Note 813 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 5)

I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed myself:—'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to the warmest support of every good subject in every department.' He answered:—'I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the zealous and able support given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK in the work you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five years later, and two years before The Life of Johnson was published, Boswell wrote to Temple:—'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon the whole I must support him against the Coalition; but I will work him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle for it?' Letters of Boswell, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have worked him.' Walpole's Letters, iv. 217.