198 Anecdotes.
��The social dub, the lonely tower, Far better suit thy midnight hour z ; Let each according to his power
In worth or wisdom shine !
And while play pleases idle boys, And wanton mirth fond youth employs, To fix the soul, and free from toys,
That useful task be thine.
The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as well as I remember, which he wrote to Dr. Lawrence 2 , I forgot to keep a copy of; and he obliged me to resign his translation of the song beginning, Busy, curious, thirsty fly, for him to give Mr. Langton 3 , with a promise not to retain a copy. I concluded he knew why, so never enquired the reason. He had the greatest possible value for Mr. Langton, of whose virtue and learning he delighted to talk in very exalted terms 4 ; and poor Dr. Lawrence had long been his friend and confident 5 . The conversation I saw them hold together in Essex-street one day in the year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy one, and made a singular impression on my mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I accompanied him thither for advice. The physician was however, in some respects, more to be pitied than the patient : Johnson was panting under an asthma and dropsy ; but Lawrence had been brought home that very morning struck with the palsy 6 , from which he had, two hours before we came, strove to awaken himself by blisters : they were both deaf, and scarce able to speak besides ; one from
1 ' Or let my lamp at midnight go to Heaven, if Langton does not.
hour Sir, I could almost say, Sit anima
Be seen in some high lonely mea cum Langtono" ' Life, iv. 280.
tower.' ' It is to be feared that Averroes had
// Penseroso, 1. 85. not the right way of blessing himself,
2 'Ad Thomam Laurence, Medi- when in defiance of Christianity he cum Doctissimum,cumfiliumperegre wished, Sit anima mea cum philo- agentem desiderio nimis tristi pro- sophis! South's Sermons, ii. 75. See sequeretur.' Works, i. 165. also ib. iii. 203.
3 Rewrote to Langton on July 5, 5 ' Lawrence,' he wrote, ' is a friend 1774 : * If you have the Latin ver- whom long familiarity has much en- sion of Busy, curious, thirsty fly, be deared. He is one of the best men so kind as to transcribe and send it.' whom I have known.' Ante, p. 104. Life, ii. 281. See Works, i. 172. 6 Life, iv. 144, n. 3.
4 ' He said, " I know not who will
difficulty
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