"Gratum animum laudo; Qui debuit omnia ventis, Quam bene ventorum, surgere templa jubet!"A translation of Dryden's epigram, too, I used to fancy I had to myself:
"Quos laudet vates, Graius, Romanus, et Anglus, Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis:
Sublime ingenium, Graius,--Romanus habebat Carmen grande sonans, Anglus utrumque tulit.
Nil majus natura capit: clarare priores Quae potuere duos, tertius unus habet:"from the famous lines written under Milton's picture:
"Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go, To make a third she joined the former two."One evening in the oratorio season of the year 1771 Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden Theatre, and though he was for the most part an exceedingly bad playhouse companion, as his person drew people's eyes upon the box, and the loudness of his voice made it difficult for me to hear anybody but himself, he sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself that he was listening to the music. When we were got home, however, he repeated these verses, which he said he had made at the oratorio, and he bade me translate them:
IN THEATRO.
"Tertii verso quater orbe lustri Quid theatrales tibi crispe pompae!
Quam decet canos male literatos Sera voluptas!
"Tene mulceri fidibus canoris?
Tene cantorum modulis stupere?
Tene per pictas oculo elegante Currere formas?
"Inter equales sine felle liber, Codices veri studiosus inter Rectius vives, sua quisque carpat Gaudia gratus.
"Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis Luxus oblectat juvenem theatri, At seni fluxo sapienter uti Tempore restat."I gave him the following lines in imitation, which he liked well enough, Ithink:
"When threescore years have chilled thee quite, Still can theatric scenes delight?
Ill suits this place with learned wight, May Bates or Coulson cry.
"The scholar's pride can Brent disarm?
His heart can soft Guadagni warm?
Or scenes with sweet delusion charm The climacteric eye?
"The social club, the lonely tower, Far better suit thy midnight hour;Let each according to his power In worth or wisdom shine!
"And while play pleases idle boys, And wanton mirth fond youth employs, To fix the soul, and free from toys, That useful task be thine."The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as well as I remember, which he wrote to Dr. Lawrence, I forgot to keep a copy of; and he obliged me to resign his translation of the song beginning, "Busy, curious, thirsty fly,"for him to give Mr. Langton, with a promise NOT to retain a copy. I concluded he knew why, so never inquired the reason. He had the greatest possible value for Mr. Langton, of Langton Hall, Lincoln, of whose virtue and learning he delighted to talk in very exalted terms; and poor Dr.
Lawrence had long been his friend and confident. The conversation I saw them hold together in Essex Street one day, in the year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy one, and made a singular impression on my mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I accompanied him thither for advice. The physician was, however, in some respects more to be pitied than the patient. Johnson was panting under an asthma and dropsy, but Lawrence had been brought home that very morning struck with the palsy, from which he had, two hours before we came, strove to awaken himself by blisters. They were both deaf, and scarce able to speak besides: one from difficulty of breathing, the other from paralytic debility. To give and receive medical counsel, therefore, they fairly sat down on each side a table in the doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned with skeletons, preserved monsters, etc., and agreed to write Latin billets to each other. Such a scene did I never see. "You,"said Johnson, "are timide and gelide," finding that his friend had prescribed palliative, not drastic, remedies. "It is not ME," replies poor Lawrence, in an interrupted voice, "'tis nature that is gelide and timide."In fact, he lived but few months after, I believe, and retained his faculties still a shorter time. He was a man of strict piety and profound learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of life or manners, and died without having ever enjoyed the reputation he so justly deserved.
Mr. Johnson's health had been always extremely bad since I first knew him, and his over-anxious care to retain without blemish the perfect sanity of his mind contributed much to disturb it. He had studied medicine diligently in all its branches, but had given particular attention to the diseases of the imagination, which he watched in himself with a solicitude destructive of his own peace, and intolerable to those he trusted. Dr.
Lawrence told him one day that if he would come and beat him once a week he would bear it, but to hear his complaints was more than MAN could support.
