If I have thoughts and can't express 'em,
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em
In terms select and terse;
Jones teach me modesty--and Greek;
Smith how to think; _Burke_ how to speak, Burk
And Beauclerk to converse.
Let Johnson teach me how to place
In fairest light each borrowed grace,
From him I'll learn to write;
free and easy Copy his _clear and easy_ style, clear
And from the roughness of his file, familiar
like Grow _as_ himself--polite.' like
Horace Walpole, on Dec. 27, 1775, speaks of these verses as if they were
fresh. 'They are an answer,' he writes, 'to a gross brutality of Dr.
Johnson, to which a properer answer would have been to fling a glass of
wine in his face. I have no patience with an unfortunate monster
trusting to his helpless deformity for indemnity for any impertinence
that his arrogance suggests, and who thinks that what he has read is an
excuse for everything he says.
Pages:
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545