"But ice is water congealed by the frigidity of the air, whereby it acquireth no new form, but rather a consistence or determination of its defluency, and amitteth not its essence, but condition of fluidity. Neither doth there any thing properly conglaciate but water, or watery humidity, for the determination of quicksilver is properly fixation, that of milk coagulation, and that of oil and unctuous bodies only incrassation."—Is this written by Brown or Johnson?
[[48]] In the Ramblers the abstract too often occurs instead of the concrete;—one of Dr. Johnson's peculiarities.
[[49]] See Victoria's Letter, Rambler, No. 130.—"I was never permitted to sleep till I had passed through the cosmetick discipline, part of which was a regular lustration performed with bean-flower water and may-dews; my hair was perfumed with a variety of unguents, by some of which it was to be thickened, and by others to be curled. The softness of my hands was secured by medicated gloves, and my bosom rubbed with a pomade prepared by my mother, of virtue to discuss pimples, and clear discolorations."
[[50]] Dr. Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition is well known from many circumstances. He wrote forty pages of the Life of Savage in one night. He composed seventy lines of his Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, and wrote them down from memory, without altering a word. In the Prologue on opening Drury-Lane theatre, he changed but one word, and that in compliment to Mr. Garrick. Some of his Ramblers were written while the printer's messenger was waiting to carry the copy to the press. Many of the Idlers were written at Oxford; Dr. Johnson often began his talk only just in time not to miss the post, and sent away the paper without reading it over.
[[51]] See his admirable Lives of the Poets, and particularly his Disquisition on metaphysical and religious poetry.
[[52]] See his Review of Soame Jennings's Essay on the Origin of Evil; a masterpiece of composition, both for vigour of style and precision of ideas.
[[53]] Pope's or rather Bolingbroke's system was borrowed from the Arabian metaphysicians.
[[54]] The scheme of the Essay on Man was given by Lord Bolingbroke to Pope.
[[55]] See that sublime and beautiful Tale, The Prince of Abyssinia; and The Rambler, No. 65, 204, &c. &c.
[[56]] "The world is disposed to call this a discovery of Dr. Franklin's, (from his paper inserted in the Philosophical Transactions) but in this they are much mistaken. Pliny, Plutarch, and other naturalists were acquainted with it."—"Ea natura est olei, ut lucem afferat, ac tranquillar omnia, etiam mare, quo non aliud elementum implacabilius."
Memoirs of the Society of Manchester.