solemnity at Pembroke College, and exercises upon the subject of the day were required[1]. Johnson neglected to perform his, which is much to be regretted; for his vivacity of imagination, and force of language, would probably have produced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot[2]. To apologise for his neglect, he gave in a short copy of verses, entitled Somnium, containing a common thought; 'that the Muse had come to him in his sleep, and whispered, that it did not become him to write on such subjects as politicks; he should confine himself to humbler themes: 'but the versification was truly Virgilian[3].
- ↑ Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, Mr. Peyne, Bachelor of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.' Phllipps's Diary.
- ↑ Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this day. 'Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been spared.' Johnson's Works, vii. 119.
- ↑ It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four of his compositions, two of verse and two of prose. One of the copies of verse I give Post, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed. As his prose compositions have never been published I will give one:—
'Mea nee Falernae
Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.''Quaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen penitus perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta per se, verum ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei offerre cui meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? Quis sanus hirtam agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus omnia fere Serum opificia, omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse Horatium non puduit, quo nullus urbanior, nullus procerum convictui magis assuetus. Maecenatem scilicet norat non quaesiturum an meliora vina domi posset bibere, verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori in se animo posset invenire. Amorem. non lucrum, optavit patronus ille munifentissimus (sic). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis habuit, si hospitis vultus laetitia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam testaretur.
Johnson, going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 'I believe I can repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he did.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19, 1773.
