the 22d fection, of The Liberty of Prophefying, p. 1070, is the following paffage.-end with a ftory whichl find in the Jews books. When Abraham fate at his tent door, according to his cuftome, waiting to entertain ftrangers, he efpied an old man ftooping and leanng on his ftaff, weary with age and travell, coming towards him, who was an hundred years of age: he received him kindly, wathed his feet, provided fupper, caufed him to fit down but obferving that the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a bleffing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worfhip the God of heaven. The old man told him, that he worshipped the fire onely, and acknowledged no other God. At which anfwer Abraham grew fo zealously angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and expofed him to all the evils of the night, and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, 1 thrust him away because he did not worship thee. God antwered him, I have fuffered him there hundred years, although he dishonoured me, and couldft not thou endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble? "Upon this," faith the ftory, "Abraham fetcht him back again, and gave him hofpitable entertainment, and wife inftruction." Go thou, and doe kkewife, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham."

To what caufe thall we attribute this ftrange coincidence in thought and expreffion to difingenuity in Dr. Franklin in concealing his obligation to Taylor, or to a fimilar turn of mind, that led him not only to think, but to exprefs his thoughts almost in the fame manner, as the other had done? or thall we fuppofe, that Franklin found the ftory in fome Jewith book, and cloathed it in the language of Scripture, without acknowledging where he, difcovered the fougdation on which he erected fo elegant a fupeiftructure? Whatever it might be, it seems a literary curiofity, and on that account is communicated to the Editor of the Gentleman's Magazine by H. S.

MR. URBAN,

O parts of your af-ful mifcellany are more entertaining than thofe literary remarks and anecdotes which you frequently of late have infeited. Such is the original letter (p. 353) of Mr. James Harris to Mr. Young, The Parton Adams of Fielding; which letter I know to be genuine; and have heard Mr. Harris, who among intiinates had much hu mour, relate a thousand instances of the marvellous abfence of mind into which this learned man more frequently fell than even La Fontaine, Your correfpondent in p. 407 rightly reminds you that Mr. Sydenham was the very learned tranflator of Plato, whofe want of cacouragement and patronage Mr.

Harris always lamented. Mr. Upton, another friend mentioned in this letter, was looked upon by Mr. Harris as one of the beft critics and accomplished scholars of this age. For which he used to appeal to his edition of Spenfer, and Arrian; to which laft work Mr. Harris effentially contributed, by giving him feveral manufcript notes of Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury on this admirable Greek moralift. Mr. Harris always fpoke with an indignation unafual to him of the treatment which his friend Upton met with from Bishop Warburton; of whofe learning, as inaccurate and indigested, he had a very low opinion. Nay, I have heard him declare, that he thought there never were three works fo full of crude opinions, far-fetched, and tortured meanings, mifreprefentations, and abfurdities of every kind, as the Divine Legation of Mofes, the Note on Shakspeare, and the Remarks on Pope. As to his interpretation of the fixth book of Virgil, fo talked of in its time, he frequently rallied his friend Dr. Warton for inferting fuch a groundlefs and unfubftantial piece of criticifm in his work. And he ufed to add, that the learned quotations with which this difcourfe is loaded, are tranfcribed verbatim from Meurfius's Elea finia, published in the feventh volume of Grævius and Gronovius's Grecian Antiquities, p. 109. This I know to be the reafon of what has furprifed many readers, why Mr. Harris, in the catalogue he gives of English critics, in his last work, has omitted the name of Bishop Warburton, and alfo of Bishop Hurd, whom he thought the defender, difciple, and imitator of the former *. Yours, &c. K. L. M.,

Mr.

MR. URBAN,

TH

02. 18. HE late biographical work of Dr. Johnfon has given infinite difguft to many who, like myself, feel themfelves wounded through the fides of their favourites. The eruel affault on Gray (a poet whofe verfe no man, unblinded by ignorance or envy, could ever read without fomewhat more than approbation) particularly pains your prefent correfpondent. Surely there is no one objection alledged by the critic against Gray's poems, which might not militate, with equal forte, against thofe of Pindar, Homer, or Virgil. Which of these have not been used to "felect a fingular event, and fwell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of fpectres and predictions?" Do nct The Siege of Troy, The Voyage of Ulyffes, and the Migration of Eneas, as clearly range under this banner as The Slaughter of the Bards by Edward the Firft Milton defpiled bot, though Dr. Johnfon defpifes, "the puerilities of ob

Language remote from common ufe Words arbitrarily compounded""Glit"tering accumulations of ungraceful ornaments"- -"Language laboured into harth "nefs"—"Strutt.ng dignity”—"Art and truggle too vifible-Thefe objections are brought by Dr. Johnfon, the author of The Rambler, of The Idler, of Raffelas, by the Lexiphanes of Campbell, by the Pompoto of Church il, against the author of the Elegy in a Country Church Yard-Ceduce Pofteri! Yours, &c. KASTRILL.

P. S. How came the Doctor to apprehend that Blackmore's Eliza had not been at-, tacked by the critics? Had he never read "Prais'd great Eliza, in God's anger,

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Till all true Englishmen cry'd "Ilang her!" -He blames Lord Lyttelton for too nice an attention to punétuation. The noble hitorian had bis peculiarities as well as the Doctor, but they were not unamiable ones. Had the Doctor known that the peer actually refufed to admit into his Henry a curious mecdote reflecting on the character of the Emprefs Matilda, because he thought it ungene rous to take away the character of a woman, although fo long departed; had the Doctor know this, I fay, Lord Lyttelton had furely felt the most poignant edge of his ridicule.The critic, who could, in his Life of Ham

Nov. 20.

E are told by Sir Thomas Elyot in his Book Entitled The Governours 153, that King Henry IV. on hearing that the Prince of Wales (afterwards the illuf tribus Henry V.) was committed to prifon by Sir William Gafcoigne, chief justice of the King's Bench, for an affront offered to him on the feat of judgement, thanked God that he was bleffed with a judge who feared not to adminifter, and a fon who fcorned not to obey, justice.

Of this defervedly celebrated judge, whom Shakspeare has immortalifed by introducing him in the fecond part of King Henry IV. there is, I believe, no portrait extant.-Inclofed I fend you a drawing taken from the effigy on his monument in Harwood church in Yorkshire, by a learned and ingenious gentleman who refides in that county. The rage for collecting the portraits of eminent perfons is now fo high, that an engraving of this upright and intrepid lawyer will, I ima. gine, be an acceptable prefent to the nume rous purchaters of your literary Magazine.

Mr. Oldys, in his British Librarian, mentions that he had feen a gold medal, ftruck in commemoration of this tranfaétion, with the image of the Judge, and his name written round it in old English characters. It is hoped that the poffeffor of this medal, iỀ it be till extant, will enable you to gratify the publick with a reprefentation of it.

Sir W. Gafcoigne was promoted to the berch by K. Henry IV. foon after his acceflion to the throne, and died in the last year of that monarch's reign, A. D. 1412. Sakespeare therefore has availed himself of a puerical licence in making King Henry V. after his father's death, acknowledge to the judge the propriety of his conduct. John Tuffel, the hiftorian, without our poet's excafe, has equally deviated from hiftorical truth. Yours, &c. M. E.