410 Essay on
��this volume, p. I78 1 ; and it is hoped, that a translation, or rather imitation, of so curious a piece will not be improper in this place.
KNOW YOURSELF.
(AFTER REVISING AND ENLARGING THE ENGLISH LEXICON, OR DICTIONARY.)
When Scaliger, whole years of labour past, Beheld his Lexicon complete at last, And weary of his task, with wond'ring eyes, Saw from words pil'd on words a fabric rise, He curs'd the industry, inertly strong, In creeping toil that could persist so long, And if, enrag'd he cried, Heav'n meant to shed Its keenest vengeance on the guilty head, The drudgery of words the damn'd would know, Doom'd to write Lexicons in endless woe 2 .
Yes, you had cause, great Genius! to repent;
- You lost good days, that might be better spent ; '
You well might grudge the hours of ling'ring pain, And view your learned labours with disdain. " To you were giv'n the large expanded mind, The flame of genius, and the taste refin'd. 'Twas yours on eagle wings aloft to soar, And amidst rolling worlds the Great First Cause explore ; To fix the aeras of recorded time, And live in ev'ry age and ev'ry clime; Record the Chiefs, who propt their Country's cause ; Who founded Empires, and establish' d Laws ; To learn whate'er the Sage with virtue fraught, Whate'er the Muse of moral wisdom taught. These were your quarry; these to you were known, And the world's ample volume was your own.
Yet warn'd by me, ye pigmy Wits, beware, Nor with immortal Scaliger compare.
1 Works, i. 164 ; Life, i. 298, n. 4. Nee rigidas vexent fossa me-
2 'JOSEPHiSCALiGERiEPiGRAMMA. talla manus :
Si quern dura manet sententia Lexica contexat, nam caetera
judicis, olim quid moror ?
Damnatum aerumnis suppli- Paenarum facies hie labor unus
ciisque caput, habet.'
Hunc neque fabrili lassent er- Gentleman' s Magazine, \ 748, p. 8. gastula massa,
For
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