without visible disagreement, till at last Luxury betrayed her charge, and let in Disease, to seize upon her worshippers. Rest then flew away, and left the place to the usurpers, who employed all their arts to fortify themselves in their possession, and to strengthen the interest of each other. Thus Rest and Labor perceived their reign to be of short duration and uncertain tenure, and their empire liable to inroads from those who were alike enemies to both. They each found their subjects unfaithful, and ready to desert them upon every opportunity. Labor saw the riches which he had given always carried away as an offering to Rest, and Rest found her votaries in every exigence flying from her to beg help of Labor. They, therefore, at last determined upon an interview, in which they agreed to divide the world between them, and govern it alternately, allotting the dominion of the day to one, and that of the night to the other, and promised to guard the frontiers of each other; so that, whenever hostilities were attempted, Satiety should be intercepted by Labor, and Lassitude expelled by Rest. Thus the ancient quarrel was appeased. Rest, united to Labor, gave birth to Health, a benevolent goddess, who consolidated the union of her parents and contributed to the regular vicissitudes of their reign, by dispensing her gifts to those only who shared their lives in just proportions between Rest and Labor. JOHNSON. 47. Death. O DEATH, with what an eye of desperate lust, Mankind! Ah, thou hadst been the terror long, None could escape thee! In thy dungeon house, And all of horrible and deadly name, Thou satt'st, from age to age, insatiate, And drank the blood of men, and gorged their flesh, The blood Of nations could not slake thy parchéd throat. For human prey. Gold, beauty, virtue, youth, To soften thy heart of stone. The infant's blood Each son of Adam's family beheld, With scythe, and dart, and strength invincible, He turned aside; he drowned himself in sleep, Read deep in science and philosophy, To fortify his soul; heard lectures prove Vile worm, that gnawed Of earthly bloom, cloud of his noonday sky, In thy unveiled caves, and solitudes And on thy maw eternal Hunger seized. Nor yet, sad monster, wast thou left alone. POLLOX 48. The Bashful Man. I LABOR under a species of distress, which, I fear, will at length drive me utterly from that society in which I am most ambitious to appear. But I shall give you a short sketch of my origin and present situation, by which you will be enabled to judge of my difficulties. -- My father was a farmer of no great property, and with no other learning than what he had acquired at a charity school; but my mother being dead, and I an only child, he determined to give me a liberal education, an advantage which he fancied would make me happy. I was sent to a country grammar school, and from thence to the university, with a view of qualifying me for holy orders. Here, having but a small allowance from my father, and being naturally of a timid and bashful disposition, I had no opportunity of rubbing off that native awkwardness which is the fatal cause of all my unhappiness, and which I now begin to fear can never be amended. You must know that in my person I am tall and thin, with a fair complexion, and light, flaxen hair; but of such extreme susceptibility of shame, that, on the smallest subject of confusion, the blood all rushes into my cheeks, and I appear a perfect, full-blown rose. The consciousness of this unhappy failing made me avoid society, and I became enamored of a college life, particularly when I reflected that the uncouth manners of my father's family were little calculated to improve my outward conduct. I therefore had resolved on living at the university, and taking pupils, when two unexpected events greatly altered the posture of my affairs; namely, my father's death, and the arrival of an uncle from the Indies. This uncle I had very rarely heard my father mention, and it was generally believed that he was long since dead; yet he arrived in England only a week too late to close his brother's eyes. My uncle was but little affected, for he had been separated from his brother more than thirty years; and in that time he had acquired a fortune which he used to brag would make a nabob happy; in short, he had brought over with him the enormous sum of thirty thousand pounds, and upon this he built his hopes of never-ending happiness. Enamored, charmed, captivated, delighted. Uncouth, odd, strange, unusual, not rendered pleasing by familiarity, very awkward. |