And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, —

Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain;

10

Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;

Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;

Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brewed,

In the grim evening sky.

Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,

15

At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes

Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day

With a continual flow. The cherished fields

Put on their winter robe of purest white :

'T is brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods

Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is;
Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,

Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next, the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

Spring

(From The Seasons)

Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts :
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless; so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill engulfed
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous Sun,

And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
The expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold;
But, full of life and vivifying soul,

Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin,

Fleecy, and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs, and unconfined,
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.
Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives

Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers

Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough
Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost.
There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark.
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes the obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work and sidelong lays the glebe.
White, through the neighboring fields the sower stalks,
With measured step; and liberal, throws the grain
Into the faithful bosom of the ground:

The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield

FEBRUARY 7, 1755.

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

MY LORD,

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is rec-5 ommended to the public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 10 Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to

wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; that I might obtain that regard for which I 15 saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had 20 done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through diffi25 culties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.

30

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice 35 which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity, not to confess 40 obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obliga45 tion to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less;

for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,

I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the 5 menaces of a ruffian.

What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your 10 Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.

SAM JOHNSON.

A Dissertation on the Art of Flying

(From Rasselas, Chap. VI)

Among the artists that had been allured into the happy valley, to labor for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many engines both of use and recreation. By a wheel, which the stream turned, 5 he forced the water into a tower, whence it was distributed