Having given such a specimen of his poetical powers, he was asked by Mr. Jorden to translate Pope's "Messiah" into Latin verse, as a Christmas exercise. He performed it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a manner, that he obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept him high in the estimation of his college, and, indeed, of all the university.

It is said, that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it in. terms of strong approbation. Dr. Taylor told me, that it was first printed for old Mr. Johnson, without the knowledge of his son, who was very angry when he heard of it. A Miscellany of Poems, collected by a person of the name of Husbands, was published at Oxford in 1731.' In that Miscellany, Johnson's Translation of the "Messiah" appeared, with this modest motto from Scaliger's "Poetics," "Ex alieno ingenio poeta, ex suo tantum versificator."

I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and other specimens of Johnson's Latin poetry. I acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a question of such extreme nicety. But I am satisfied with the just and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend Mr. Courtenay.

"And with like ease his vivid lines assume
The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.
Let college verse-men trite conceits express,
Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress;
From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase,
And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays,
Then with mosaic art the piece combine,
And boast the glitter of each dulcet line :
Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse
His vigorous sense into the Latin muse;
Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light,

And with a Roman's ardour think and write.

1 Husbands, in the preface to his Miscellany, says :-" The translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was delivered to his tutor as a college exercise, by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College, in Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original." Husbands was admitted a fellow of Pembroke in 1726.-Editor.

He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire,
And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre:
Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim,
While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name.1
Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands,
To bloom a while, factitious heat demands:
Though glowing Maro a faint warmth supplies,
The sickly blossom in the hot-house dies
By Johnson's genial culture, art, and toil,

Its root strikes deep, and owns the fostering soil;
Imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins,

And grows a native of Britannia's plains.

"2

The "morbid melancholy," which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion to regular life, which at a very early period marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery.3

From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved, and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of GOD! Johnson, who was blessed with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it by dire experience will not envy his exalted en

1 In allusion to the Latin ode written in the island of Skye, and addressed to Mrs. Thrale. See Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 147.Editor.

2 "Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson," by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P.

It is to this state, no doubt, Mr. Hector alludes in his Recollections:"After a long absence from Litchfield, when he returned I was apprehensive of something wrong in his constitution, which might impair either his intellect or endanger his life, but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears have proved false."-Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 8.—Editor.

dowments. That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise' that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock.

Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, strove to overcome it by forcible exertions. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again, and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His expression concerning it to me was, "I did not then know how to manage it." His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen, physician in Lichfield, his godfather, and put into his hands a state of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen was so much struck with the extraordinary acuteness, research, and eloquence of this paper, that in his zeal for his godson he showed it to several people. His daughter, Mrs. Desmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in Dr. Johnson's house in London, told me, that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfen had communicated his case, he was so much offended that he was never afterwards fully reconciled to him. He indeed had good reason to be offended; for though Dr. Swinfen's motive was good, he inconsiderately betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of great delicacy, which had been intrusted to him in confidence; and exposed a complaint of his young friend and patient, which, in the superficial opinion of the generality of mankind, is attended with contempt and disgrace.

But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was an HYPOCHONDRIACK, was subject to what the learned, philosophical, and pious Dr. Cheyne has so well treated under the title of "The English Malady." Though he suffered severely from it, he was not therefore degraded. The powers

1

1 John Paradise, Esq., D.C.L. of Oxford, and F.R.S., was of Greek extraction, the son of the English consul at Salonica, where he was born : he was educated at Padua, but resided the greater part of his life in London; in the literary circles of which he was generally known, and highly esteemed. He became intimate with Johnson in the latter portion of the Doctor's life; was a member of his Essex Street club, and attended his funeral. He died Dec. 12th, 1795.-Croker.

of his great mind might be troubled, and their full exercise suspended at times; but the mind itself was ever entire. As a proof of this, it is only necessary to consider, that, when he was at the very worst, he composed that state of his own case, which showed an uncommon vigour, not only of fancy and taste, but of judgment. I am aware that he himself was too ready to call such a complaint by the name of madness; in conformity with which notion, he has traced its gradations, with exquisite nicety, in one of the chapters of his "Rasselas." But there is surely a clear distinction between a disorder which affects only the imagination and spirits, while the judgment is sound, and a disorder by which the judgment itself is impaired. This distinction was made to me by the late Professor Gaubius1 of Leyden, physician to the Prince of Orange, in a conversation which I had with him several years ago, and he expanded it thus: “ If,” said he, "a man tells me that he is grievously disturbed, for that he imagines he sees a ruffian coming against him with a drawn sword, though at the same time he is conscious it is a delusion, I pronounce him to have a disordered imagination; but if a man tells me that he sees this, and in consternation calls to me to look at it, I pronounce him to be mad."

It is a common effect of low spirits or melancholy, to make those who are afflicted with it imagine that they are actually suffering those evils which happen to be most strongly presented to their minds. Some have fancied themselves to be deprived of the use of their limbs, some to labour under acute diseases, others to be in extreme poverty; when, in truth, there was not the least reality in any of the suppositions; so that, when the vapours were dispelled, they were convinced of the delusion. To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore,

1

Jerome David Gaubius was born at Heidelberg, in 1705. He died in 1780, leaving several works of considerable value. A translation into English of his Institutiones Pathologia Medicinalis appeared in 1779.— Wright.

was the object of his most dismal apprehension; and he fancied himself seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary soundness and vigour of judgment. That his own diseased imagination should have so far deceived him, is strange; but it is stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to depreciate him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this circumstance, and insisted upon it with very unfair aggravation.

Amidst the oppression and distraction of a disease which very few have felt in its full extent, but many have experienced in a slighter degree, Johnson, in his writings, and in his conversation, never failed to display all the varieties of intellectual excellence. In his march through this world to a better, his mind still appeared grand and brilliant, and impressed all around him with the truth of Virgil's noble sentiment—

"Igneus est ollis vigor et cælestis origo."

1 Mr. Boswell was himself occasionally afflicted with this morbid depression of spirits, and was, at intervals, equally liable to paroxysms of what may be called morbid vivacity. He wrote a series of essays in The London Magazine, under the title of the Hypochondriack, seventy in number, commencing in 1777, and carried on till 1783.-Croker.

Jan. 29th, 1791, Boswell writes thus to Mr. Malone :-"I have, for some weeks, had the most woful return of melancholy; insomuch that I have not only had no relish of anything, but a continual uneasiness; and all the prospect before me, for the rest of life, has seemed gloomy and hopeless." Again, March 8th :-" "In the night between the last of February and first of this month, I had a sudden relief from the inexplicable disorder, which occasionally clouds my mind and makes me miserable."-From the originals in the possession of Mr. Upcott.-Wright.

2 "Hypochondriacism has been the complaint of the good, and the wise, and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the best French comedy after Molière, was atrabilious, and Molière himself saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all, more or less, affected by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs."-Byron, vol. vi. p. 396.— Wright.

3 Æn. vi. 730.