• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5446 0

mistake, written Shropshire, instead of Staffordshire. But I have since been obliged to Mr. Spearing, attorney-at-law, for the following information: – ‘William Adams, formerly citizen and haberdasher of London, founded a school at Newport, in the county of Salop, by deed dated 27th November, 1656, by which he granted “the yearly sum of sixty pounds to such able and learned schoolmaster, from time to time, being of godly life and conversation, who should have been educated at one of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and had taken the degree of Master of Arts, and was well read in the Greek and Latin tongues, as should be nominated from time to time by the said William Adams, during his life, and after the decease of the said William Adams, by the Governours (namely, the Master and Wardens of the Haberdashers’ Company of the City of London) and their successors.” The manour and lands out of which the revenues for the maintenance of the school were to issue are situate at Knighton and Adbaston in the county of Stafford.’ From the foregoing account of this foundation, particularly the circumstances of the salary being sixty pounds, and the degree of Master of Arts being a requisite qualification in the teacher, it seemed probable that this was the school in contemplation; and that Lord Gower erroneously supposed that the gentlemen who possessed the lands, out of which the revenues issued, were trustees of the charity.

a In the Weekly Miscellany, October 21, 1738, there appeared the following advertisement: – ‘Just published, Proposals for printing the History of the Council of Trent, translated from the Italian of Father Paul Sarpi; with the Authour’s Life, and Notes theological, historical, and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which are added, Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations from various Authours, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 1. The work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes in quarto, printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18s. each volume, to be paid, half-a-guinea at the time of subscribing, half-a-guinea at the delivery of the first volume, and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. 3. Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It may be had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three guineas; one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the delivery of the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. The work is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Subscriptions are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Rivington in St. Paul’s Church-yard, by E. Cave at St. John’s Gate, and the Translator, at No. 6, in Castle-street, by Cavendish-square.’

a They afterwards appeared in the Gent. Mag. 1738 {viii. 486} with this title –Verses to Lady Firebrace, at Bury Assizes.

b Du Halde’s Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave in weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the embellishment of the Magazine. NICHOLS.

a The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the Divine Attributes is here alluded to. NICHOLS.

b The Compositors in Mr. Cave’s printing-office, who appear by this letter to have then waited for copy. NICHOLS.

a Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323.

b This book was published.

a The Inscription and the Translation of it are preserved in the London Magazine for the year 1739, p. 244.

a See note, p. 76.

a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 8 {introduction}.

a Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. Johnson was to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man; and his offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken principle of duty. Being obliged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a physician, and to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of Colonel, both in the French and Spanish service. He was a son of the ancient and respectable family