Dr. J.
desired him to arrange his thoughts on the subject.' Taylor says that
Johnson's entry about the serious talk refers to this matter. _Gent.
Mag_. 1787, p. 521. I believe that Johnson meant to warn Taylor about
the danger _he_ was running of 'entering the state of torment.'
[873] Wesley, like Johnson, was a wide reader. On his journeys he
read books of great variety, such as _The Odyssey_, Rousseau's _Emile_,
Boswell's _Corsica_, Swift's _Letters_, Hoole's _Tasso_, Robertson's
_Charles V., Quintus Curtius_, Franklin's _Letters on Electricity_,
besides a host of theological works. Like Johnson, too, he was a great
dabbler in physic and a reader of medical works. His writings covered a
great range. He wrote, he says, among other works, an English, a Latin,
a Greek, a Hebrew, and a French Grammar, a Treatise on Logic and another
on Electricity. In the British Isles he had travelled perhaps more than
any man of his time, and he had visited North America and more than one
country of Europe. He had seen an almost infinite variety of characters.
See _ante_, p. 230.
[874] The story is recorded in Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, iv.
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