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Trojan war, was the noblest exhortation that could be instanced in any heathen writer, and comprised in a single line:

Αιεν αριστεύειν, καὶ υπείροχον εμμεναι άλλων :

which, if I recollect well, is translated by Dr. Clarke thus: semper appetere præstantissima, et omnibus aliis antecellere.

"He observed, it was a most mortifying reflection for any man to consider, what he had done, compared with what he might have done.'

"He said few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forego the pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the interval between dinner and supper.

"He went with me, one Sunday, to hear my old Master, Gregory Sharpe, preach at the Temple.-In the prefatory prayer, Sharpe ranted about Liberty, as a blessing most fervently to be implored, and its continuance prayed for. Johnson observed that our liberty was in no sort of danger :-he would have done much better, to pray against our licentiousness.

"One evening at Mrs. Montagu's, where a splendid company was assembled, consisting of the most eminent literary characters, I thought he seemed highly pleased with the respect and attention that were shewn him, and asked him, on our return home, if he was not highly gratified by his visit: “No, Sir, (said he) not highly gratified; yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections."

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Though of no high extraction himself, he had much respect for birth and family, especially among ladies. He said, adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by all ranks; but one may easily distinguish the born gentlewoman.'

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"He said, the poor in England were better provided for, than in any other country of the same extent: he did not mean little Cantons, or petty Republicks. Where a great proportion of the people (said he,) are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization— Gentlemen of education, he observed, were pretty much the same in all countries; the condition of the lower orders, the poor especially, was the true mark of national discrimination.'

"When the corn laws were in agitation in Ireland, by which that country has been enabled not only to feed itself, but to export corn to a large amount; Sir Thomas Robinson observed, that those laws might be prejudicial to the corn-trade of England. Sir Thomas, (said he,) you talk the language of a savage: what, Sir, would you prevent any people from feeding themselves, if by any honest means they can do it?'

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"It being mentioned, that Garrick assisted Dr. Browne, the authour of the Estimate,' in some dramatick composition, No, Sir; (said Johnson,) he would no more suffer Garrick to write a line in his play, than he would suffer him to mount his pulpit.'

"Speaking of Burke, he said, "It was commonly observed he spoke too often in Parliament; but nobody could say he did not speak well, though too frequently and too familiarly.'

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Speaking of economy, he remarked, it was hardly worth while to save anxiously twenty pounds a year. If a man could save to that degree, so as to enable him to assume a different rank in society, then, indeed, it might answer some purpose.

"He observed a principal source of erroneous judgement was, viewing things partially and only on one side;

as for instance, fortune-hunters, when they contemplated the fortunes singly and separately, it was a dazzling and tempting object; but when they came to possess the wives and their fortunes together, they began to suspect they had not made quite so good a bargain.

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Speaking of the late Duke of Northumberland living very magnificently when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, somebody remarked, it would be difficult to find a suitable successor to him: then, exclaimed Johnson, he is only fit to succeed himself.

“He advised me, if possible, to have a good orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of small income, who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed with apple dumplins.

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He, said, he had known several good scholars among the Irish gentlemen; but scarcely any of them correct in quantity. He extended the same observation to Scotland.

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"Speaking of a certain Prelate, who exerted himself very laudably in building churches and parsonagehouses; however, said he, I do not find that he is esteemed a man of much professional learning, or a liberal patron of it;-yet, it is well, where a man possesses any strong positive excellence.-Few have all kinds of merit belonging to their character. We must not examine matters too deeply-No, Sir, a fallible being will fail somewhere.

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Talking of the Irish clergy, he said, Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country.-Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine 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 prepar

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ing to return to Ireland, after an absence of many years. I regretted much leaving London, where I had formed many agreeable connexions: 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 publick 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 consequence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish.' Then he quoted the following lines with great pathos :

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He who has early known the pomps of state,

(For things unknown, 'tis ignorance to condemn ;)
And after having view'd the gaudy bait,

'Can boldly say, the trifle I contemn;

With such a one contented could I live,

• Contented could I die.'9—

[Being desirous to trace these verses to the fountain-head, after having in 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 authour: but that gentleman could furnish no aid on this occasion. At length the lines have been discovered by the authour'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, but in fact (as he afterwards found) copied with some slight variations from one of Walsh's smaller poems, entitled "The Retirement;" and they exhibit another proof of what has been elsewhere observed by the authour of the work before us, that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of obscure or neglected poetry. 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 authour of the poem above-mentioned exhibits himself as having re

"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.""

tired 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, &c. furnish; which he holds to be infinitely more pleasing and instructive than any which 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 view'd 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

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"With hopes of joys impossible to find."

Another instance of Johnson's retaining in his memory verses by obscure authours is given in Mr. Boswell's" Journal of a 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 Giffard, 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."

In the autumn of 1782, when he was at Brighthelmstone, he frequently accompanied Mr. Phillip 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 characteristick of that gentleman.

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