What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals, inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will. SAM. JOHNSON. =35= 11-12. =The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons.= If Johnson and Macaulay do not tell enough about these men, Boswell does. =35= 30. =Bentley.= Richard Bentley (1662-1742), a well-known English classical scholar and critic. =36= 13. =Taxation no Tyranny.= The rest of the title is _An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress_. =37= 6. =Wilson.= Richard Wilson was one of the greatest English landscape painters, says _The Dictionary of National Biography_. =37= 14. =Cowley.= The man who wrote God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. =37= 18. =Restoration.= The _International Dictionary_ offers a brief explanation in case you are not absolutely certain of the exact meaning. =37= 23. =Walmesley.= See note to =5= 32.--=Button's.= Button's coffeehouse flourished earlier in the century. Do you remember any other reference to it? to Will's? to Child's?--=Cibber.= Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, altered and adapted some of Shakspere's plays. Both Johnson and Boswell express their opinions of him frankly enough. He was appointed poet laureate in 1730. =37= 25. =Orrery.= Orrery did more than enjoy this privilege,--he wrote a book entitled _Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift_. Boswell records Johnson's opinion of it. What other great literary men enjoyed the society of Swift? _The Century Dictionary_ gives a column to Swift, and Johnson has a sketch in his _Lives of the Poets_. =37= 26. =services of no very honourable kind.= By supplying Pope with private intelligence for his _Dunciad_ he "gained the esteem of Pope and the enmity of his victims." =38= 32. =Malone.= Edmund Malone was a friend of Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. He wrote a supplement to Johnson's edition of Shakspere, published an edition of Reynolds's works, and after bringing out his own edition of Shakspere, left material for another edition, which was published by James Boswell the younger in 1821. Boswell's _Malone_, the "third variorum" edition, is generally considered the best. To Boswell the elder, an intimate friend, he was of much assistance in preparing the _Life of Johnson_, and he edited with valuable notes the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth reissues of the work. =40= 21-22. =In a solemn and tender prayer.=