This thought once form'd, all counsel comes too late,
He flies to press, and hurries on his fate;
Swiftly he sees the imagined laurels spread,
And feels the unfading wreath surround his head.
Warn'd by another's fate, vain youth, be wise,
Those dreams were Settle's once, and Ogilby's.
The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise,
To some retreat the baffled writer flies;
Where no sour critics snarl, no sneers molest,
Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest ;
There begs of Heaven a less distinguish'd lot,
Glad to be hid, and proud to be forgot.

EPILOGUE INTENDED
LADY WHO WAS ΤΟ
HERMIONE. (1)

TO HAVE BEEN

SPOKEN BY A

PERSONATE THE GHOST

YE blooming train, who give despair or joy,
Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy ;
In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait,
And with unerring shafts distribute fate ;
Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes,
Each youth admires, though each admirer dies;
Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play,
Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray,
And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away;
For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains,
Where sable night in all her horror reigns;
No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades,
Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids.

OF

(1) Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act "The Distressed Mother," Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them.

For kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms,
And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms:
Perennial roses deck each purple vale,

And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale:
Far hence are banish'd vapours, spleen, and tears,
Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs:
No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys
The balmy kiss, for which poor Thyrsis dies;
Form'd to delight, they use no foreign arms,
Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into charms;
No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame,
For those who feel no guilt can know no shame ;
Unfaded still their former charms they shew,
Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new.
But cruel virgins meet severer fates;

Expell'd and exiled from the blissful seats,
To dismal realms, and regions void of peace,
Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss.
O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh,
And pois'nous vapours, black'ning all the sky,
With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast,
And every beauty withers at the blast:
Where'er they fly their lovers' ghosts pursue,
Inflicting all those ills which once they knew ;
Vexation, Fury, Jealousy, Despair,

Vex ev'ry eye, and ev'ry bosom tear;
Their foul deformities by all descry'd,

No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide.

Then melt, ye fair, while clouds around you sigh,
Nor let disdain sit louring in your eye;
With pity soften every awful grace,

And beauty smile auspicious in each face;
To ease their pains exert your milder power,

So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.

The two years which he spent at home, after his return from Stourbridge, he passed in what he

thought idleness, and was scolded by his father for his want of steady application. He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them. He used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading, when but a boy. Having imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop, he climbed up to search for them. There were no apples; but the large folio proved to be Petrarch (1), whom he had seen mentioned, in some preface, as one of the restorers of learning. His curiosity having been thus excited, he sat down with avidity, and read a great part of the book. What he read during these two years, he told me, was not works of mere amusement, "not voyages and travels, but all literature, Sir, all ancient writers, all manly; though but little Greek, only some of Anacreon and Hesiod: but in this irregular manner," added he, "I had looked into a great many books, which were not commonly known at the universities, where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, now master of Pembroke College, told me, I was the best qualified for the university that he had ever known come there."

(1) This was, probably, the folio edition of Petrarch's Opera Omnia quæ extant, Bas. 1554. It could have been only the Latin works that Johnson read, as there is no reason to suppose that he was, at this period, able to read Italian. CROKER.

In estimating the progress of his mind during these two years, as well as in future periods of his life, we must not regard his own hasty confession of idleness; for we see, when he explains himself, that he was acquiring various stores; and, indeed, he himself concluded the account with saying, " I would not have you think I was doing nothing then." He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be doubted, whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature, than if it had been confined to any single spot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts, and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? (1)

(1) Dr. Johnson's prodigious memory and talents_enabled him to collect from desultory reading a vast mass of general information; but he was in no science, and indeed we might almost say, in no branch of literature, what is usually called a profound scholar · -that character is only to be earned by laborious study; and Mr. Boswell's fanciful allusion to the flavour of the flesh of animals seems fallacious, not to say foolish. CROKER.

57

CHAPTER III.

1728-1731.

Enters at Pembroke College, Oxford.— His College Life. -The "Morbid Melancholy" lurking in his Constitution gains Strength.- Translates Pope's Messiah into Latin Verse. His Course of Reading at Oxford.— Quits College.

THAT a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of sending his son to the expensive university of Oxford, at his own charge, seems very improbable. The subject was too delicate to question Johnson upon: but I have been assured by Dr. Taylor, that the scheme never would have taken place, had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one of his schoolfellows, spontaneously undertaken to support him at Oxford, in the character of his companion; though, in fact, he never received any assistance whatever from that gentleman. (1)

(1) A neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbett, having a son, who had been educated in the same school with Johnson, whom he was about to send to Pembroke College, in Oxford, a proposal was made and accepted, that Johnson should attend his son thither, in quality of assistant in his studies.- HAWKINS.

Andrew Corbett appears, from the books of Pembroke College, to have been admitted February 24. 1727, and his name was removed from the books February 21. 1732; so that, as Johnson entered in October, 1728, and does not appear to have returned after Christmas, 1729, Corbett was of the university twenty months before and twelve or thirteen months after John