Page:Johnson - The Rambler 1.djvu/74

66  man. When the vigour of youth fails him, and his amusements pall with frequent repetition, his occasional rage sinks by decay of strength into peevishness; that peevishness for want of novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the world falls off from around him; and he is left, as Homer expresses it, φθινὺθων φίλον κῆρ, to devour his own heart in solitude and contempt.


 * —Miserum parvâ stipe focilat, ut pudibundos

Exercere sales inter convivia possit. Tu mitis, et acri Asperitate carens, positoque per omnia fastu, Inter ut æquales unus numeraris amicos, Obsequiumque doces, et amorem quæris amando.

Unlike the ribald whose licentious jest Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest; From wealth and grandeur easy to descend, Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend: We round thy board the cheerful menials see, Gay with the smile of bland equality; No social care the gracious lord disdains; Love prompts to love, and rev'rence rev'rence gains.

S you seem to have devoted your labours to virtue, I cannot forbear to inform you of one species of cruelty with which the life of a man of letters perhaps does not often make him acquainted; and which, as it seems to produce no other advantage to those that practise it than a short gratification of thoughtless vanity, may become less Rh