Dr Johnson:his Life & Times

  No. CLXII. Tuesday, October 5, 1751

  Orbus es, et locuples, et Bruto consule natus,

  Este tibi veras credis amicitias !

  Sunt verae; sed quas Juvenis,quas pauper habeas,

  Quis novus est, mortem diligit ille tuam.. Mart.

  What ! Old, and rich, and childless too,

  And yet believe your friends are true !

  Truth might perhaps to those belong,

  To those who loved you poor and young;

  But, trust me, for the new you have,

  They’ll love you dearly - in your grave. F. Lewis

One of the complaints uttered by Milton’s Samson, in the anguish of blindness, is, that he shall pass his life under the direction of others; that he cannot regulate his conduct by his own knowledge, but must lie at the mercy of those who undertake to guide him.

There is no state more contrary to the dignity of wisdom than perpetual and unlimited dependence, in which the understanding lies useless, and every motion is received from external impulse. Reason is the great distinction of human nature, the faculty by which we approach to some degree of association with celestial intelligences; but as the excellence of every power lies only in its operation, not to have reason, and to have it useless and unemployed, is nearly the same. Such is the weakness of man , that the essence of things is seldom so much regarded as external and accidental appendages. A small variation of trifling circumstances, a slight change of form by an artificial dress, or a casual difference of appearance, by a new light and situation, will conciliate affection or excite abhorrence, and determine us to pursue or to avoid. Every man considers a necessity of compliance with any will but his own, as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness; few are so far lost in cowardice or negligence, as not to rouse at the first insult of tyranny, and exert all their force against him who usurps their property, or invades any privilege of speech or action. Yet we see often those who never wanted spirit to

repel encroachment or oppose violence, at last, by a gradual relaxation of vigilance, delivering up, without capitulation, the fortress which they defended against assault, and, laying down unbidden the weapons which they grasped the harder for every attempt to wrest them from their hands. Men eminent for spirit and wisdom, often resign themselves to voluntary pupillage, and suffer their lives to be modelled by officious ignorance, and their choice to be regulated by presumptuous stupidity. This unresisting acquiescence in the determination of others may be the consequence of application to some study remote from the beaten track of life, some employment which does not allow leisure for sufficient inspection of those petty affairs by which nature has decreed a great part of our duration to be filled.