Had Johnson treated at large De Claris Oratoribus, he might have given us an admirable work.

Ianuarij nono, migrauit ad Christum, in conuentu Minorum: cuius vitam statim in fine, et vsque nunc claris miraculis diuina prouidentia approbat, et commendat, prout continebatur in quaterno, à quo concordantias hic superseminaui.

At nemo feras iras hominum Domibus claris exitiales, Voce aut fidibus pellere docuit; Queis tamen aptam ferre medelam Utile cunctis hoc opus esset; Namque, ubi mensas onerant epulae, Quorsum dulcis luxuria soni?

"Le Roman de Claris," a manuscript which belongs to the commencement of the fourteenth century, says that in a town winch was taken by storm the following stores were found:: "Maint bon tonnel de vin, Maint bon bacon (cochon), maint fromage à rostir.

Et primo incepit a digniori, scilicet a Guidone Guerra; et circa istius descriptionem lectori est aliqualiter immorandum, quia multi mirantur, immo truffantur ignoranter, quod Dantes, qui poterat describere istum praeclarum virum a claris progenitoribus et ejus claris gestis, describit eum ab una femina, avita sua, Domna Gualdrada.

Et primo incepit a digniori, scilicet a Guidone Guerra; et circa istius descriptionem lectori est aliqualiter immorandum, quia multi mirantur, immo truffantur ignoranter, quod Dantes, qui poterat describere istum praeclarum virum a claris progenitoribus et ejus claris gestis, describit eum ab una femina, avita sua, Domna Gualdrada.

The conversations "De Claris Oratoribus" and the "Tusculan Questions" seem like the talk of the last generation, as we wander on the heights of Tusculum, or over the grounds of that charming villa on the banks of the Liris, which the great Roman orator so graphically describes in his treatise "De Legibus."

Then looking to those details of London architecture, which appear more peculiarly connected with the dignity of the nation, what can we say of it, but that the King of Great Britain is worse lodged than the chief magistrate of Claris or Zug, while the debates of the most powerful assembly in the world are carried on in a building, (or, a return to Westminster Hall,) which will bear no comparison with the Stadthouse at Amsterdam!

De Claris Oratoribus, iv.

Suet. de Claris Grammat.