"Illustrious!"--for what? and then the
sentence proceeds to expand the circumstances connected with Iona. And,
Sir, as to metaphorical expression, that is a great excellence in style,
when it is used with propriety, for it gives you two ideas for
one;--conveys the meaning more luminously, and generally with a
perception of delight.'
He told me, that he had been asked to undertake the new edition of the
_Biographia Britannica_, but had declined it; which he afterwards said
to me he regretted[491]. In this regret many will join, because it would
have procured us more of Johnson's most delightful species of writing;
and although my friend Dr. Kippis has hitherto discharged the task
judiciously, distinctly, and with more impartiality than might have been
expected from a Separatist, it were to have been wished that the
superintendence of this literary Temple of Fame had been assigned to 'a
friend to the constitution in Church and State.' We should not then have
had it too much crowded with obscure dissenting teachers, doubtless men
of merit and worth, but not quite to be numbered amongst 'the most
eminent persons who have flourished in Great-Britain and Ireland[492].
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