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'Inglorious or by wants inthralled, To college and old books confined, A pedant from his learning called, Dunces advanced, he's left behind.' |
[80] Bentley, in the preface to his edition of Paradise Lost, says:—
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'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.' |
[81] The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend, and whispered him, 'What say you to this?—eh? flabby, I think.' BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 279), says:—'Smith's voice was harsh and enunciation thick, approaching to stammering. His conversation was not colloquial, but like lecturing. He was the most absent man in company that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling in the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie and made him attend to the subject of conversation, he immediately began a harangue, and never stopped till he told you all he knew about it, with the utmost philosophical ingenuity.' Dugald Stewart (Life of Adam Smith, p. 117) says that 'his consciousness of his tendency to absence rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed in the company of strangers.' But 'to his intimate friends, his peculiarities added an inexpressible charm to his conversation, while they displayed in the most interesting light the artless simplicity of his heart.' Ib. p. 113. See also Walpole's Letters, vi. 302, and ante, ii. 430, note 1.
[82] Garrick himself was a good deal of an infidel: see ante, ii. 85, note 7.
[83] Ante, i. 181.
[84] The Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In The Rambler, No. 127, Johnson writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and left emulation panting behind.' He quotes (Works, vii. 261) the following couplet by Dryden:—
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'Fate after him below with pain did move, And victory could scarce keep pace above.' |
Young in The Last Day, book I, had written:—
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'Words all in vain pant after the distress.' |