12. "The suspicion of Dean Swift's irreligion proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of hypocrisy: instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."—Dr. Johnson.
That is a queer apology for a great Moralist to make for a Dean of the Church! It makes out Swift to be the worst of rascals: for it makes him more regardful of other men's opinions than of his own. It exhibits him as contravening conscience with seeming. Now, to my mind, the mere suspicion of hypocrisy is a far less evil than the positive conviction of it. He was, according to Johnson, afraid of being thought a hypocrite, and so he actually became one!
13. "As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better; and would rather be employed in reading, than in the most agreeable company."—Pope.
It is but a choice of company after all. For my part I verily believe the poet loved both well enough, although the world of books he most affected. He never wrote the "Essay on Man" or the "Dunciad" from the experience of the study, however: men's hearts were the 'books' he read from when he gave those splendid poems birth. The "world of books"—reminds me of
| 14. "Books are a real world, both pure and good, Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness may grow." Wordsworth. |
15. "Oh! who shall tell the glory of the good man's course, when, as his mortal organs are closing upon the world, he is looking forward to the opening brightness of that sun which never sets, shining from out the sapphire gates of Heaven! What earthly simile can your poet or your rhapsodist furnish, to carry to the spirit so rapturous a conception?"—Chalmers.
The simplest similes for such purposes are the best. And it is a beautiful order of our nature, that it furnishes them abundantly for the improvement of the reflective mind. And thus would I assimilate an earthly scene to the rapturous conception of the eloquent divine whom I have quoted. A most beautiful autumn day, free from clouds,—when the varied colored leaves seem willing to fade, with so bright, so warm, so cheerful a sun upon them,—is to me an emblem of the beaming of the sun of righteousness, which, growing brighter as their bodies decay, makes the happiest and holiest spirits willing to die, under an influence so benign.
16. "I walked, I rode, I hunted, I played, I read, I wrote, I did every thing but think. I could not, or rather I would not think. Thinking kept me too long to one point. I could not bear that turning my face to a dead wall. In self defence, to keep me from my thoughts, I flitted from one occupation to another in which my mind could not, if it would, find the least employment or permanent satisfaction. But the world called me a very happy man!"—Bulwer, (I believe.)
Every man has those moments, I imagine, of struggling with his own mind, endeavoring, yet almost impossibly, to fix it upon a single object for any length of time: when it is like a bird in a storm, attempting to alight upon a waving, trembling spray.
17. "But Thomas Moore, albeit but an indifferent biographer, is one of the greatest masters of versification the world has ever known, while in song-writing he is perfectly unrivalled."—Quarterly Review.