_Johannes Secundus_--_Parnel_--_Dr. Johnson._--In Dr. Johnson's _Life of
Parnel_ we find the following passage:--
"I would add that the description of _Barrenness_, in his verses to
Pope, was borrowed from Secundus; but lately searching for the passage
which I had formerly read, I could not find it."
I will first extract Parnel's description, and then the passage of
Secundus; to which, I suppose, Dr. Johnson referred.
"This to my friend--and when a friend inspires,
My silent harp its master's hand requires,
Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound,
For fortune placed me in unfertile ground;
Far from the joys that with my soul agree,
From wit, from learning--far, oh far, from thee!
Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf,
Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf.
Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet,
Rocks at their side, and torrents at their feet;
Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood,
Whose dull brown Naiads ever sleep in mud."
Secundus in his first epistle of his first book (edit. Paris, p. 103.),
thus writes:--
"Me retinet salsis infausta Valachria terris,
Oceanus tumidis quam vagus ambit aquis.
Nulla ubi vox avium, pelagi strepit undique murmur,
Coelum etiam larga desuper urget aqua.
Flat Boreas, dubiusque Notus, flat frigidus Eurus,
Felices Zephyri nil ubi juris habent.
Proque tuis ubi carminibus, Philomena canora,
Turpis in obscoena rana coaxat aqua."