advantage in the disasters of their country; a race of men, quibus nulla ex honesto spes."

585. Robert Levett.

The stanzas on the death of this man of great but humble utility are beyond all praise. The wonderful powers of Johnson were never shown to greater advantage than on this occasion, where the subject, from its obscurity and mediocrity, seemed to bid defiance to poetical efforts; it is, in fact, warm from the heart, and is the only poem from the pen of Johnson that has been bathed with tears. Would to God, that on every medical man who attends the poor, the following encomiums could be justly passed!

"Well tried through many a varying year,

See Levett to the grave descend;

Officious, innocent, sincere,

Of ev'ry friendless name the friend.

"When fainting nature call'd for aid,

And hov'ring death prepared the blow,

His vig'rous remedy display'd

The power of art without the show.

"In Mis'ry's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die."

How boldly painted, how exquisitely pathetic, as a description of the sufferings of human life, is this last stanza! I am acquainted with nothing superior to it in the productions of the moral muse.

586. "Medea" of Euripides.

To the English poetry of Johnson, may now be added a very beautiful translation of some noble lines from the "Medea" of Euripides. It has escaped all the

editors of his works, and was very lately introduced to the world in a volume of considerable merit, entitled "Translations from the Greek Anthology, with Tales and Miscellaneous Poems."(1) A parody, indeed, by our author upon this passage of the Grecian poet was published by Mrs. Piozzi (2), but it is of little value, while the following version has preserved all the elegance and pathos of the original:

"The rites derived from ancient days,

With thoughtless reverence we praise;
The rites that taught us to combine
The joys of music and of wine;

That bade the feast, the song, the bowl,
O'erfill the saturated soul;

But ne'er the lute nor lyre applied,

To soothe Despair or soften Pride,

Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells

Where Madness raves and Vengeance swells,
Where Hate sits musing to betray,
And Murder meditates his prey.
To dens of guilt and shades of care,

Ye sons of melody, repair,

Nor deign the festive hour to cloy
With superfluity of joy;

The board with varied plenty crown'd

May spare the luxury of sound."

587. Rambler and Adventurer.

As specimens of the style of Johnson, we shall adduce three quotations, taken from the "Rambler" and "Adventurer;" the first on a didactic, the second on a moral, and the third on a religious subject; passages, which will place in a very striking light the prominent peculiarities and excellencies of the most splendid and powerful moralist of which this country can boast. Ani

(1) [By Bland and Merivale, 8vo. 1806.]

(2) [See antè, Vol. IX. p. 22.]

madverting on the necessity of accommodating knowledge to the purposes of life, the "Rambler" thus proceeds:

"To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to consider, that though admiration is excited by abstruse researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more easily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse upon questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful in great occasions, may die without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, and which nothing is required to remove, but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients.

"No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness; and therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such benefits only can be bestowed as others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted as others are qualified to enjoy.

"By this descent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendour but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though he dazzles less." (1)

The following passage on the iniquity of revenge, and on the meanness of regulating our conduct by the opinions of men, is alike eminent for its style and for

(1) Rambler, No. 137

its sentiments: the purest morality is here clothed in diction powerfully impressive:

"A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease. Resentment is an union of sorrow with malignity; a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the calm of innocence.

"Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed; or how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or negligence; we cannot be certain how much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only because we have made ourselves delicate and tender; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness.

"From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary, or despised by the world.

"It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that all pride is abject and mean.' It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensibility of our wants.

"Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves, to give way to any thing but conviction, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives.

"The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive, is a constant and determinate pursuit of virtue without regard to present dangers or advantage; a continual reference of every action to the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many, who presume to boast of generous sentiments, allow to regulate their measures, has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of men; of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward; of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they never have examined; and whose sentence is therefore of no weight, till it has received the ratification of our own conscience.

"He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to withhold his attention from the commands of the universal Sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the greatness of his mind; whenever he awakes to seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and folly.

"Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is therefore superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended; and to him that refuses to practise it the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the SAVIOUR of the world has been born in vain." (1)

(1) Rambler, No. 185.