4G4 LONDON STREETS. 



wafted the gallery at least as far as the river. I should not have 

 wished it to go farther. 



' By being seldom seen, I could not stir, 



But, like a comet, I was wonder'd at: 



* ##*##- 



Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, 



My presence, like a robe pontifical, 



Ne'er seen but wonder'd at ; and so my state, 



Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast : 



And won by rareness such solemnity. 



The skipping king, who ambles up and down 



With shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits 



* discards his state, 



And mingles royalty with capering fools, 



Has his great name profaned with their scorns 



* * * * * * 



And being daily swallow'd by men's eyes, 



They surfeit with the honey, and begin 



To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little 



More than a little is by much too much : 



So when he has occasion to be seen, 



He is but as the cuckoo is in June, 



Heard, not regarded : seen, but not with eyes 



*#*#### 



Such as are bent on sun-like majesty 

 When it shines seldom.' " 



" Such ideas of kingly dignity may accord with the notions of a 

 secluded scholar one whose mind is a repertorium of distant tra- 

 ditions : for my own part, I dislike political mysteries; and I would 

 love and revere my sovereign, not as an eastern satrap, but as a 

 man who lends dignity to the kingly office, as well as receives im- 

 portance from it ' Ov HOVQV c?f>X>) arfym beiKi'vaiv, a\\a /cat 



" Well, practical politics I abominate ; yet I own I am fond of 

 indulging in reverie on them. What a degradation is here ! Gerard 

 Street*' faH'n,falPn, fall'n fall'n from its high estate," and portioned 

 off into lodging-houses. Johnson and Savage, and the Countess of 

 Macclesfield vice and criminality genius and poverty intellect 

 and immorality ! And yet Savage was his own worst enemy ! al- 

 though Johnson, in this, one of his best biographies, has loaded the 

 Countess with all the odium which their midnight and hungry ram- 

 bles was sure to excite in his breast. Yet Savage had the means of 

 living in independence within his reach. His curse was that which 

 too often shrouds genius in misery a feeling of his own powers, 

 and a disregard for worldly prudence ; as if talent and genius were 

 to be independent of all moral and social obligations. He well 

 describes himself: 



* Born to himself, by no possession led, 



In freedom foster'd, and by fortune fed ; 



Nor guides, nor rules, his sov'reign choice control ; 



His body independent as his soul : 



