Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow[f],
When souls to blissful climes remove:
What rais’d our virtue here below,
Shall aid our happiness above.
[a] This ode originally appeared in the Gentleman’s
Magazine for 1743.
See Boswell’s Life of
Johnson, under that year. It was afterwards
printed in Mrs. Williams’s
Miscellanies, in 1766, with several
variations, which are pointed
out, below.—J.B.
[b] Parent of rage and hot desires.—Mrs.
W.
[c] Inflames alike with equal fires.
[d] In vain for thee the monarch sighs.
[e] This stanza is omitted in Mrs. William’s
Miscellanies, and instead
of it, we have the following,
which may be suspected, from internal
evidence, not to have been
Johnson’s:
When virtues, kindred virtues
meet,
And sister-souls together
join,
Thy pleasures permanent, as
great,
Are all transporting—all
divine.
[f] O! shall thy flames then cease to glow.
ON SEEING A BUST OF MRS. MONTAGUE.
Had this fair figure, which this frame displays,
Adorn’d in Roman time the brightest days,
In every dome, in every sacred place,
Her statue would have breath’d an added grace,
And on its basis would have been enroll’d,
“This is Minerva, cast in virtue’s mould.”
IMPROVISO ON A YOUNG HEIR’S COMING OF AGE
Long expected one-and-twenty,
Ling’ring year, at length is flown;
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great——, are now your
own.
Loosen’d from the minor’s tether,
Free to mortgage or to sell;
Wild as wind, and light as feather,
Bid the sons of thrift farewell.
Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies,
All the names that banish care;
Lavish of your grandsire’s guineas,
Show the spirit of an heir.
All that prey on vice or folly
Joy to see their quarry fly:
There the gamester light and jolly,
There the lender grave and sly.
Wealth, my lad, was made to wander,
Let it wander as it will;
Call the jockey, call the pander,
Bid them come, and take their fill.
When the bonny blade carouses,
Pockets full, and spirits high—
What are acres? what are houses?
Only dirt, or wet or dry.
Should the guardian friend, or mother
Tell the woes of wilful waste;
Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,
You can hang or drown at last.
EPITAPHS.
AT LICHFIELD.
H. S. E.
MICHAEL JOHNSON,
VIR impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures vel pias vel castas laesisset, aut dolor vel voluptas unquam expresserit.