The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [80]
‘I thought my letter would be long, but it is now ended; and I am, Sir, yours, &c.
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not quite easily read yours.
‘I have read the Italian – nothing in it is well.
‘I had no notion of having any thing for the Inscription. I hope you don’t think I kept it to extort a price. I could think of nothing, till to day. If you could spare me another guinea for the history, I should take it very kindly, to night; but if you do not I shall not think it an injury. – I am almost well again.’
‘To MR. CAVE
‘SIR, – You did not tell me your determination about the “Soldier’s Letter,”b which I am confident was never printed. I think it will not do by itself, or in any other place, so well as the Mag. Extraordinary. If you will have it at all, I believe you do not think I set it high, and I will be glad if what you give, you will give quickly.
‘You need not be in care about something to print, for I have got the State Trials, and shall extract Layer, Atterbury, and Macclesfield from them, and shall bring them to you in a fortnight; after which I will try to get the South Sea Report.’
[No date, nor signature.]
I would also ascribe to him an ‘Essay on the Description of China, from the French of Du Halde.’!
His writings in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1743, are, the ‘Preface,’! the ‘Parliamentary Debates,’! ‘Considerations on the Dispute between Crousaz and Warburton, on Pope’s Essay on Man;’f in which, while he defends Crousaz, he shews an admirable metaphysical acuteness and temperance in controversy; ‘Ad Lauram parituram Epigramma;’∗a and, ‘A Latin Translation of Pope’s Verses on his Grotto;’ ∗ and, as he could employ his pen with equal success upon a small matter as a great, I suppose him to be the authour of an advertisement for Osborne, concerning the great Harleian Catalogue.
But I should think myself much wanting, both to my illustrious friend and my readers, did I not introduce here, with more than ordinary respect, an exquisitely beautiful Ode, which has not been inserted in any of the collections of Johnson’s poetry, written by him at a very early period, as Mr. Hector informs me, and inserted in the Gentleman’s Magazine of this year.
FRIENDSHIP, an ODE.∗
‘Friendship, peculiar boon of heav’n,
The noble mind’s delight and pride,
To men and angels only giv’n,
To all the lower world deny’d.
While love, unknown among the blest,
Parent of thousand wild desires,
The savage and the human breast
Torments alike with raging fires;
With bright, but oft destructive, gleam,
Alike o’er all his lightnings fly;
Thy lambent glories only beam
Around the fav’rites of the sky.
Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys
On fools and villains ne’er descend;
In vain for thee the tyrant sighs,
And hugs a flatterer for a friend.
Directress of the brave and just,
O guide us through life’s darksome way!
And let the tortures of mistrust,
On selfish bosoms only prey.
Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow,
When souls to blissful climes remove;
What rais’d our virtue here below,
Shall aid our happiness above.’
Johnson had now an opportunity of obliging his schoolfellow Dr. James, of whom he once observed, ‘no man brings more mind to his profession.’ James published this year his Medicinal Dictionary, in three volumes folio. Johnson, as I understood from him, had written, or assisted in writing, the proposals for this work; and being very fond of the study of physick, in which James was his master, he furnished some of the articles. He, however, certainly wrote for it the Dedication to Dr. Mead,† which is conceived with great address, to conciliate the patronage of that very eminent man.a
It has been circulated, I know not with what authenticity, that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, ‘Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him,