3.

Enough! the Spectre cried; Enough!
No more of your fugacions stuff,

Trite Anecdotes and Stories;

Rude Martyrs of SAM. JOHNSON's name,
You rob bim of his honest fame,

And tarnish all his glories.

4.

First in the futile tribe is seen

TOM TYERS in the Magazine,
That teazer of Apollo !

With goose-quill he, like desperate knife,
Slices, as Vauxhall beef, my life,

And calls the town to swallow.

5.

The cry once up, the Dogs of News,
Who hunt for paragraphs the stews,
Yelp out JOHNSONIANA!
Their nauseous praise but moves my bile,
Like Tartar, Carduus, Camomile,
Or Ipecacuanha.

6.

Next BosWELL comes (for 'twas my lot

To find at last one honest Scot)

With constitutional vivacity,

Yet, garrulous, he tells too much,
On fancied failings prone to touch,
With sedulous loquacity.

7.

At length-Job's patience it would tire-
Brew'd on my lees, comes THRALE'S Entire,
Straining to draw my picture;

For She a common-place-book kept,
JOHNSON at Streatham din'd and slept,

And who shall contradict her?

8.

THRALE, lost 'mongst Fidlers and Sopranos,
With them play Fortes and Pianos,
Adagio and Allegro !

I lov'd THRALE's widow and THRALE's wife;
But now, believe, to write my life
I'd rather trust my Negro.*

9.

I gave the Public works of merit,
Written with vigour, fraught with spirit;
Applause crown'd all my labours:

But thy delusive pages speak

My palsied pow'rs, exhausted, weak,
The scoff of friends and neighbours.
10.

They speak me insolent and rude,
Light, trivial, puerile, and crude,

The child of Pride and Vanity;
Poor Tuscan-like Improvisation
Is but of English sense castration,
And infantine inanity.

11.

Such idle rhymes, like Sybil's leaves,
Kindly the scatt'ring wind receives;

The gath'rer proves a scorner.
But hold! I see the coming day!
-The Spectre said, and stalk'd away
To sleep in POET'S CORNER.t

*His Black Servant.

+ Colman's Prose on several Occasions, accompanied by some Pieces in Verse, 3 vols. 12mo. 1787.

Of the EDITIONS of the Works of Johnson the two principal are by Sir John Hawkins and Mr. Murphy. Sir John's appeared in 1787, in eleven volumes 8vo; and four volumes more were at different periods subsequently added. The collection was hasty and indigested, and several pieces were included decidedly not the productions of Johnson. The Life too was bulky, inelegant, and full of irrelevant matter.

In consequence of these defects, another edition was brought forward in 1792, under the superintendance of Arthur Murphy, Esq. which occupies twelve volumes in octavo, with the Essay on the Genius and Writings of Johnson prefixed. It has passed through the press several times: a proof that the public is satisfied with the arrangement and execution; the former of which is chronological, and the latter correct and elegant.

We must, notwithstanding, declare, that no complete edition of the Works of Johnson has yet been published; not one in which his " Prayers and Meditations," his "Letters," and his "Sermons," are included. It is true, that Mr. Murphy has given us a few of his Prayers and a few of his Letters; but they ought, as best unfolding the heart of the man, to have been published

entire he has also omitted his "Sermons," and his," Fountains, a Fairy Tale."*

When these shall have been added, all that is necessary will probably have been done; for the catalogue which we have given in Appendix, N° 1, and the "Debates in Parliament," are, with perhaps one or two exceptions, of a nature too local and temporary to admit of republication, and the "Dictionary" should always be a separate work.

I allude to the edition of 1801.

END OF VOL. IV.

J. Seeley, Printer, Buckingham.

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