[666] [Greek: Augon ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]
'Celestial powers! that piety regard,
From you my labours wait their last reward.'
A modification of the Greek line is engraved on the scroll in Johnson's monument in St. Paul's (post, Dec. 1784).
[667] 'The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity…. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment.' Rambler, No. 208.
[668] I have little doubt that this attack on the concluding verse is an indirect blow at Hawkins, who had quoted the whole passage, and had clearly thought it the more 'awful' on account of the couplet. See Hawkins's Johnson, p. 291.
[669] In the original Raleigh's.
[670] The italics are Boswell's.
[671] Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. BOSWELL.
[672] 'In 1750, April 5, Comus was played for her benefit. She had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was theatre was offered her. The profits of the night were only £130, though Dr. Newton brought a large contribution; and £20 were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named…. This was the greatest benefaction that Paradise Lost ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of contributing a Prologue.' Johnson's Works, vii. 118. In the Gent. Mag. (xx. 152) we read that, as on 'April 4, the night first appointed, many in convenient circumstances happened to disappoint the hopes of success, the managers generously quitted the profits of another night, in which the theatre was expected to be fuller. Mr. Samuel Johnson's prologue was afterwards printed for Mrs. Foster's benefit.'
[673] Johnson is thinking of Pope's lines—