An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire of Auchinleck -- Addressed to the Rev. Dr. T. D. By the Rev. Samuel Martin |
 |
 | An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire |  |
The rude, the trifling, the profound, the odd see,
In Pindar's Bozzy vying with Piozzi,
The bear led by a man, at Lord Affleck's,
The Ursa Major paying his respects:
Who but a bear could say, without a grudge,
Not worth a sous the judgment of the judge.
In Pindar's Bozzy vying with Piozzi,
The bear led by a man, at Lord Affleck's,
The Ursa Major paying his respects:
Mr. Boswell acknowledges, that Lord Auchinleck called Mr. Johnson the Ursa Major, though he denied that the circulated occasion of it was the real. Till his son contradicted it, the good story was told thus: “After Mr. Johnson had left Lord Auchinleck's house in Ayrshire, Lord Auchinleck said: James, you told me this man was not a star of the first magnitude in the literary world only, but a very constellation of stars: You are perfectly right, James, and his name is the Ursa Major.”
Who but a bear could say, without a grudge,
Not worth a sous the judgment of the judge.
| An Epistle in Verse, occasioned by the death of James Boswell, Esquire | |