Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/361

 ��almost impossible not to make verses on such an accidental combination of circumstances, so I made the following ones : but as a character written in verse will for the most part be found imperfect as a character, I have therefore written a prose one, with which I mean, not to complete, but to conclude these Anecdotes of the best and wisest man that ever came within the reach of my personal acquaintance, and I think I might venture to add, that of all or any of my readers :

Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength,

Our company closes with JOHNSON at length;

So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past,

When wisest, and greatest, Ulysses came last.

To his comrades contemptuous, we see him look down,

On their wit and their worth with a general frown.

Since from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he receives,

Who could shake the whole trunk while they turn'd a few leaves.

His piety pure, his morality nice

Protector of virtue, and terror of vice ;

In these features Religion's firm champion display'd,

Shall make infidels fear for a modern crusade.

While th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue,

Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong,

We suffer from JOHNSON, contented to find,

That some notice we gain from so noble a mind ;

And pardon our hurts, since so often we've found

The balm of instruction pour'd into the wound.

'Tis thus for its virtues the chemists extol

Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol;

From noxious putrescence, preservative pure,

A cordial in health, and in sickness a cure;

But expos'd to the sun, taking fire at his rays,

Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze.

It is usual, I know not why, when a character is given, to begin with a description of the person ; that which contained the

Streatham portraits in many instances in 1773 (Leslie, and Taylor's Rey-

cost more than they fetched, as she nolds, i. 507, 523), and Baretti in

had to pay for them after Mr. Thrale's 1774 (ib. ii. 76). Leslie says that

death at the increased price.' ' the portrait of Baretti is among the

Only three of the portraits fetched finest Reynolds ever painted.' less than fifty guineas those of For the library at Streatham see

W. H. Lyttelton, Sandys and Baretti. ante, p. 109, and Life, iv. 158. Lyttelton was painted in 1772, Sandys

soul

�� �