Delight no more:  I seek my lonely bed,
  And call on sleep to sooth my languid head. 
  But sleep from these sad lids flies far away;
  I mourn all night, and dread the coming day. 
  Exhausted, tir’d, I throw my eyes around,
  To find some vacant spot on classic ground;
  And soon, vain hope!  I form a grand design;
  Languor succeeds, and all my pow’rs decline. 
  If science open not her richest vein,
  Without materials all our toil is vain. 
  A form to rugged stone when Phidias gives—­
  Beneath his touch a new creation lives. 
  Remove his marble, and his genius dies: 
  With nature then no breathing statue vies. 
  Whate’er I plan, I feel my pow’rs confin’d
  By fortune’s frown, and penury of mind. 
  I boast no knowledge, glean’d with toil and strife,
  That bright reward of a well acted life. 
  I view myself, while reason’s feeble light
  Shoots a pale glimmer through the gloom of night;
  While passions, error, phantoms of the brain,
  And vain opinions, fill the dark domain;
  A dreary void, where fears, with grief combin’d,
  Waste all within, and desolate the mind.

    What then remains?  Must I, in slow decline,
  To mute inglorious ease old age resign? 
  Or, bold ambition kindling in my breast,
  Attempt some arduous task?  Or, were it best,
  Brooding o’er lexicons to pass the day,
  And in that labour drudge my life away?

Such is the picture for which Dr. Johnson sat to himself.  He gives the prominent features of his character; his lassitude, his morbid melancholy, his love of fame, his dejection, his tavern-parties, and his wandering reveries, “Vacuae mala somnia mentis,” about which so much has been written; all are painted in miniature, but in vivid colours, by his own hand.  His idea of writing more dictionaries was not merely said in verse.  Mr. Hamilton, who was at that time an eminent printer, and well acquainted with Dr. Johnson, remembers that he engaged in a Commercial Dictionary, and, as appears by the receipts in his possession, was paid his price for several sheets; but he soon relinquished the undertaking.  It is probable, that he found himself not sufficiently versed in that branch of knowledge.

He was again reduced to the expedient of short compositions, for the supply of the day.  The writer of this narrative has now before him a letter, in Dr. Johnson’s handwriting, which shows the distress and melancholy situation of the man, who had written the Rambler, and finished the great work of his Dictionary.  The letter is directed to Mr. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, and is as follows: 

“Sir,—­I am obliged to entreat your assistance.  I am now under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings.  Mr. Strahan, from whom I should have received the necessary help in this case, is not at home; and I am afraid of not finding Mr. Millar.  If you will be so good as to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former obligations.  I am, sir,

  Your most obedient,