Select Essays of Dr. Johnson (Volume 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1889 Excerpt: ... No. 71. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1750. Vivere quod propero pauper, nec inutilis attm's, Da veniam; properat vivere nemo satis.--MartX True, sir, to live I haste, your pardon give, For tell me, who makes haste enough to live?--F. Lmra. 'ANY words and sentences are so frequently heard in the mouths of men, that a superficial observer is inclined to believe, that they must contain some primary principle, some great rule of action, which it is proper always to have present to the attention, and by which the use of every hour is to be adjusted. Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no ideas are annexed to the words, and that, according to the old blunder of the followers of Aristotle, their souls are mere times even horror. I consider the sacrifice of the cock as a more certain evidence of the tranquillity of Socrates than his Discourse on Immortality.--Letters of David Hume, p. xxxviii. Johnson, unable to understand a state of mind so unlike his own, maintained that Hume had a vanity in being thought easy.--Boswell's Johnson, iii. 153. 1 Martial, ii. 90, 2. pipes or organs which transmit sounds, but do not understand them. Of this kind is the well-known and well-attested position, that life is short, which may be heard among mankind by an attentive auditor, many times a day, but which never yet within my reach of observation left any impression upon the mind; and perhaps, if my readers will turn their thoughts back upon their old friends, they will find it difficult to call a single man to remembrance, who appear...