Remove his marble, and his genius dies:
With nature then no breathing statue vies.
Whate'er I plan, I feel my pow'rs confin'd
By fortune's frown, and penury of mind.
I boast no knowledge, glean'd with toil and strife,
That bright reward of a well acted life.
I view myself, while reason's feeble light
Shoots a pale glimmer through the gloom of night;
While passions, error, phantoms of the brain,
And vain opinions, fill the dark domain;
A dreary void, where fears, with grief combin'd,
Waste all within, and desolate the mind.

What then remains? Must I, in slow decline,
To mute inglorious ease old age resign?
Or, bold ambition kindling in my breast,
Attempt some arduous task? Or, were it best,
Brooding o'er lexicons to pass the day,
And in that labour drudge my life away?

Such is the picture for which Dr. Johnson sat to himself. He gives the
prominent features of his character; his lassitude, his morbid
melancholy, his love of fame, his dejection, his tavern-parties, and his
wandering reveries, "Vacuae mala somnia mentis," about which so much has
been written; all are painted in miniature, but in vivid colours, by his
own hand. His idea of writing more dictionaries was not merely said in
verse. Mr. Hamilton, who was at that time an eminent printer, and well
acquainted with Dr. Johnson, remembers that he engaged in a Commercial
Dictionary, and, as appears by the receipts in his possession, was paid
his price for several sheets; but he soon relinquished the undertaking.