Part 2 / Act 3 — SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Reading edition
1709-1784.
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
Each exchange of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new, And panting time toiled after him in vain.
For we that live to please must please to live.
Vanity of Human Wishes.
Line 1.
Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru.[19]
Line 159.
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail— Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Line 221.
He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Line 257.
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.
Line 306.
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
Line 318.
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show.
Line 346.
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.
London. Line 166.
Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
Line 176.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.
How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
From Dr. Madden's "Boulter's Monument."
Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson. 1745.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.