burn,—a piece strikingly depictive of the author's affectionate feelings, and probably detailing the effects of excessive study and anxiety:
"Cernis ut obrepens mihi, Wedderburne, senecta
Sparserit indignus per caput omne nives.
Debile fit corpus, pulsis melioribus annis,
Nec vigor ingenii, qui fuit ante, mihi est.
Tempore mutato, mores mutantur et ipsi,
Nec capior studiis, quæ placuere prius.
Ante leves risus, et erant jocularia cordi,
Nunc me morosum, difficilemque vides.
Prona fit in rixas mens, et proclivis in iras,
Et senio pejor cura senilis edit.
His ego, quæ possum, quæro medicamina morbis,
Et mala, qua fas est, pellere nitor ope.
Sæpe quod exegi pridem, juvenile revolvo
Tempus, et in mentem tu mihi sæpe redis.
Par, memini, cum noster amorse prodidit, ætas,
Par genius nobis, ingeniumque fuit.
Unus et ardor erat, Phœbi conscendere collem,
Inque jugo summo sistere posse pedem," &c[1]
Benson mentions, that Johnston was a litigant in the court of session in Edinburgh, at the period of his return to Britain; and probably the issue of his suit may account for a rather unceremonious attack in the Parerga, on advocates and agents, unblushingly addressed "Ad duos rabulas forenses, Advocatum et Procuratorem," of whom, without any respect for the college of Justice, the author says,
"Magna minorque feræ, quarum paris altera lites;
Altera dispensas, utraque digna mori," &c.
On approaching the period when Johnston published his translation of the Psalms of David, we cannot help being struck with the circumstances under which he appears to have formed the design. Dr Eaglesham had, in the year 1620, published a criticism of considerable length, for the purpose of proving that the public voice had erred in the merit it allowed to Buchanan's version of the Psalms, and modestly displaying a translation of the 104th psalm, of his own workmanship, between which and the psalms of Buchanan he challenged a comparison.[2] Dr William Barclay penned a critical answer to this challenge,[3] and Johnston made a fierce stroke at the offender, in a satirical article in the Parerga, which he calls "Consilium Collegii Medici Parisiensis de Mania Hypermori Medicastri," commencing
"Quæ Buchananæis medicaster crimina musis
Objicit, et quo se jactat inane melos;
Vidimus: et quotquot tractamus Pæonis artes,
Hic vates, uno diximus ore, furit," &c.
Johnston, however, did not consider himself incapacitated to perform a work in which another had failed, and he probably, at that period, formed the resolution of writing a version of the psalms, which he afterwards produced, under
- ↑ Mr George Chalmers has stated that Wedderburn was the master of Johnston. Dr Irving aptly considers that the verses we have quoted above disprove the statement.
- ↑ Eglisemii certamen cum Georgio Buchanano pro dignitate Paraphraseos Psalmi civ. London, 1620.
- ↑ Barclaii Judicium de certamine Eglisemii cum Buchanano pro dignitate Paraphraseos Psalmi civ.
