Ascham says the wits do, Men know not how; and at last die obscurely, men mark not where[1].'
Dr. Johnson had indeed a veneration for the voice of mankind beyond what most people will own; and as he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice[2]. I remember when lamentation was made of the neglect shewed to Jeremiah Markland[3], a great philologist as some one ventured to call him – 'He is a scholar undoubtedly Sir (replied Dr. Johnson), but remember that he would run from the world, and that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who] does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark[4]. The world (added he) is chiefly unjust and ungenerous in this, that all are ready to encourage a man who once talks of leaving it, and few things do really provoke me more, than to hear people prate of retirement, when they have neither skill to discern their own motives, or penetration to estimate the consequences: but while a fellow is active to gain
- ↑ Ascham is not writing of 'the wits' in the eighteenth century sense of the term, but of 'quick wits,' those who at school 'take their lesson readily;' who 'commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep; soon hot, and desirous of this and that, as cold, and soon weary of the same again;' who are 'ever quick, hasty, rash, heady and brain-sick.' Of them he says: – 'In youth also they be ready scoffers, privy mockers, and ever over-light and merry; in age, soon testy, very waspish and always over-miserable. And yet few of them come to any great age by reason of their misordered life when they were young; but a great deal fewer of them come to show any great countenance, or bear any great authority abroad in the world, but either live obscurely, men know not how, or die obscurely, men mark not when.' Ascham's Works, ed. 1864, iii. 99.
- ↑ Life, iv. 172.
- ↑ Ib. iv. 161; Letters, ii. 276.
- ↑ Markland is perhaps alluded to in the following passage: – 'All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected: it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected. There is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as well make a present to the postman who brings me a letter.' Life, iv. 172.
