So burdensome, still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind,
By owing, owes not, but still pays; at once
Indebted and discharged: what burden then!
O had his powerful destiny ordained

Me some inferior angel! I had stood

Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition. Yet why not? some other power,

As great, might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within

Or from without, to all temptations armed.

Hadst thou (a) the same free-will and power to stand?Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then, or what to accuse, But Heaven's free love, dealt equally to all. :

Be then his Love accursed! since love or hate

To me alike it deals eternal woe.

Nay, cursed be thou! (a) since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I flee
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair!
Which way I flee is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep; a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
O then at last Relent
Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by Submission! and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts,
Than to submit boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ah me! they little know
How dearly I abide (b) that boast, so vain
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell:
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall only supreme
In misery -Such joy Ambition finds!
But say (c) I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon

Would height recal high thoughts? how soon unsay (d)

(a) Satan is here addressing himself.

(b) Abide, bear, or support the consequences of it.

(c) Say, Suppose, take for granted.

(d) Unsay, recul, retract, recant, deny.

What faint submission swore? Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void;
For never can true Reconcilement grow

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse,
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher therefore, as far

From granting He, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus behold instead
Of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewel Hope, and with hope, farewel Fear-
Farewel Remorse all good, to me, is lost;
Evil, be thou my good! by thee, at least
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold-
And more than Half perhaps will reign;

As Man, ere long, and this New-world, shall know.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost, Book IV.

Sterne b. 1713; d. 1768.

An Account of Sterne, by Sir W. Scott, may be found among

the Pieces after VIII Lecture.

The Starling;

with some Reflections on
Liberty and Slavery.

As for the Bastile

the terror is in the word

Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile

is but another word for a Tower

and a Tower is but

do

another word for a House you can't get out of (Mercy on the Gouty for they are in it twice a year!) but with Nine Livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may very well within at least for a month, or six-weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a coloring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she herself has magnified and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them. 'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition the Bastile is not an evil to be despised but, strip it of its towers fill up the fosse unbarricade the doors call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper, and not of a man, which holds you in it the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

I was interrupted in the heydey of this Soliloquy by a voice which I took to be that of a Child, which complained it could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without further attention.

On my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a Starling, which was hung in a little cage "I can't get out - I can't get out!" said the Starling. I stood looking at the Bird and to every one who came through the passage, it rushed flutteringly to the side towards which they approached it, uttering the same lamentations of its captivity "I can't get out!" said the Starling God help thee! said I, but I will let thee out, cost what it may; so I turned about the cage to get at the door; it was twisted and doubly twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open, without pulling the cage to pieces I took both hands to it: the Bird flew to the place where I was attempting its deliverance, and thrusting its head through the trellis, pressed its breast against it, as if impatient. I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty "No!" said the Starling "I can't get out! I can't get out!" I vow I never had my affections so tenderly awakened nor do I remember any incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to Nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked up stairs,

unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands, in all ages, have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess- addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public and in private worship — whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled! Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent grant me but health, thou Great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion and shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy Divine Providence, upon those heads which are aching for them!

-

I sat

The Bird in its cage pursued me into my room — down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement; I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow creatures, born to no other inheritance than Slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me I took a single captive; and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door, to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away, with long expectation and confinement; and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was, which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish; in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time had the voice of friend, nor kinsman, breathed through his lattice his children but here my heart began to bleed and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

nor

He was sitting upon the ground; upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was, alternately, his chair and bed; a little calendar of small stickswas laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of

these little sticks in his hand, and, with a rusty nail, he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye toward the door

down

then

cast it

shook his head and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle

He gave a deep sigh I saw the iron enter into his

soul

picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

STERNE's Sentimental Journey.

Pope b. 1688; d. 1744.

See Dryden and Pope compared, by Johnson, after VI Lecture.

The Dying Christian, to his Soul.

Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying-
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into Life.

Hark! they whisper- angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!'
What is this absorbs me quite
Steals my senses shuts my sight
Drowns my spirits draws my breath
Tell me, my soul, can this be Death?

O grave, where is thy Victory!

O Death, where is thy Sting!

In one of POPE's Letters to Steele.

Johnson b. 1709; d. 1784.

See Article Johnson after V Lecture.

When Johnson's Dictionary was on the eve of publication Ches terfield furnished The World (a periodical work) with two Essays;