living (author of a very happy burlesque translation of the thirteenth book, added to the ^Eneid by Maffei Vegio r ), was in the same condition ; but, some years after, while he was at Margate, the sight of his eye unexpectedly returned, and that of its fellow became as suddenly extinguished. Concerning the particulars of this singular but authenticated event, Dr. John son was studiously inquisitive, and not without reference to his own case. Though he never made use of glasses to assist his sight, he said he could recollect no production of art to which man has superior obligations 2 . He mentioned the name of the original inventor 3 of spectacles with reverence, and ex pressed his wonder that not an individual, out of the multitudes who had profited by them, had, through gratitude, written the life of so great a benefactor to society.
His knowledge in manufactures was extensive, and his com prehension relative to mechanical contrivances was still more extraordinary 4 . The well known Mr. Arkwright pronounced him to be the only person who, on a first view, understood both the principle and powers of his most complicated piece of machinery 5 .
like your wire-drawing mills, if they thing like what are now called get hold of a man's finger they will spectacles were in use at least several pull in his whole body at last.' years earlier.' Penny Cyclopaedia, Scrivener he defines as : ' I. One xxii. 328. See also ib. iii. 244. who draws contracts. 2. One whose 4 * Dr. Johnson this morning ex- business is to place money at interest.' plained to us all the operation of 'The Company of Scriveners, being coining, and, at night, all the opera- reduced to low circumstances, thought tion of brewing, so very clearly, that proper to sell their Hall in Noble Mr. M'Queen said, when he heard Street to the Coachmakers' Com- the first, he thought he had been pany.' Dodsley's London, 1761, v. bred in the Mint; when he heard 323. the second, that he had been bred
1 Life, iii. 21, n. i. a brewer.' Life, v. 215. ' Last night
2 Swift refused to use them. Post, he gave us an account of the whole p. 343 n. process of tanning and of the nature
3 ' Some writers attribute the in- of milk, and the various operations vention to Alexander Spina, a monk upon it, as making whey, &c.' Ib. of Pisa, who died about 1299 or v.246. See also ib. v. 124 for his talk 1300 ; but the invention of magnify- about the manufacture of gunpowder, ing-glasses by Roger Bacon, who p. 263 for his talk about threshing died some years before that time, and thatching, and ante, ii. 118. justifies the supposition that some- 5 Johnson was well acquainted with
Dr.
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