Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus,
       Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet,
     Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,
       Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit: 
     Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,
       Praslusit busto, fit calor iste rogus. 
     Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas,
       Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum. 
     Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus,
       Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;
     Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum
       Credimus, iratam vel genuisse Stygem. 
     Extorsit Lachesi cultros, Pestique venenum
       Abstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus. 
     Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem
       Credat, & antiquas ponere posse minas? 
     Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,
       Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues. 
     Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae,
       Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit. 
     Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant
       Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas? 
     Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,
       Pestis quae superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit]. 
     Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus
       Te simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.

J. LOCK, A.M.  Ex.  Aede Christi, Oxon.  BOSWELL.

[295] See ante, ii. 126, 298.

[296] ’One of its ornaments [i.e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 12.  Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and printing editions of Johnson’s version of the Psalms, introduces the Scotch Poet in the Dunciad:—­ On two unequal crutches propped he came, Milton’s on this, on that one Johnston’s name.’ Dunciad, bk. iv. l.  III.  Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston’s Poems (ante, iii. 104) and for his likeness (ante, March 18, 1784).

[297] ’Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April’ [five months, instead of seven]. Piozzi Letters, i. 116.  In his Works (ix. 14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session.  On p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.

[298] Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when he read the book.  ‘Why is it recorded?’ he asked.  ’For no reason that I can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.’  Forbes’s Beattie, ed. 1824. p. 337.

[299] See ante, ii. 336, and iii. 209.

[300] See ante, iii. 65, and post, Nov. 2.

[301] See ante, i. 411.  Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story by his desire to get this book.  Later on (ante, iii. 104) he asked Boswell ‘to be vigilant and get him Graham’s Telemachus.’