A View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain FOR NEAR HALF A CENTURY DURING WHICH HE FLOURISHED. BY JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. WITH COPIOUS NOTES AND BIOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. RICHARDSON AND CO.; G. OFFOR; THOMAS TEGG; ROBINSON AND CO.; J. EVANS AND SONS; J. JONES; AND J. JOHNSON: 1823. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. ON Tuesday, March 26, there came for us an equipage properly suited to a wealthy wellbeneficed clergyman: Dr. Taylor's large, roomy postchaise, drawn by four stout plump horses, and driven by two steady jolly postillions, which conveyed us to Ashbourne; where I found my friend's schoolfellow living upon an establishment perfectly corresponding with his substantial creditable equipage: his house, garden, pleasuregrounds, table, in short every thing good, and no scantiness appearing. Every man should form such a plan of living as he can execute completely. Let him not draw an outline wider than he can fill up. I have seen many skeletons of show and magnificence which excite at once ridicule and pity. Dr. Taylor had a good estate of his own, and good preferment in the church, being a prebendary of Westminster, and rector of Bosworth. He was a diligent justice of the peace, and presided over the town of Ashbourne, to the inhabitants of which I was told he was ‣ very liberal; and as a proof of this it was mentioned to me, he had, the preceding winter, distributed two hundred pounds among such of VOL. III. B |