Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/277

 ��Here is the Latin ode :

Permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, Torva ubi rident steriles coloni

Rura labores.

Pervagor gentes hominum ferorum, Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu Squallet informis, tugurique fumis

Fceda latescit.

Inter erroris salebrosa longi,

Inter ignotce strepitus loquela,

Quot modis mecum, quid agat, requiro

Thralia dulcis?

Seu viri curas pia nupta mulcet, Seu fovet mater sobolem benigna, Sive cum libris novitate pascit

Sedula mentem :

Sit memor nostri, fideique merces Stet fides constans, meritoque blandum ThralicB discant resonare nomen

Littora Skice 1.

On another occasion I can boast verses from Dr. Johnson. As I went into his room the morning of my birth-day once, and said to him, Nobody sends me any verses now, because I am five-and-thirty years old 2 ; and Stella was fed with them till forty-six 3, I remember. My being just recovered from illness and confinement will account for the manner in which he burst out suddenly, for so he did without the least previous hesitation whatsoever, and without having entertained the smallest intention towards it half a minute before :

wrote to her two years later. ' I am possession of Mr. Salusbury, she was

not of your opinion that I shall not baptized on January 16, 1740, O. S.

like to read them hereafter.' Letters, (January 27, 1741, N. S.). Hay ward's

i. 361. Ptozzi, i. 40.

1 For Lord Houghton's version of 3 Stella was not quite forty-six these lines see Life, v. 424. when she died. Swift wrote verses

2 In one of her memorandum on her last birth-day, March 13, books she gives 1776 as the date 1726-7. Swift's Works, ed. 1803, of these verses, and in Thraliana, xi. 21.

1777. According to an entry in the

S 2 Oft

�� �