He would give, even though his charity might be misused.

"Life is a pill (he would say) which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to show even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." In pursuance of these principles he nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils against which his little income could secure them.

He was surrounded with friends who loved and reverenced him,-Goldsmith, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Garrick, and Burney, and many others who live again in the marvellous pages of Boswell.

For the remainder of Johnson's life a few words must suffice. He wrote only one other great work, the Lives of the Poets. In 1773 he went with Boswell to the Hebrides, with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to Wales in 1774, and he paid with them a short visit to Paris in the following year.

In 1781 his old friend Mr. Thrale died, and in December, 1784, his own end came. He was laid in the Abbey, where his friend Garrick had already preceded him.

Gesticulations.

66

Motions of the The degree which the university body or limbs. conferred upon him. The degree Twickenham. Then а village, of LL.D. (Doctor of Laws). now a town, on the north A tragedy. His Irene ". bank of the Thames, nearly His own satire. "The Vanity of opposite Richmond. It was the home of the poet Pope. Folios. Big books. A folio is, strictly speaking, a book, each leaf of which is half a sheet.

Human Wishes," which contains such lines as these:

"There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron

and the jail.

See nations slowly wise and
meanly just,

were fellow-townsmen, and they left Lichfield for London together.

To buried merit raise the tardy Thrale. A well-known London

bust."

Garrick. Probably the greatest of
English actors. He and Johnson

brewer. His brewery was in Southwark, where the brewery of Barclay and Perkins now stands.

COMPOSITION.-Write a brief life of Dr. Johnson.

LESSON 35.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771), a poet whose work makes up in quality for what it lacks in quantity, was born in London, and educated at Eton and Cambridge. His quiet life was spent in the loved society of his mother and aunt at Stoke Pogis, in learned leisure at his old university, and in travel both in Britain and on the continent. The letters which he wrote to his friends are some of the best in the language, for quickness of vision, clearness of description, and gentle humour. He says that in his poems he aimed at a style which should be marked by "extreme conciseness of expression," and yet be " pure, perspicuous, and musical". By their variety of form and allusions to nature they show that men were beginning to break away from the authority of Pope, and growing more and more prepared for the coming of Wordsworth.

1. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

3. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

10. Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

11. Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

12. Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll,
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

14. Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: