' Horace Walpole's _Letters,_ vi. 302. It
is strange that Walpole should be so utterly ignorant of Johnson's
courage and bodily strength. The date of Walpole's letter makes me
suspect that Richard Burke dated his Jan. 6, 1775 (he should have
written 1776), and that the blunder of a copyist has changed 1775
into 1773.
APPENDIX B.
(_Page_ 238.)
Had Boswell continued the quotation from Priestley's _Illustrations of
Philosophical Necessity_ he would have shown that though Priestley could
not _hate_ the rioters, he could very easily _prosecute_ them.
He says:--
'If as a Necessarian I cease to _blame_ men for their vices in the
ultimate sense of the word, though, in the common and proper sense of
it, I continue to do as much as other persons (for how necessarily
soever they act, they are influenced by a base and mischievous
disposition of mind, against which I must guard myself and others in
proportion as I love myself and others),' &c. Priestley's
_Works_, iii. 508.
Of his interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his _Appeal to the Public_,
part ii, published in 1792 (_Works_, xix.
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