He told
him, he had discovered the life of _Cheynel_, in _The Student_[135], to
be his. JOHNSON. 'No one else knows it.' Dr. Johnson had, before this,
dictated to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of
Scotland, concerning _vicious intromission_[136], that is to say,
intermeddling with the effects of a deceased person, without a regular
title; which formerly was understood to subject the intermeddler to
payment of all the defunct's debts. The principle has of late been
relaxed. Dr. Johnson's argument was, for a renewal of its strictness.
The paper was printed, with additions by me, and given into the Court of
Session. Lord Hailes knew Dr. Johnson's part not to be mine, and pointed
out exactly where it began, and where it ended. Dr. Johnson said, 'It is
much, now, that his lordship can distinguish so.' In Dr. Johnson's
_Vanity of Human Wishes_, there is the following passage:--
'The teeming mother, anxious for her race,
Begs, for each birth, the fortune of a face:
Yet _Vane_ could tell, what ills from beauty spring,
And _Sedley_ curs'd the charms which pleas'd a king[137].'
Lord Hailes told him, he was mistaken in the instances he had given of
unfortunate fair ones; for neither _Vane_ nor _Sedley_ had a title to
that description. His Lordship has since been so obliging as to send me
a note of this, for the communication of which I am sure my readers
will thank me.
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