P. 80. Addison.—Addison 'takes off the severity of this speculation' with an anecdote of an atheistical author who was sick unto death. A curate, to comfort him, said he did not believe any besides the author's particular friends or acquaintance had ever been at the pains of reading his book, or that anybody after his death would ever inquire after it. 'The dying Man had still so much the Frailty of an Author in him, as to be cut to the Heart with these Consolations; and without answering the good Man, asked his Friends about him (with a Peevishness that is natural to a sick Person) where they had picked up such a Blockhead?' It seems that the author recovered, 'and has since written two or three other Tracts with the same Spirit, and very luckily for his poor Soul with the same success.'
P. 83. Milton.—'For he [Pliny the Elder] read no book which he did not make extracts from. He used to say that "no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it."'—Pliny the Younger.
P. 84. Baxter.—'Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will let thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat.'—Judge Jeffreys' address at Baxter's trial.
P. 85. Athenian Mercury.—An 'answer to correspondents'—the question 'Whether 'tis lawful to read Romances?' being asked in The Athenian Mercury. This, the first popular periodical published in this country, was started in 1691, and written by John Dunton, R. Sault, and Samuel (the father of John) Wesley; the last number appeared in 1697, and Dunton collected into three volumes the most valuable questions and answers under the title of The Athenian Oracle.
Gray's wish was to be always lying on sofas, reading 'eternal new novels of Crébillon and Marivaux'.
P. 86. Cobbett.—Cobbett attacks Dr. Johnson, because in a pamphlet he urged war on the American colonies; Burke, because in another pamphlet he urged war on revolutionary France. 'The first war lost us America, the last cost us six hundred millions of money, and has loaded us with forty millions a year of taxes.'
P. 86. More.—Tom Hickathrift, who killed a giant at Tylney, Norfolk, with a cartwheel. He dates from the Conquest, and was made governor of Thanet.
P. 87. Austen.—Cecilia and Camilla, both by Mme. D'Arblay; Belinda, by Miss Edgeworth.
'She [Diana] says of Romance: "The young who avoid that region escape the title of Fool at the cost of a celestial crown."'-George Meredith. Diana of the Crossways.
P. 87. Herschel.—'The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction.'—R. L. Stevenson.