Joseph
Warton; 'The late Lord Bathurst repeatedly assured me that he had read
the whole scheme of _The Essay on Man_, in the hand-writing of
Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions, which Pope was to
versify and illustrate.' _Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope_,
vol. ii. p. 62. BOSWELL. In the above short quotation from Law are two
parentheses. According to Paley, the Bishop was once impatient at the
slowness of his Carlisle printer. '"Why does not my book make its
appearance?" said he to the printer. "My Lord, I am extremely sorry; but
we have been obliged to send to Glasgow for a pound of parentheses."'
Best's _Memorials_, p. 196.
[1220] Johnson, defining _ascertain_ in its first meaning as
_establish_, quotes from Hooker: 'The divine law _ascertaineth_ the
truth of other laws.'
[1221] 'To those who censured his politicks were added enemies yet more
dangerous, who called in question his knowledge of Greek, and his
qualifications for a translator of Homer. To these he made no publick
opposition; but in one of his letters escapes from them as well as he
can. At an age like his, for he was not more than twenty-five, with an
irregular education, and a course of life of which much seems to have
passed in conversation, it is not very likely that he overflowed with
Greek.
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