advocated, "that there had been no _strong_ poetry in Britain since
the two satires of Johnson;" and we are still further from classing
their author with the Shakspeares, Miltons, Wordsworths, and
Coleridges of song; but we are nevertheless prepared, not only for the
sake of these two satires, of his prologue, and of some other pieces
in verse, but on account of the general spirit of much of his prose,
to pronounce him potentially, if not actually, a great poet.

* * * * *

JOHNSON'S POEMS.


LONDON:

A POEM IN IMITATION OF THE THIRD SATIRE OF JUVENAL, 1738.

"--Quis ineptæ
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se?"

--JUVENAL.

Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel
When injured Thales[1] bids the town farewell,
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend;
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend;
Resolved, at length, from vice and London far,
To breathe in distant fields a purer air,
And, fix'd on Cambria's solitary shore,
Give to St David one true Briton more.