Summon'd the singer blythe, and harper gay,
And aided wine with dulcet-streaming sound.
The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill,
By quiv'ring string, or modulated wind;
Trumpet or lyre-to their arch bosoms chill,
Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find.

Oh! send them to the sullen mansions dun,
Her baleful eyes where Sorrow rolls around;
Where gloom-enamour'd Mischiefloves to dwell,
And Murder, all blood-bolter'd, schemes the wound.

When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dish,
And purple nectar glads the festive hour;
The guest, without a want, without a wish,
Can yield no room to Music's soothing power.

Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them thus one day at Streatham; but they are already well-know, I am sure.

The tender infant, meek and mild,

Fell down upon the stone;

The nurse took up the squealing child,
But still the child squeal'd on.

A famous ballad also, beginning Rio verde, Rio verde, when I commended the translation of it, he said he could do it better himself-as thus:

Glassy water, glassy water,

Down whose current, clear and strong,

Chiefs confus'd in mutual slaughter,

Moor and Christian roll along.

But sir, said I, this is not ridiculous at all. "Why no (replied he), why should I always write ridiculously?-perhaps because I made these verses to imitate such a one, naming him:

Hermit hoar, in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening gray;
Strike thy bosom sage! and tell,
What is bliss, and which the way?

Thus I spoke, and speaking sigh'd,
Scarce repress'd the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied,

Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

I could give another comical instance of caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega,

Se acquien los leones vence
Vence una muger hermosa
O el de flaco averguence
O ella di ser mas furiosa,

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed, "that they were founded on a trivial conceit; and that conceit ill-explained, and ill-expressed beside.-The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as the lion does: 'tis a mere play

of words (added he), and you might as well say, that

If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
"Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father."

And this humour is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who commended the following line:

Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free.

"To be sure (said Dr. Johnson),

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was shown by him perpetually in the course of conversation.-When the French verses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus,

Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,

Pour vous faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs,
Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux;

he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a moment,

I am Cassandra come down from the sky,
To tell each by-stander what none can deny,
That I am Cassandra come down from the sky.

The pretty Italian verses too, at the end of

Baretti's book, called "Easy Phraseology," he did all' improviso, in the same manner:

Viva! viva la padrona!
Tutta bella, e tutta buona,
La padrona e un angiolella
Tutta buona e tutta bella;
Tutta bella e tutta buona;
Viva! viva la padrona!

Long may live my lovely Hetty!
Always young and always pretty,
Always pretty, always young,
Live my lovely Hetty long!
Always young and always pretty;
Long may live my lovely Hetty!

The famous distich too, of an Italian improvisatore, who, when the duke of Modena ran away from the comet in the year 1742 or 1743,

Se al venir vestro i principi sen' vanno
Deh venga ogni di-durate un anno;

"which (said he) would do just as well in our language thus;

If at your coming princes disappear,

Comets! come every day-and stay a year."

When some one in company commended the verses of M. de Benserade à son Lit;

Theatre des ris et des pleurs,
Lit! ou je nais, et ou je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins,
Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins,

To which he replied without hesitating,

"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may shew
Of human bliss to human woe."

The inscription on the collar of sir Joseph Banks's goat which had been on two of his adventurous expeditions with him, and was then, by the humanity of her amiable master, turned out to graze in Kent, as a recompense for her utility and faithful service, was given me by Johnson in the year 1777, I think, and I have never yet seen it printed.

Perpetui, ambita, bis terra, premia lactis,
Hæc habet altrici Capra secunda Jovis.

The epigram written at lord Anson's house many years ago, "where (says Mr. Johnson) I was well received and kindly treated, and with the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master of the house before I had left it an hour," has been falsely printed in many papers since his death. I wrote it down from his own lips one evening in August 1772, not neglecting the little preface, accusing himself of making so graceless a return for the civilities shewn him. He