Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/430

 ��Essay on

��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, Vacua mala somnia mentis r , 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 2, 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 3. It is probable, that he found himself not sufficiently versed in that branch of know ledge.

��1 ' Nascuntur curis curae, vexatque

dolorum

Importuna cohors, vacuae mala somnia mentis.'

From Johnson's- Poem.

2 * On Monday, April 19, Dr. John son called on me with Mrs. Williams, in Mr. Strahan's coach. ... A printer having acquired a fortune sufficient to keep his coach, was a good topick for the credit of literature. Mrs. Wil liams said, that another printer, Mr.

��Hamilton, had not waited so long as Mr. Strahan, but had kept his coach several years sooner. JOHNSON. " He was in the right. Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better." ' Life, ii. 226.

3 Johnson in 1761 contributed the Preface to Rolt's Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. Life, i. 358. It is possible that he at first had under taken the whole work.

He

�� �