused.
[[26]] "If (added Dr. Johnson) God had never spoken figuratively, we might hold that he speaks literally, when he says, "This is my body." Boswell's Tour, p. 67.—Here his only objection to transubstantiation seems to rest on the style of the Scripture being figurative elsewhere as well as in this passage. Hence we may infer, that he would otherwise have believed in it.—But Archbishop Tillotson and Mr. Locke reason more philosophically, by asserting that "no doctrine, however clearly expressed in Scripture, is to be admitted, if it contradict the evidence of our senses:—For our evidence for the truth of revealed religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses, because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to us, through the medium of human testimony."—This question, however, may perhaps be better elucidated by the following Anecdote, preserved by Mr. Richardson, than by a more serious discussion:
"Mr. Pope, who loved to talk of Titcum, (one who used to be of the party with him, Gay, Swift, Craggs, and Addison, and that set, in his youth,) told us, that Gay went to see him as he was dying, and asked him, if he would have a priest; (for he was a papist,) 'No, said he, what should I do with them? But I would rather have one of them, than one of yours, of the two. Our fools, (continued he) write great books to prove that bread is God; but your booby (he meant Tillotson) has wrote a long argument to prove that bread is bread.'" Richardsoniana, p. 167.
[[27]] See his conversation with Lord Auchinleck. Boswell's Tour.
[[28]] See the First Book of Samuel, ch. x.
[[29]] "And I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife, beseeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state."
Johnson's Meditations.
[[30]] "I returned home, but could not settle my mind. At last I read a chapter. Then went down about six or seven, and eat two cross-buns."
Meditations, p. 154.