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death be perhaps ungratefully forgotten; but that piety which dictated the serious papers in the Rambler, will be for ever remembered; for ever, I think, revered That ample repository of religious truth, moral wisdom and accurate criticism, breathes indeed the genuine emanations of its great author's mind, expressed too in a style so natural to him, and so much like his common mode of conversing, that I was myself but little astonished when he told me, that he had scarcely read over one of those inimitable essays before they went to the press.

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I will add one or two peculiarities more, before I lay down my pen. Though at an immeasurable distance from content in the contemplation of his own uncouth form and figure, he did not like another man much the less for being a coxcomb. I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at themselves in a glass: They do not surprise me at all by so doing," said Johnson: " they see, reflected in that glass, men who have risen from almost the lowest situations in life; one to enormous riches, the other to every thing this world can give―rank, fame, and fortune. They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them; and I see not why they should avoid the mirror."

The other singularity I promised to record is this: that though a man of obscure birth himself, his partiality to people of family was visible on every occasion; his zeal for subordination warm even to bigotry; his hatred to innovation, and reverence for the old feudal times, apparent, whenever any possible manner of showing them occurred. I have spoken of his piety, his charity, and his truth, the enlargement of his heart, and the delicacy of his sentiments; and when I search for shadow to my portrait, none can I find but what was formed by pride, differently modified as different occa

sions showed it; yet never was pride so purified as Johnson's, at once from meanness and from vanity. The mind of this man was indeed expanded beyond the common limits of human nature, and stored with such variety of knowledge, that I used to think it resembled a royal pleasure-ground, where every plant, of every name and nation, flourished in the full perfection of their powers; and where, though lofty woods and falling cataracts first caught the eye, and fixed the earliest attention of beholders, yet neither the trim parterre nor the pleasing shrubbery, nor even the antiquated evergreens, were denied a place in some fit corner of the happy valley.

[The following Anecdotes, Opinions, and Reflections are from the Collection of Dr. Johnson's Letters, pudished by Mrs. Piozzi, in 1788.]

146. Domestic Tragedies.

What is nearest us touches us most.

The passions rise higher at domestic than at imperial tragedies.

147. Calamities.

When any calamity is suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

148. Grief.

Grief is a species of idleness, and the necessity of attention to the present preserves us, by the merciful disposition of Providence, from being lacerated and devoured by sorrow for the past.

149. Vows.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppos a prescience of the future which has not been given us

VOL. IX.

They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance, which God has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatuity, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free. I think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong, that nothing, or hardly any thing, can make it right.

150. Filial Obedience.

Unlimited obedience is due only to the Universal Father of heaven and earth. My parents may be mad or foolish; may be wicked and malicious; may be erroneously religious, or absurdly scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates, either positive or negative, which either religion condemns or reason rejects.

There wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more than over any other transaction. If Miss **** followed a trade, would it be said that she was bound in conscience to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more interested, and has therefore more right of choice? When I may suffer for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge, by parity of reason, for my own happiness.

151. To-morrow.

You do not tell me whither the young lovers are gone. What a life do they image in futurity! how unlike to what they are to find! But To-morrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

152. Praise and Flattery.

The difference between praise and flattery is the same as between that hospitality that sets wine enough before the guest, and that which forces him to be drunk.

153. Travellers and Books of Travels.

He that wanders about the world sees new forms of human misery; and if he chances to meet an old friend, meets a face darkened by troubles. You have often heard me complain of finding myself disappointed by books of travels. I am afraid travel itself will end likewise in disappointment. One town, one country, is very like another civilised nations have the same customs, and barbarous nations have the same nature: there are indeed minute discriminations both of places and manners, which, perhaps, are not wanting of curiosity, but which a traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and compare. The dull utterly neglect them; the acute see a little, and supply the rest with fancy and conjecture.

154. Use of Travelling.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be to see them as they are.

155. Principles.

Principles can only be strong by the strength of understanding, or the cogency of religion.

156. Dr. Cheyne. Burton.

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"All is best," says Cheyne," as it has been, excepting the errors of our own free will." Burton con

cludes his long book upon melancholy with this important precept: - "Be not solitary; be not idle." Remember Cheyne's position, and observe Burton's precept.

157. Compliments.

Do not make speeches to your country friends. Unusual compliments, to which there is no stated and prescriptive answer, embarrass the teeble, who know not what to say, and disgust the wise, who, knowing them to be false, suspect them to be hypocritical.

158. Seeing Shows.

It is easy to talk of sitting at home contented, when others are seeing or making shows. But not to have been where it is supposed that all would go if they could; to be able to say nothing when every one is talking; to have no opinion where every one is judging; to hear exclamations of rapture without power to depress; to listen to falsehoods without right to contradict, is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported by fortitude.

159. Mingling with the World.

If the world be worth winning, let us enjoy it; if it is to be despised, let us despise it by conviction. But the world is not to be despised, but as it is compared with something better. Company is in itself better than solitude, and pleasure better than indolence. Ex nihilo nihil fit, says the moral as well as natural philosopher. By doing nothing, and by knowing nothing, no power of doing good can be obtained. He must mingle with the world that deserves to be useful. Every new scene comprises new ideas, enriches the imagination, and enlarges the powers of reason, by new topics of comparison.

160. Disappointment.

All pleasure preconceived and preconcerted ends in disappointment; but disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

161. Bright and cloudy Days.

Most men have their bright and their cloudy days; at least, they have days when they put their powers into act, and lays when they suffer them to repose.

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