Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Dr. Johnson's Works.

Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Dr. Johnson's Works.

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.

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Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.