The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04Johnson, Samuel
Philosophy
The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04
Johnson, Samuel
Essays
I shall sell them of different sizes, and various
degrees of strength. I have some of a bulk proper
to be hung at the bed's head, as scare-crows, and
some so small that they may be easily concealed.
Some I have ground into oral forms to be hung at
watches; and some, for the curious, I have set in
wedding rings, that ladies may never want an
attestation of their innocence. Some I can produce so
sluggish and inert, that they will not act before the
third failure; and others so vigorous and animated,
that they exert their influence against unlawful
wishes, if they have been willingly and deliberately
indulged. As it is my practice honestly to tell my
customers the properties of my magnets, I can
judge, by their choice, of the delicacy of their
sentiments. Many have been content to spare cost
by purchasing only the lowest degree of efficacy,
and all have started with terrour from those which
operate upon the thoughts. One young lady only
fitted on a ring of the strongest energy, and
declared that she scorned to separate her wishes from
her acts, or allow herself to think what she was
forbidden to practice.
I am, &c.
HERMETICUS.
No. 200. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1752.
Nemo petit, modicis quae mittebantur amicis
A Seneca, quae Piso bonus, quae Cotta solebat
Largiri; namque et titulis, es fascibus olim
Major habebatur dornandi gloria: solum
Poscimus, ut coenes civiliter. Hoc face, et esto,
Esto, ut nunc multi, dives tibi, pauper amicis. Juv. Sat. v.
108.
No man expects (for who so much a sot
Who has the times he lives in so forgot?)
What Seneca, what Piso us'd to send,
To raise or to support a sinking friend.
Those godlike men, to wanting virtue kind,
Bounty well plac'd, preferr'd, and well design'd,
To all their titles, all that height of pow'r,
Which turns the brains of fools, and fools alone adore.
When your poor client is condemn'd t' attend,
'Tis all we ask, to receive him as a friend:
Descend to this, and then we ask no more;
Rich to yourself, to all beside be poor. BOWLES.
TO THE RAMBLER.
MR. RAMBLER,
SUCH is the tenderness or infirmity of many
minds, that when any affliction oppresses them,
they have immediate recourse to lamentation and
complaint, which, though it can only be allowed
reasonable when evils admit of remedy, and then only
when addressed to those from whom the remedy is
expected, yet seems even in hopeless and incurable
distresses to be natural, since those by whom it is
not indulged, imagine that they give a proof of
extraordinary fortitude by suppressing it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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