Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/261

 stone's poem of The Inn, which I learnt from hearing Dr. Johnson repeat it ; and I was surprised, on Seeing it lately among the Author's works for the first time, to find it so different. The alterations are in italics x.

To thee, fair Freedom, I retire,

From flattery, feasting*, dice and din ; Now art thou found in Domes much* higher

Than the low Cot or humble Inn. 'Tis here with boundless power I reign,

And every Health that I begin,

For Freedom crowns it at an Inn. I fly from pomp, I fly from plate,

I fly from falsehood's specious grin ; Freedom I love, and form I hate,

And chuse my lodgings at an Inn.

Here, Waiter, take my sordid ore,

Which lacquays else might hope to win ;

It buys what Courts have not in store, It buys me freedom at an Inn.

And once again I shape my way.

Through rain, through shine, through thick and thin, Secure to meet at close of Day

A kind reception at an Inn 5.

You who have travell'd Life's dull Round, Who through its various Tours have been,

May sigh to think how oft you 've found The warmest welcome at an Inn 6.

��1 Johnson for the most part quoted which has yet been contrived by

the poem as it was originally pub- man, by which so much happiness

lished in Dodsley's Collection, 1758, is produced as by a good tavern or

v. 51. Miss Reynolds saw it as it inn." He then repeated, with great

was given in Shenstone's Works, emotion, Shenstone's lines :

1791,1.218. "Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull

3 Cards and dice. round,

3 In mansions higher. Where'er his stages may have

4 In Shenstone, ' Converts dull been,

port to bright champagne.' May sigh to think he still has

5 ' Spoken by Dr. Johnson extern- found

temporary.' Miss REYNOLDS. This The warmest welcome at an inn."

verse with slight differences is in the Life, ii. 452. See ib. n. for the stanza

original poem. as it originally stood.

6 '"No, Sir; there is nothing 'March 3, 1831. "Those are

Dr.

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