Note 62 — APPENDIX, NO. 1.

On that day, (Dr. Johnson said) as it was an unusual deprivation, he found himself disinclined, and unable to attend steadily to the work that led him to refuse the invitation. He walked about his library occasionally looking over first one book and then another until about four o’clock when weary of staying within he went to a tavern to dine. Dr. Johnson had for a long time a dislike to Dr. Priestley who bore two of the characters most in disrepute with Dr. Johnson, that of a whig and a dissenter. Dr. Priestley’s pursuits also consisting so largely of heterodox theology, which Dr. Johnson abominated, and experimental philosophy which he heartily despised, they had hardly a common point of union. Toward the latter part of Johnson’s life, they met; and upon the friendly terms that ought to obtain between two men, who, each in their way, deserved so well of the republic of letters.