we cannot help feeling the weakness of the latter verse. Yet there is poetry, there is enthusiasm, there is energy in this piece, on the whole, though it is not without many defects." That these reviews appeared in May and October 1768 is compelling evidence for dating the pamphlet, in spite of Mr. Griffin, 1768. Walpole once more proves himself a reliable source. Why the publication was delayed for over a year will probably remain a mystery. F. W. H. INTRODUCTION Apart from the few papers relating to him that have survived since his death in 1778, little more is known of the Rev. Thomas Morrison of Great Torrington in Devon than the main facts of his life; among those papers, however, are some letters--written by Sir Joshua Reynolds and others--about his literary pursuits, in which Dr. Johnson was at one time briefly concerned. He was born on March 26, 1705, at Midhurst in Sussex, the elder son of Thomas Morrison of that place and Sarah Bridges. As to his ancestry, the family seems to have claimed kinship with the Morrisons of Cassiobury Park in Hertfordshire. At the age of twelve he was entered as a scholar upon the foundation at Winchester, where he remained until his election in 1723 to a probationary fellowship of New College, Oxford; his admission as a full fellow followed in 1725. Having received his Bachelor's degree in 1727, he became M.A. in 1731, took orders, and was presented to the college living of Steeple Morden in Cambridgeshire. It may also have been in 1731, though possibly earlier, that he went down into Devon to act as tutor to John Basset of Heanton Court near Barnstaple--a step which was, as things turned out, to make him a resident of that county for the rest of his life. His pupil's father had died in 1721, leaving a widow, Elizabeth, the only daughter and eventual heiress of Sir Nicholas Hooper, Sergeant-at-Law. Sir Nicholas, who had represented Barnstaple in seven successive parliaments and was a man of considerable wealth, died in May, 1731; almost exactly a year later, in May, 1732, his daughter, then thirty-seven years of age and described in a letter written at that time as a lady much admired for her piety, prudence and good conduct, was married to Thomas Morrison, then twenty-seven. Three children were born of their marriage: Mary in 1734, Eleanora in 1736, and Hooper in 1737. In the year following the birth of their son Mrs. Morrison died, presumably at Bath as she is buried in the Abbey Church of that city; on the tablet he placed there to her memory her husband said that she had been the best of wives who, for the few years she lived with him, not only made him a much happier man, but a better man, since not only had her rational and endearing conversation been the perpetual delight of his heart, but her exemplary conduct had likewise been the pleasing rule and constant direction of his life.