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imagination; but Usher, he said, was the great luminary of the Irish Church; and a greater, he added, no church could boast of, at least in modern times.

'We dined tête-à-tête at the Mitre, as I was preparing to return to Ireland, after an absence of many years. I regretted much leaving London, where I had formed many agreeable connections: "Sir (said he), I don't wonder at it; no man, fond of letters, leaves London without regret. But remember, sir, you have seen and enjoyed a great deal; you have seen life in its highest decorations, and the world has nothing new to exhibit. No man is so well qualified to leave public life as he who has long tried it and known it well. We are always hankering after untried situations, and imagining greater felicity from them than they can afford. No, sir, knowledge and virtue may be acquired in all countries, and your local conséquence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish." Then he quoted the following lines with great pathos:

"He who has early known the pomps of state
(For things unknown, 'tis ignorance to condemn);
And after having viewed the gaudy bait,
Can boldly say, the trifle I contemn;
With such a one contented could I live,
Contented could I die." 1

1 [Being desirous to trace these verses to the fountain-head, after hav inglin vain turned over several of our elder poets with the hope of lighting on them, I applied to Dr. Maxwell, now resident at Bath, for the purpose of ascertaining their author; but that gentleman could furnish no aid on this occasion. At length the lines having been discovered by the author's second son, Mr. James Boswell, in the London Magazine for July 1732, where they form part of a poem on 'Retirement,' there published anonymously, and doubtless for the first time; and they exhibit another proof of what has been elsewhere observed by the author of the work before us, that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of very obscure poetic writers. In quoting verses of that description, he appears by a slight variation to have sometimes given them a moral turn, and to have dexterously adapted them to his own sentiments, where the original had a very different tendency. Thus, in the present instance (as Mr. J. Boswell observes to me), 'the author of the poem above mentioned exhibits himself as having retired to the country, to avoid the vain follies of a town life-ambition, avarice, and the pursuit of pleasure, contrasted with the enjoyments of the country, and the delightful conversation that the brooks, etc., furnish; which he holds to be infinitely more pleasing and instructive than any which

'He then took a most affecting leave of me; said he knew it was a point of duty that called me away. "We shall all be sorry to lose you," said he: "laudo tamen."'

In 1771 he published another political pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands, in which, upon materials furnished to him by ministry, and upon general topics expanded in his rich style, he successfully endeavoured to per

towns afford. He is then led to consider the weakness of the human mind, and after lamenting that he (the writer) who is neither enslaved by avarice, ambition, or pleasure, has yet made himself a slave to love, he thus proceeds:

"If this dire passion never will be done,
If beauty always must my heart enthral,
O, rather let me be enslaved by one,

Than madly thus become a slave to all:

One who has early known the pomp of state,

For things unknown, 'tis ignorance to condemn,
And, after having viewed the gaudy bait,
Can coldly say, the trifle I contemn;

In her blest arms contented could I live,
Contented could I die. But, O my mind,
Imaginary scenes of bliss deceive

With hopes of joys impossible to find."'

Another instance of Johnson's retaining in his memory verses of obscure authors is given in Mr. Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, where, in consequence of hearing a girl spinning in a chamber over that in which he was sitting, he repeated these lines, which he said were written by one Gifford, a clergyman; but the poem in which they are introduced has hitherto been undiscovered:

'Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound :
All at her work the village maiden sings;
Nor while she turns the giddy wheel around,
Revolves the sad vicissitude of things.'

[Johnson did not give the second line accurately, though his version is the better. See Contemplation,' a poem printed by Dodsley in 1753. Its author was the Rev. Richard Gifford of Balliol College, Oxon.A. B.]

In the autumn of 1782, when he was at Brighthelmstone, he frequently accompanied Mr. Philip Metcalfe in his chaise, to take the air; and the conversation in one of their excursions happening to turn on a celebrated historian, since deceased, he repeated with great precision some verses, as very characteristic of that gentleman. These furnish another proof of what has been above observed, for they are found in a very obscure quarter, among some anonymous poems appended to the second volume

suade the nation that it was wise and laudable to suffer the question of right to remain undecided, rather than involve our country in another war. It has been suggested by some, with what truth I shall not take upon me to decide, that he rated the consequence of those islands to Great Britain too low. But however this may be, every humane mind must surely applaud the earnestness with which he averted the calamity of war; calamity so dreadful, that it is astonishing how civilised-nay, Christian nations, can deliberately continue to renew it. His description of its miseries in this pamphlet is one of the finest pieces of eloquence in the English language. Upon this occasion, too, we find Johnson lashing the party in opposition with unbounded severity, and making the fullest use of what he ever reckoned a most effectual argumentative instrument-contempt. His character of their very able, mysterious champion, Junius, is executed with all the force of his genius, and finished with the highest He seems to have exulted in sallying forth to single combat against the boasted and formidable hero,

care.

of a collection frequently printed by Lintot, under the title of Pope's Miscellanies:

'See how the wand'ring Danube flows,

Realms and religions parting;

A friend to all true Christian foes,
To Peter, Jack, and Martin.

Now Protestant, and Papist now,
Not constant long to either,
At length an infidel does grow,
And ends his journey neither.

Thus many a youth I've known set out,
Half Protestant, half Papist,

And rambling long the world about,

Turn infidel or atheist.'

In reciting these verses I have no doubt that Johnson substituted some word for infidel in the second stanza, to avoid the disagreeable repetition of the same expression.-M.]

who bade defiance to 'principalities and powers, and the rulers of this world.'

This pamphlet, it is observable, was softened in one particular, after the first edition; for the conclusion of Mr. George Grenville's character stood thus: 'Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally possessed: could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ransom, he could have counted it.' Which, instead of retaining its sly sharp point, was reduced to a mere flat unmeaning expression, or, if I may use the word-truism: 'He had powers not universally possessed; and if he sometimes erred, he was likewise sometimes right.'

TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,-After much lingering of my own, and much of the ministry, I have at length got out my paper. But delay is not yet at an end. Not many had been dispersed, before Lord North ordered the sale to stop. His reasons I do not distinctly know. You may try to find them in the perusal.2 Before his order, a sufficient number were dispersed to do all the mischief, though perhaps, not to make all the sport that might be expected from it.

'Soon after your departure, I had the pleasure of finding all the danger past with which your navigation was threatened. I hope nothing happens at home to abate your satisfaction; but that Lady Rothes, and Mrs. Langton, and the young ladies, are all well.

'I was last night at the Club. Dr. Percy has written a long ballad in many fits; it is pretty enough. He has printed, and will soon publish it. Goldsmith is at Bath with Lord Clare.

1 Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands. 2 By comparing the first with the subsequent editions, this curious circumstance of ministerial authorship may be discovered.

[It can only be discovered (as Mr. Bindley observes to me) by him who possesses a copy of the first edition issued out before the sale was stopped.-M.]

At Mr. Thrale's, where I am now writing, all are well.-I am, dear sir, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

'March 20, 1771.'

Mr. Strahan, the printer, who had been long in intimacy with Johnson in the course of his literary labours, who was at once his friendly agent in receiving his pension for him, and his banker in supplying him with money when he wanted it; who was himself now a member of Parliament, and who loved much to be employed in political negotiation; thought he should do eminent service, both to Government and Johnson, if he could be the means of his getting a seat in the House of Commons. With this view, he wrote a letter to one of the secretaries of the Treasury, of which he gave me a copy in his own handwriting, which is as follows:

'SIR,-You will easily recollect, when I had the honour of waiting upon you some time ago, I took the liberty to observe to you that Dr. Johnson would make an excellent figure in the House of Commons, and heartily wished he had a seat there. My reasons are briefly these:

'I know his perfect good affection to his Majesty, and his government, which I am certain he wishes to support by every means in his power.

'He possesses a great share of manly, nervous, and ready eloquence; is quick in discerning the strength and weakness of an argument, can express himself with clearness and precision, and fears the face of no man alive.

'His known character as a man of extraordinary sense and unimpeached virtue, would secure him the attention of the House, and could not fail to give him a proper weight there.

'He is capable of the greatest application, and can undergo any degree of labour where he sees it necessary, and where his heart and affections are strongly engaged. His Majesty's ministers might therefore securely depend on his doing, upon every proper occasion, the utmost that could be expected from

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