Agamemnon. [Footnote: He means to compare an election of this sort to
the casting of lots between the Grecian chiefs in the 7th book of the
Iliad.]--This an American cannot do in any way whatever.

"The votes in England are perpetually shifting:--were it an object, few
could be excluded.--Wherever there is any one ambitious of assisting the
empire, he need not put himself to much inconvenience.--If the Doctor
indulged his studies in Cricklade or Old Sarum, he might vote:--the
dressing meat, the simplest proof of existence, begets a title.--His
pamphlet shows that he thinks he can influence some one: not an
anonymous writer in the paper but contributes his mite to the general
tenor of opinion.--At the eve of an election, his Patriot [Footnote: The
name of a short pamphlet, published by Dr. Johnson, on the dissolution
of Parliament in 1774.] was meant to influence more than the single
voice of a rustic.--Even the mob, in shouting, give votes where there is
not corruption."

It is not to be regretted that this pamphlet was left unfinished. Men of
a high order of genius, such as Johnson and Sheridan, should never enter
into warfare with each other, but, like the gods in Homer, leave the
strife to inferior spirits. The publication of this pamphlet would most
probably have precluded its author from the distinction and pleasure
which he afterwards enjoyed in the society and conversation of the
eloquent moralist, who, in the following year, proposed him as a member
of the Literary Club, and always spoke of his character and genius with
praise. Nor was Sheridan wanting on his part with corresponding
tributes; for, in a prologue which he wrote about this time to the play
of Sir Thomas Overbury, he thus alludes to Johnson's Life of its
unfortunate author:--