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to Johnfon the copious vocabularies of the Anglo-Latin ftile ; 

 and the numberlefs quotations from them in his Didionary, as 

 well as the Life of Browne, which he wrote, are proofs of the 

 attention with which he perufed them, and of the eftimation in 

 which he held their author. " Finding," as he fays, " that our 

 " language had been for near a century deviating towards a 

 " Gallic Itrudure and phrafeology," he entered into a confe- 

 deracy with the Latins to prevent it, without confidering that 

 many nations had fallen beneath their own auxiliaries. As fome 

 moralifts vvould recommend the overcoming of one pallion by 

 raifing up another to oppofe it, he feems to have thought the 

 tendency of our language towards the French would be beft 

 corre£ted by an equal impulfe towards the Latin. That he was 

 well verfed in all the Latin learning, and minutely critical in 

 the power of its words, is clearly manifefted in his writings. 

 His earlieft work was a tranflation of Mr. Pope's Meiliah into 

 Latin, and the firli eftablifhment of his fame was his 

 imitation of a Latin fatirift. We find too, from Mr. Bofwell, 

 that he continued his ftudies in that language to a very late 

 period, and thought it not too learned even for a female ear. 

 Not confined folely to the claffics, he quotes the obfcure re^ 

 mains of monkifh learning, and has delivered precife decifions on 

 the performances of our Englifh poets in that language. His 

 Life of Milton more particularly, whom he might have con- 

 fidered as a rival in learning, abounds in proof that Johnfon 

 piqued himfelf not a little on his knowledge of Latin. He 

 oppofes in form the fyftem of fchool-education recommended and 

 adopted by Milton : He is happy in communicating a new autho- 

 rity for a particular acceptation of the word " perfona ;" fue;E;efts in- 

 cidentally whether " vir gloriofiffimus" be not an impure exprefiion ; 



and 



