for the preface, where the excellencies and defects of that immortal bard are displayed with fuch judgment, as must please every man whofe tafte is not regulated by fashion or prejudice. In 1767 be was honoured by a private converfation with the king in his library at the queen's houfe: and two years afterwards, upon the establishment of the royal academy of painting, fculpture. &c. he was nominated profeffor of ancient literature; an office merely honorary, and conferred on him, at the recommendation of his friend the prefident. In the variety of subjects on which he had hitherto exercifed his pen, he had forborn, fince the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, to meddle with the disputes of contending factions; but having feen with indignation the methods which, in the bufinefs of Mr Wilkes, were taken to work upon the populace, he published in 1770 a pamphlet entitled The False Alarm; in which he afferts, and labours to prove, by a variety of arguments founded on precedents, that the expulfion of a member of the houfe of commons is equivalent to exclufion, and that no fuch calamity as the fubverfion of the conftitution was to be feared from an act warranted by usage, which is the law of parliament. Whatever may be thought of the principles maintained in this publication, it unquestionably contains much wit and argument, expreffed in the author's best style of compofition; and yet it is known to have been written between 8 o'clock on Wednesday night and 12 on Thurfday right, when it was read to Mr Thrale upon his coming from the house of commons. In 1771 hepublifh ed another political pamphlet, entitled, Thoughts on the late tranfactions refpecting Falkland's lands; in which he attacked Junius: and he ever after wards delighted himself with the thought of hav. ang defeated that able writer, whom he certainly furpaffed in nervous language and pointed ridicule. In 1773 he vifited with Mr Bofwell fome of the moft confiderable of the Hebrides, and pubHifhed an account of his journey in a volume which abounds in extenfive philofophical views of fociety, ingenious fentiments, and lively defcription; but which offended many perfons, by the violent attack which it made on the authenticity of the poems attributed to OSSIAN. In 1774, the parliament being diffolved, he addreffed to the electors of Great Britain a pamphlet, entitled, The Patriot; of which the defign was to guard them from impofition, and teach them to diftinguish true from false patriotifm. In 1775, he published Taxation no tyranny; in answer to the refolutions and addrefs of the American Congrefs. In this performance his admirer Mr Bofwell cannot, he fays, perceive that ability of argument, or that felicity of expreffion, for which on other occafions Johnfon was fo eminent. This is a fingular criticifm. To the affumed principle, upon which the reafoning of the pamphlet refts, many have objected, and perhaps their objections are well founded; but as to the expreffion, it must be acknowledged that it is uncommonly happy; and that the whole performance is one of the moft brilliant and correct pieces of compofition, that ever fell from the pen of its author. Thefe effays drew apon him numerous attacks, all of which he defpifed; for though it has been fuppofed that A VOL. XII. PART I.

letter addressed to Dr Samuel Johnson, occafioned by his political publications, gave him great uneafiness, the contrary is manifeft, from his having, after the appearance of that letter, collected them into a volume, with the title of Political Tracts by the author of the Rambler. In 1765, Trinity College, Dublin, had created him L.L.D. by diploma, and he now received the fame honour from the Univerfity of Oxford; an honour with which he was highly gratified. In 1777, he was induced, by a cafe of a very extraordinary nature, to exercise that humanity which in him was obedient to every call. Dr DODD, then under sentence of death for forgery, procured from him two of the moft energetic compofitions of the kind ever seen ; the one a petition from himself to the king, the other a like addrefs from his wife to the queen. Thefe petitions, however, failed of fuccefs. The principal bookfellers in London having determined to publish a body of English poetry, Johnson was prevailed upon to write the lives of the poets, and give a character of the works of each. This tafk he undertook with alacrity, and executed it in fuch a manner, as must convince every competent reader, that, as a biographer and a critic, no nation can produce his equal. The work was published in 10 small volumes, of which the first four came abroad in 1778, and the others in 1781. While the world in general was filled with admiration of the stupendous powers of that man, who at the age of 72, and labouring under a complication of diseases, could produce a work which difplays fo much genius and fo much learning; there were narrow circles in which prejudice and refentment were foftered, and whence attacks of different forts iffued against him. Thefe gave him no difturbance. When told of the outcry that had been raised, he faid, "Sir, I confider myfelf as entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my opinion fincerely; let them thow where they think me wrong." He had hardly begun to reap the laurels gained by this performance, when death deprived him of Mr Thrale, in whose house he had enjoyed the moft comfortable hours of his life; but it abated not in Johnson that care for the interefts of thofe whom his friend had left behind him, which he thought himself bound to cherish, both from duty, as one of the executors of his will, and from gratitude. On this account his vifits to Streatham, Mr Thrale's villa, were for fome time after his death regularly made on Monday and protracted till Saturday, as they had been during his life; but they foon became lefs and lefs frequent, upon the profpect of Mrs Thrale's marriage with Mr Piozzi, when he ftudiously avoided the mention of the place or the family. In June 1783 his conftitution sustained a fhock by a ftroke of the palfy, fo fudden and violent, that it awakened him out of a found fleep, and rendered him for some time speechless. As ufual, his recourfe was to piety. He tried to repeat the Lord's Prayer firft in English, then in Latin, and afterwards in Greek; but fucceeded only in the laft. From this alarming attack he foon recovered, but it left prefages of an hydropic affection; and he was not long afterwards feized with a fpafmodic afthma, fo violent that it confined him to the houfe in great pain, while his

dropfy

droply increased, notwithstanding the beft advice of the moft eminent phyficians in London and Edinburgh. He had, however, fuch an interval of eafe as enabled him in fummer 1784 to vifit his friends at Oxford, Litchfield, and Afhbourne. His conftant dream of death was fo great, that it aftonished all who had access to know the piety of his mind and the virtues of his life. This, how ever, was the cafe only while death was at fome diftance. From the time that he was certain that it was near, all his fears were calmed; and he died on the 13th Dec. 1784, full of refignation, faith, and hope. Dr Gleig fums up the character of this great man nearly in the following words: "His ftature was tall, his limbs were large, his ftrength was more than common, and his activity in early life had been greater than such a form gave reafon to expect: but he was subject to an infirmity of the convulfive kind, refembling the diftemper called St Vitus's dance; and he had the feeds of fo many diseases in his conftitution, that a fhort time before his death, he declared, that he hardly remembered to have paffed one day wholly free from pain. He poffeffed very extraordinary powers of understanding; which were much cultivated by reading, and ftill more by reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgment penetrating. He read with great rapidity, retain ed with wonderful exactness what he fo eafily colJected, and poffeffed the power of reducing to order and fyftem the fcattered hints on any fubject which he had gathered from different books. Without claiming for him the highest place among his contemporaries, in any fingle department of literature, we may use one of his own expreffions," that he brought more mind to every subject, and had a greater variety of knowledge ready for all occafions, than almoft any other man." Though religious almoft to a degree of fuperftition, he was in every other refpect fo remarkably incredulous, that Hogarth faid, while Johnfon firmly believed the Bible, he feemed determined to believe nothing elfe. Of the importance of religion he had a strong fenfe, and his zeal for its interefts was always awake, fo that profanenefs of every kind was abafhed in his prefence. The fame energy which was displayed in his literary productions, was exhibited alfo in his converfation, which was various, ftriking, and inftructive: like the fage in Raffelas, he spoke, and attention watched his lips; he reafoned, and conviction clofed his periods: when he pleafed, he could be the greatest fophift that ever contended in the lifts of declamation; and perhaps no man ever equalled him in nervous and pointed repartees. His veracity, from the most trivial to the most folemn occafions, was ftrict even to feverity: he fcorned to embellish a story with fictitious circumftances; for what is not a reprefenta. tion of reality, he used to fay, is not worthy of our attention. As his purfe and his houfe were ever open to the indigent, fo was his heart tender to those who wanted relief, and his foul was fufceptible of gratitude and every kind of impreffion. He had a roughness in his manner, which fubdued the faucy and terrified the meek; but it was only in his manner; for no man was more loved than

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in the place where he died; which gave occafion to the following lines of his learned friend Wedderburn in his Sufpiria on the Doctor's death :

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Scotia mæfta, dole, tanti viduata fepulchro Vatis; is Angligenis contigit altus honos. Dr Johnston was made phyfician to the king about 1633, when he tranflated Solomon's Song into Latin elegiac verfe, and dedicated it to his majefty. His Pfalms were reprinted at Middleburg, 1642; London, 1657; Cambridge, ....; Amfterdam, 1706; Edinburgh, by William Lauder, 1739; and last on the plan of the Delphini claffics, at London, 1741, 8vo, at the expense of auditor Benfon, who dedicated them to K. George II.; and prefixed memoirs of the Dr with the teftimonies of various learned perfons. His tranflations of the Te Deum, Creed, Decalogue, &c. were fubjoined to the Pfalms. His other poetical works are his Epigrams; his Parerga; and his Mufa Anglica, or commendatory Verfes upon perfons of rank in church and state at that time.

(2.) JOHNSTON, or JOHNSON, John, a learned divine, born in 1662. He was zealous for the Revolution, and preached a noted fermon at Feversham on the occafion, in 1689, from the words, "Remember Lot's wife;" wherein he fet forth the great danger of looking back, and vindicated the liturgy against Mr Baxter and others. He pub. lifhed The Clergyman's Vade Mecum, and A Collection of Ecclefiaftical Larus, as a continuation of it; but catching the infection fpread by Dr Sacheverel, he, on the acceffion of Geo. I. to the amazement of all his old friends, entertained unfavourable thoughts of the Proteftant fucceffion, and refused to read the ufual prayers for the king. Being profecuted, however, he fubmitted; and died vicar of Cranbrook in Kent, in 1725. He published alfo a work on the Holy Eucharift, called the Unbloody Sacrifice; and 2 vols. of difcourfes on important fubjects were printed after his death.

(3.) JOHNSTON, Robert, an eminent Scottish hiftorian of the 17th century, of whom we have found no memoir in any biographical work, nor even any mention made in Sir J. Sinclair's Statistical Account, at least as far as we can judge from the Indexes to that work. He wrote a work in elegant Latin, entitled Rerum Britannicarum vicinarumque regionum hiftoriæ maxime memorabiles, in 22 books; of which the two firft were printed at Amfterdam, in 24to. in 1642; with a dedication to K. Charles I.; and a few complimentary verfes addreffed to the author, by Dr John Owen, who, comparing Johnfton with other hiftorians, fays of him, Nemo Britannorum dignior invidia,

(4.) JOHNSTON, in geography, a parish of Scotland, in the county of Dumfries and diftrict of Annandale, 4 miles long and 3 broad, but in one place extending to 6. The climate is falubrious, though rainy. The furface is level; the foil partly mofs or clay, partly light and fandy, but mostly fertile. The produce is chiefly oats, barley, peas, rye, flax, potatoes, and grafs. The population, in 1791, ftated by the Rev. Wm. Sibbald, in his report to Sir J. Sinclair, was 565, and had increafed 71 fince 1755. The number of fheep was 1500, of horfes 111, and of black cattle, 745

(5.) JOHNSTON,' a township of Rhode island, in Providence county,containing 1320citizens in 1790. 002

(6.)

(6.) JOHNSTON, a township of Vermont, in Franklin county.

(7.) JOHNSTON, FORT, a fort of N. Carolina, on the W. bank of Cape Fear River.

(8.) JOHNSTON, ST, or St JOHN's Town, a Dame frequently given to Perth, from the ancient church built in it by the Picts, dedicated to St John the Baptift. "But" (fays the Rev. Mr Scott, in his Statistical Account of Perth,)" it was never fo called in any of the public writs, nor by the inhabitants in general." See PERTH, N°2, 3. (1.) JOHNSTOWN, a town of New York, the capital of Montgomery county, feated on the N. bank of the Mohawk, 24 miles W. of Schenectady, and 35 NW. of Albany.

(2.) JOHNSTOWN, an extenfive township of New York, comprehending the above town, with feve ral diftricts and settiements. Of the citizens 593 are electors. "In this township" (fays Dr Morfe,) "ftand the dwellinghouse, barn, and out-houses, all of ftone, formerly occupied by Sir W. Johnfton. This fettlement was moftly deftroyed by the British in 1780, joined by a party of Indians and others under Sir William. In this action Sir William evinced a want of feeling which would have difgraced a favage. The people deftroyed in this expedition were his old neighbours, with whom he had formerly lived in habits of friendfhip. His eftate was among them, and the inhabitants had always confidered him as their friend. Thefe unfortunate people, after feeing their houfes and property confumed, were hurried, fuch as could walk, into cruel captivity: thofe who could not, fell victims to the tomahawk and scalping knife."

(3, 4.) JOHNSTOWN, two villages of Ireland: 1. in Kildare, 13 miles from Dublin: 2. in Kilkenny.

(5.) JOHNSTOWN, Sr, a town of Ireland, in Donegal, on the Foyle, 6 miles SSW. of Derry.

(6.) JOHNSTOWN, Sr, a town of Ireland, in the county of Longford, 6 miles NE. of Longford. JOHN'S-WORT, ST. See HYPERICUM. JOHORE, JOR, or lнOR, a town of Malacca. Lon. 93. 55. E. Lat. 1. 15. N. JOIGNI, or a town of France, in the dep. of JOIGNY, Yonne, and late prov. of Champagne, with a handsome castle. It confifts of 3 parishes, and is pleasantly fituated on the Yonne, 14 miles NW. of Auxerre, 17 from Sens, and 34 SW. of Troyes. Lon. 3. 35. E. Lat. 47. 59. N. (1.) To JOIN. v. a. [joindre, Fr.] 1. To add one to another in continuity.-Woe unto them that join houfe to houfe, that lay field to field. Ifa. viii.-Join them one to another into one ftick. Ezek.-The wall was joined together unto the half. Neh. iv 6. 2. To couple; to combine. In this faculty of repeating and joining together its ideas, the mind has great power. Locke. 3. To unite in league or marriage.

One only daughter heirs my crown and state, Whom not our oracles, nor heav'n, nor fate, Nor frequent prodigies, permit to join With any native of the Aufonian line. Dryden. 4. To dafh together; to collide; to encounter: this fenfe is to be found in the phrafe to join battle, in which, battle feems not to fignify fight, but troops in array, committere exercitus, though it

may likewife mean fight, as committere prælium.→ When they joined battle, Ifrael was (mitten. Sam. iv. 2.-They fhould with refolute minds endure, until they might join battle with their enemies. Knolles. 5. To affociate.-Go near and join thyfelf to this chariot. Ads.-Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial. Isaiah. 6. To unite in one act.

Our beft notes are treafon to his fame, Join'd with the loud applause of public voice. Dryden.

Thy tuneful voice with numbers join, Thy words will more prevail than mine. Dryd. 7. To unite in concord.-Be perfectly joined together in the fame mind. 1 Cor. 8. To act in concert with.

Know your own int'reft, Sir, where'er you lead,

We jointly vow to join no other head. Dryden. (2.) * To JOIN. v. n. 1. To grow to; to adhere; to be contiguous.-Juftus's houfe joined hard to the fynagogue. Aās. 2. To clofe; to clash.-Look you, all you that kifs my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day. Shak. Henry IV.

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Here's the earl of Wiltshire's blood, Whom I encounter'd, as the battles join’d. Shak. To unite with in marriage, or any other league. Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people? Ezra. 4. To become confederate.-When there falleth out any war, they join unto our enemies, and fight against us. Exodus.-Let us make peace with him, before he join with Alexander against us. 1 MacEv'n you yourself

Join with the reft: you are arm'd against me.

Dryden. -Any other may join with him that is injured, and affift him in recovering fatisfaction, Locke. JOINAGUR, or JYENAGUR. See JYEPOUR. JOINDER. n. f. [from join.] Conjunction; joining. Not used. —

A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirmed by mutual joinder of your hands.

Shak.

* JOINER. n. f. [from join.] One whofe trade is to make utenfils of wood compacted.-The people wherewith you plant ought to be fmiths, carpenters, and joiners. Bacon's Essays.—It is counted good workmanship in a joiner to bear his hand curiously even. Moxon's Mech. Exercifes.

(1.) JOINERY. n. f. [from joiner.] Joinery is an art whereby feveral pieces of wood are lo fitted and joined together by ftrait lines, fquares, miters, or any bevel, that they shall seem one entire piece. Moxon.

(2.) JOINERY is called by the French menuiferie, or fmall work, to diftinguish it from carpentry, which is employed about large and lefs curious works.

(1.)* JOINT. adj. 1. Shared among many.Entertain no more of it,

Shak

Than a joint burthen laid upon us all. Though it be common in refpect of fome men, it is not fo to all mankind; but is the joint property of this country, or this parish. Locke. 2. United in the fame poffeffion: as we fay, joint heirs or coheirs, joint beiresses or cobeiresses.

The