[36] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. [37] From the following letter there is reason to apprehend that Dr. Adams would not support Mr. S----n, if he should add this to the other singular anecdotes that he has published relative to Dr. Johnson. Mr. Urban, Oxford, Oct. 22d, 1785. In your last month's Review of books, you have asserted, that the publication of Dr. Johnson's _Prayers_ and _Meditations_ appears to have been at the instance of Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford. This, I think, is more than you are warranted by the editor's preface to say; and is so far from being true, that Dr. Adams never saw a line of these compositions, before they appeared in print, nor ever heard from Dr. Johnson, or the editor, that any such existed. Had he been consulted about the publication, he would certainly have given his voice against it: and he therefore hopes, that you will clear him, in as publick a manner as you can, from being any way accessary to it. Wm. Adams. [38] "Debilem facite manu, Debilem pede, coxa; Tuber adstrue gibberum; Lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, bene est: Hanc mihi, vel acuta Si sedeam cruce, sustine." SENEC. EPIST. 101. Let me but live, the fam'd Maecenas cries, Lame of both hands, and lame in feet and thighs; Hump-back'd, and toothless;--all convuls'd with pain, Ev'n on the cross,--so precious life remain. Dr. Johnson, in his last illness, is said to have declared (in the presence of Doctors H. and B.) that he would prefer a state of existence in eternal pain to annihilation. [39] "This last comet (which appeared in the year 1680) I may well call the most remarkable one that ever appeared; since, besides the former consideration, I shall presently shew, that it is no other than that very comet, which came by the earth at the time of Noah's deluge, and _which was the cause of the same_." Whiston's _Theory of the Earth_, p. 188.