358 Essay on
��that privilege, which is enjoyed by every man in society, has not been allowed to him. His fame has given importance even to trifles, and the zeal of his friends has brought every thing to light. What should be related, and what should not, has been published without distinction. Dicenda tacenda locuti * ! Every thing that fell from him has been caught with eagerness by his admirers, who, as he says in one of his letters, have acted with the diligence of spies upon his conduct 2 . To some of them the following lines, in Mallet's Poem on Verbal Criticism, are not inapplicable :
Such that grave bird in Northern seas is found, Whose name a Dutchman only knows to sound 3 , Where-e'er the king of fish moves on before, This humble friend attends from shore to shore; With eye still earnest, and with bill inclin'd [declin'd], He picks up what his patron drops behind, With those choice cates his palate to regale, And is the careful TlBBALD of A WHALE 4 .
After so many essays and volumes of Johnsonian a, what remains for the present writer ? Perhaps, what has not been attempted ; a short, yet full, a faithful, yet temperate history of Dr. Johnson.
SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, September 7, 1709, O.S. 5 His father, Michael Johnson, was a bookseller in that city ; a man of large athletic make, and violent passions ; wrongheaded, positive, and at times afflicted with a degree of
1 * Ut ventum ad caenam est, di- the Strundt Jager. See a Collection
cenda tacenda locutus, of Voyages in the North! Note by
Tandem dormitum dimittitur.' MALLET. ' Struntjager ; Stercorarius
' Behold him now at supper, Crepidatus ; Richardson's Strua.'
where he said, Dresser's Birds of Europe, vol.
Or right or wrong, what came viii.
into his head/ 4 Poems on Several Occasions, by
Francis's Horace, Epis. i. 7. 72. David Mallet. London, 1743, p. 184.
2 'You never told me, and I Lewis Theobald, or Tibbald as his omitted to enquire, how you were name was pronounced, was the in- entertained by Boswell's Journal. genious editor of Shakespeare, most One would think the man had been unjustly libelled by a far inferior hired to be a spy upon me.' Letters, editor Pope.
i. 330. 5 September 18, N. S. Ante, p.
3 'This remarkable bird is called 129.
melancholy,
�� �
