218

DODSLEY-BROWN-JOHNSON.

Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be;

I live in pleasure, when I live to thee.

Epigram on his Family Arts."

ΟΝ

ROBERT DODSLEY. 1703-1764.

NE kind kiss before we part, Drop a tear and bid adieu ; Though we sever, my fond heart

Till we meet shall pant for you.

The Parting Kiss.

JOHN BROWN. 1715-1765.

OW let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced

Now

That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction, That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour, Serves but to brighten all our future days.

Barbarossa. Act. v. Sc. 3.

L

SAMUEL JOHNSON. 1709-1784.

VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

ET observation with extensive view

Survey mankind, from China to Peru.

* From ORTON's Life of Doddridge.

Line 1.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,-
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

Line 159.

He left a name, at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Line 221.

Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know

That life protracted is protracted woe.

Line 257.

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.

Line 308.

From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow,
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show.

Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.

Catch, then, O catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies;
Life's a short summer-man a flower-
He dies-alas! how soon he dies.

Line 316.

Line 346.

Winter. An Ode.

LONDON.

Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

Line 166.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Line 176.

Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds and then imagined new.

Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.

And panting Time toiled after him in vain.

Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre. For we that live to please must please to live.

Ibid.

How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,

Our own felicity we make or find.

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.

Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.

Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Rasselas. Chap. i.

Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.* From Dr. Madden's "Boulter's Monument." Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.

In Misery's darkest cavern known,

His useful care was ever nigh,

Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,

And lonely Want retired to die.

Epitaph on Robert Levett.

HERBERT. Jacula Prudentum.

* Words are women, deeds are men.

Words are women, and deeds are men.

SIR THOMAS BODLEY. Letter to his Librarian, 1604.

Words are for women; actions for men.

THOMAS FULLER. Gnomologia.

Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power or hapless love;
Rest here, distressed by poverty no more,
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.

Epitaph on Claudius Phillips, the Musician.

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,

Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,

And touched nothing that he did not adorn.*

Hell is paved with good intentions.+

Epitaph on Goldsmith.

Boswell's Life of Johnson. Ibid.

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.‡

Ibid.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he

who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.

A good hater.

Ibid.

Johnsoniana. Piozzi 30.

Ibid. Piozzi 39.

* Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.
He adorns whatever he attempts.

FENELON. Eulogy on Cicero.

Whatever subject he either speaks or writes upon, he adorns it with the most splendid eloquence.

CHESTERFIELD's Letters. Vol. ii. p. 289.

HERBERT. Jacula Prudentum.

+ Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.

Parody on the line in Brooke's Gustavus Vasa. First edition :-'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free.'

LORD LYTTELTON. 1709-1773.

FOR his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught

lyre

None but the noblest passions to inspire,

Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line, which dying he could wish to blot.

Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus.

None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.

Where none admire, 't is useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 't is vain to be a belle.

Epigram.

CAN

And to her virtues be a friend,

But instantly your forehead lowers,

As if her merit lessened yours?

Fable ix. The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat.

The maid who modestly conceals

Her beauties while she hides, reveals;