Select Essays - 2 Author:Samuel Johnson Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1889 Original Publisher: Dent Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can... more » select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: No. 185. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1751. At mndicta bonum irita jucundius ipsa, Nempe hoc indocii.- Chrysippus non dicit idem, nec mite Thaletis Ingenium, dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto, Qui par tem acceptce sceva inter -vincla Cicutet Accusatori noil ft dare. Quippe minuti Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Ultio. -- Jwl But O I revenge is sweet, Thus think the crowd ; who, eager to engage, Take quickly fire, and kindle into rage. Not so mild Thales nor Chrysippus thought, Nor that good man, who drank the pois'nous draught With mind serene ; and could not wish to see His vile accuser drink as deep as he : Exalted Socrates ! divinely brave ! Injur'd he fell, and dying he forgave, Too noble for revenge ; which still we find The weakest frailty of a feeble mind. -- DRYDEX.2 )O vicious dispositions of the mind more obstinately resist both the counsels of philosophy and the injunctions of religion, than those which are complicated with an opinion of dignity ; and which we cannot dismiss without leaving in the hands of opposition some advantage iniquitously obtained, 1 Juvenal, Satires, xiii. 180. 2 It was not Dryden, but Creech, who translated this Satire. -- See Johnson's Works, vii. 332. or suffering from our own prejudices some imputation of pusillanimity. For this reason scarcely any law of our Redeemer is more openly transgressed, or more industriously evaded, than that by which he commands his followers to forgive injuries, and prohibits, under the sanction of eternal misery, the gratif1cation of the desire which every man feel...« less