Prologue to Goldsmith's Comedy of "The Good-Natured Man," BAGATELLES. 37 38 38 Lines written in Ridicule of certain Poems published in 1777 printed in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry." Burlesque of the Modern Versifications of Ancient Legendary Imitation of the Style of **** Burlesque of Lines of Lopez de Vega. An Impromptu 42 42 Improviso Translation of "The Distich of the Duke of Mo- Impromptu Translation of the same To a Lady who spoke in Defence of Liberty 42 42 43 43 43 44 44 An Epigram on George II., and Colley Cibber, the Poet Laureate Impromptu on hearing Miss Thrale consulting with a Friend Impromptu Translation of an Air in the "Clemenza de Tito" On Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. On Claude Phillips, an Ítinerant Musician in Wales. For Hogarth TRANSLATIONS. Part of the Dialogue between Hector and Andromache, from 47 48 48 From Boethius "De Consolatione Philosophia" Paraphrase, Proverbs, chap. vi. verses 6-11 PAGE 52 53 54 54 56 Translation of a Speech of Aquileio in the Adriano of Metastasio 56 From the Medea of Euripides POEMATA In Rivum a Mola Stoana Lichfeldiæ Diffluentem Tvali Eavrov. Post Lexicon Anglicanum Auctum et Emen Ad Thomam Laurence, Medicum Doctissimum. Cum Filium In Theatro, March 8, 1771 Insula Kennethi, Inter Hebridas Εις το της Ελισσης περι των Ονειρων Αινιγμα Messia Version of the Song "Busy, curious, thirsty fly" Version of three sentences said to be "On the Monument of "John of Doncaster" E Waltoni Piscatore Perfecto Excerptum Version of Pope's Verses or his own Grotto Græcorum Epigrammatum Versiones Metricæ Version of a Latin Epigram on John, Duke of Marlborough SAMUEL JOHNSON. SAMUEL JOHNSON was the son of Michael Johnson, a bookseller at Lichfield, and was born there on the seventh of September, 1709. He was the eldest of two sons; his brother Nathaniel succeeded his father in his business, and died in his twenty-fifth year, in 1737. Johnson inherited from his father that morbid melancholy which occasionally depressed him, and which his mighty mind could not always overcome. As a child he was afflicted with the king's evil; and his parents, who were stanch jacobites, presented him to Queen Anne for the royal touch; but, notwithstanding this potent remedy, an operation became necessary, the scars of which disfigured the lower part of his face; by this disease, his hearing and the sight of his left eye were impaired. He received the rudiments of education at the free grammar school of his native town, and made rapid progress in his classical studies. Mr. Hunter, the master of the school, though an excellent teacher, was a strict disciplinarian, an' Johnson smarted under his lash; but confessed in after ife that it was not without reason. Restraint sat uneasy upon him, he could not conquer his aversion to stated tasks, but when he chose to apply himself he could do more than other boys in mud shorter time; and his ambition, which prompted him to be the captain of the school, overcame his constitutional indolence. He rarely mingled in the common sports of the boys, but amused himself with sauntering in the fields, and at times talking aloud to himself. When he was fifteen years old, he spent some months in a visit to his cousin, the eccentric Cornelius Ford, from whose advice and assistance he profited in the prosecution of his studies. On his return to Lichfield, the master of the school refused to receive him again on the foundation, and he was therefore placed in a school at Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, where he remained above a year, and then returned home. Even in his youth, Johnson was a true helluo librorum ; his reading was multifarious and without system, but yet very extraordinary for a boy; "I read" (says he)" all literature, all ancient writers;" and Dr. Percy has recorded his passion for romances at this time. When on a visit at his reading the ponderous parsonage he chose for his regular folio romance of Felixmarte d'Hercania, in Spanish, which he read quite through. He retained his partiality for this species of fiction in advanced years, and sometimes attributed to its influence that unsettled turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing in any profession. He passed two years at home in this excursive kind of desultory reading, and made translations in verse from Homer, Virgil, and Horace. None of them are very remarkable for their excellence, even though the age at which they were performed be considered. In 1728, when he was about nineteen, he went to Oxford, and was entered commoner of Pembroke College. His father's circumstances would not have allowed him to think of a college education, had he not been selected by Mr. Corbet, a Shropshire gentleman, to accompany his son (who had been Johnson's school fellow) to the university, in the character of companion, with a promise of supporting him there, but it appears that he never received any pecuniary assistance, and was left to struggle his way, as well as he could, in poverty; which must have vexed his proud and independent spirit. His tutor at college was Mr. Jorden, a worthy man, but not gifted with a mind or acquirements to fit him for a director of Johnson's studies; who, though he respected his kind-heartedness, held his scholarship in contempt. His studies were here as desultory as they had been at home: he read without method, but told Mr. Boswell that "what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Euripides, and now and then an epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was metaphysics, but he had not read much even in that way." Dr. Percy relates "that he was generally seen lounging at the college-gate, with a circle of young students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if not spiriting them up to rebellion against the college discipline, which, in his maturer years, he so much extolled." Yet he found time to lay up a store of varied and useful knowledge during his three years' stay at the university, and acquired a high reputation for the harmony of his Latin verse. Mathematics and physics had no attractions for him. Philosophy, ethics, and theology, engaged much of his attention; he himself has related that "Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,” which he had taken up at this time with great prejudice against it, first made him think seriously of religion; and from this period piety was one of his most distinguishing characteristics, though he seems never to have attained the tranquillity and assurance, in his practice of the Christian duties, which are s |