on 8 April 1782:

Your work is full of very penetrating meditation, and very
forcible sentiment. I read it with a full perception of the
sublime, with wonder and terrour, but I cannot think of any
profit from it; it seems not born to be popular.

Your system of the mental fabric is exceedingly obscure, and
without more attention than will be willingly bestowed,
is unintelligible. The Ideas of Beauty will be more easily
understood, and are often charming. I was delighted with the
different beauty of different ages.

I would make it produce something if I could but I have indeed
no hope. If a Bookseller would buy it at all, as it must be
published without a name, he would give nothing for it worth
your acceptance.[2]

In passing it might be pointed out that this letter has previously not
been associated with Miss Reynolds' essay on taste, largely because
the available text of the letter has been so faulty. Where Johnson
wrote "The Ideas of Beauty," obviously referring to the second section
of the _Enquiry_, Croker, followed by G.B. Hill, printed "The plans
of Burnaby." To this Hill added a note; "Burnaby, I conjecture, was a
character in the book," with the result that scholars have fruitlessly
been searching ever since for the fictitious Mr. Burnaby, One more
example of the dangers of using nineteenth-century transcripts!

Evidently Johnson's stringent objections temporarily halted her plans,
for we hear nothing more about the essay for two years. Meanwhile, as