Page:Johnson - Rambler 2.djvu/226

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
218
THE RAMBLER.
N° 92.

seek happiness in the regions of liberty, continued to spend hours, and days, and years, courting the smile of Caprice by the arts of Flattery; till at length new crowds pressed in upon them, and drove them forth at different outlets into the habitations of Disease, and Shame, and Poverty, and Despair, where they passed the rest of their lives in narratives of promises and breaches of faith, of joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments.

The Sciences, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace of Patronage, and having long wandered over the world in grief and distress, were led at last to the cottage of Independence, the daughter of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support themselves in dignity and quiet.



Numb. 92. Saturday, February 2, 1751.

Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum
  Perstringis aures, jam litui strepunt.

Hor.

  Lo! now the clarion's voice I hear,
  Its threat'ning murmurs pierce mine ear,
  And in thy lines with brazen breath
  The trumpet sounds the charge of death.

Francis.

I T has been long observed, that the idea of beauty is vague and undefined, different in different minds, and diversified by time or place. It has been a term hitherto used to signify that which pleases us we know not why, and in our approbation of which we can justify ourselves only by the concurrence of numbers, without much power of enforcing our opinion upon others by any argu-