' _A
Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, p. 23.
[108] His profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to
set him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [_Colossians_, ii. 8]
with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard
him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so from any natural
fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' and it is certainly so,
because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he
wills must be right. BOSWELL. Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev.
Mr. Thwackum to the philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the
unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.' _Tom
Jones_, book iii. ch. 3.
[109] In _Rasselas_ (ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered
him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness
of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he
bewailed them.' See _ante_, April 8, 1780.
[110] I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop
that curtailing innovation, by which we see _critic, public_, &c.
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