[Congratulatory Letter to the Rev. and learned MARTIN DAVY*, D.D. on being elected Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.] Dear Doctor, I heartily congratulate you, and your friends, and the College, and the University, on your well deserved promotion, Ζηλῶ τε σοῦ μὲν Ἑλλάδ', Ἑλλάδος δέ σέ+. I shall not trespass upon your time with a long letter, occupied as I take it for granted you must be with the circumstances attendant on your elevation, and with the swarm of addresses that invade you from all quarters. Neither shall I amuse myself with foretelling the future glories of your reign. I never but once ventured on a similar prediction, and then my success was such as completely dis * [See Tracts, pp. 231. 247. bis. 276.] + [Iph. Aul. 1407. Znλ dè Edd., Znλ ye-is quoted by Matthew Bust of Eton in his dedication to Abp. Abbot of quasi-Iambic verses written by John Metropolitan of Euchania or Euchaïta; 4to. 1610.] couraged couraged me from setting up for a prophet again. But a passage from Cicero* had long lain rusting in my mind, which † mind, which passage I had almost despaired of introducing, when lo! the occasion, which the gods hardly durst have promised to my wishes, revolving time threw in my way. Est tibi gravis adversaria constituta et parata, incredibilis quædam expectatio: quam tu una re facillime vinces, si hoc statueris, Quarum laudum gloriam adamaris, quibus artibus eæ laudes comparantur, in iis esse laborandum. * is gone to Brighton for the benefit of his health, which had been for some time in a very precarious state; but I learn that he has found, what he could not, it seems, find in London, a physician, whose prescriptions have done him some good. And now we are talking of physicians, I have been lately studying anatomy. The last subject I cut up was human nature; and I discovered, that all the * [Ep. ad Curio. 1. iv, 119. ed. Benedict. ↑ "suffer it to rust in his possession," Letters to Travis, p. 217. + Æn. ix, 6, 7.] wars, wars, and murders, and bloodshed, and quarrels, and cruelties, that are incident to sickly mortals (mortalibus ægris*) arise from their follies, and vices, and crimes; and if the doctors would undertake to purge and correct the humours which feed those follies, pamper those vices, and engender those crimes, the fee must be large indeed, that I should grudge them; Εἰ δ Ασκληπιάδαις τοῦτό γ' + ἔδωκε θεὸς Ἰᾶσθαι κακότητα καὶ ἀτηρὰς φρένας ἀνδρῶν, Πολλοὺς ἂν μισθοὺς καὶ μεγάλους ἔφερον. But I am committing the very fault I promised to avoid. I wish you long life and health to wear your new dignity to the mutual satisfaction of yourself and the public, and I remain, [Lucret. VI, 1. Virg. Geo. 1, 237, etc.] + [Theognis apud Brunck. Gnom. poët. Gr. 424.-Conf. R. P. ad Toup. p. 463, Adverss. 313.] APPENDIX. [From the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1787, pp. 652, 653.] "To attemper our admiration, he has however thought fit to note the slumbers even of this great genius-and this not in a style of perfunctory disquisition, but with such a degree of asperity as critics discover when they are criticising the works of a rival.” HAWKINS V. JOHNSON. 442. Aug. 3. Mr. URBAN, HAVE you read that divine book, the "Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Sir John Hawkins, Knt.?" Have you done any thing but read it since it was first published? For my own part, I scruple not to declare, that I could not rest till I had read it quite through, notes, digressions, index, and all;-then I could not rest till I had gone over it a second time. I begin to think that increase of appetite grows by what it feeds on*; for I have been reading it ever since. I am now in the midst of the sixteenth perusal; and still I discover new beauties. I can think of [* Shaksp.'s Hamlet, p. 154. Ed. PR.] nothing nothing else; I can talk of nothing else. In short, my mind is become tumid, and longs to be delivered of those many and great conceptions* with which it has laboured since I have been through a course of this most perfect exemplar of biography. The compass of learning, the extent and accuracy of information, the judicious criticisms, the moral reflections, the various opinions, legal and political, to say nothing of that excess of candour and charity that breathe throughout the work, make together such a collection of sweets, that the sense aches † at them. To crown all, the language is refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force of turgid eloquence. Johnson, to be sure, was thought for a while to have a knack at life-writing; but who, in his senses, would compare him to our Knight? Sir Thomas Urquhart, in the account of Crichton, (which the Knight has given us, 304. because it is so intimately connected with Johnson's life,) hondersponders it pretty well; but even he must yield the palm. Read Hawkins once, and you can read no more, Hawkins v. Johnson, 259. [The traces of this are, I suspect, in our national bard; the passage, however, is not at hand: "When I have thought on what would charm the sense, Till it would almost ache with tenderness." Ibid. 367. Mountaineers, III, i.] § [Altered from a passage in the Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Poetry.] |