171) 



Statutes, Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentle- 

 man, and having told him his name, courteously said, ' I 

 have read your book, Sir, with great pleasure, and wish to 

 be better known to you.' Thus began an acquaintance 

 which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson 

 lived." John Harris, Esq. the learned author of Philologi- 

 cal Enquiries, thus speaks of Mr. Barrington's Observations 

 on the Statutes : — " a valuable work, concerning which it is 

 difficult to decide, whether it is more entertaining or more 

 instructive." 



Joseph Cradock, Esq. whose " Village Memoirs" display 

 his fine taste in landscape gardening. This feeling and ge- 

 nerous-minded man, whose gentle manners, polite learning, 

 and excellent talents, entitled him to an acquaintance with 

 the first characters of the age, died in 18;26, at the great age 

 of eighty-five. This classical scholar and polished gentle- 

 man, who had (as a correspondent observes in the Gentle- 

 man's Magazine for January, 1 827) " the habit of enlivening 

 and embellishing every thing which he said with a certain 

 lightning of eye and honied tone of voice," shone in the first 

 literary circles, and ranked as his intimate and valued friends 

 (among many other enlightened persons), David Garrick, 

 and Warburton, Hurd, Johnson, Goldsmith, Percy, and 

 Parr. Dr. Johnson called him " a very pleasing gentleman." 

 Indeed, he appears from every account to have been in all 

 respects an amiable and accomplished person. He had the 

 honour of being selected to dance a minuet with the most 

 graceful of all dancers, Mrs. Garrick, at the Stratford Jubi- 

 lee. It was to Mr. Cradock, that Dr. Farmer addressed his 

 unanswerable Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare. In 

 acts of humanity and kindness, he was surpassed by few. 

 Pope's line of the gay conscience of a life well spent, might 

 well have been applied to Mr. Cradock. When in Leices- 



