with which he could draw up a prefatory address, was one of his peculiar excellencies.
It appears too, that he paid a friendly attention to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter; for in a letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. Birch, November 28, this year, I find 'Mr. Johnson advises Miss C. to undertake a translation of Boethius de Cons., because there is prose and verse, and to put her name to it when published.' This advice was not followed; probably from an apprehension that the work was not sufficiently popular for an extensive sale. How well Johnson himself could have executed a translation of this philosophical poet, we may judge from the following specimen which he has given in the Rambler: (Motto to No. 7.)
'O qui perpetuâ mundum ratione gubernas,
Terrarum cœlique sator!
Disjice ter rente nebulas et ponder a molts,
Atque tuo splendore mica! Tu namque serenum,
Tu requies tranquilla piis. Te ceniere finis,
Principium, vector, dux, semita, terminus, idmi.'
'O thou whose power o'er moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides,
On darkling man in pure effulgence shine,
And cheer the clouded mind with light divine.
'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast,
With silent confidence and holy rest;
From thee, great God! we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end!'
In 1739, beside the assistance which he gave to the Parliamentary Debates, his writings in the Gentleman's Magazine[1] were, 'The Life of Boerhaave,'* in which it is to be observed, that he discovers that love of chymistry[2] which never forsook him; 'An appeal to the publick in behalf of the Editor;'†
- ↑ The letter to Mr. Urban in the January number of this year (p. 3) is, I believe, by Johnson.
- ↑ 'Yet did Boerhaave not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention from others; anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, nor chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany.' Johnson's Works, vi. 276. 'Sitt post, under Sept. 9, 1779.
