dies, legis qua docta supernae
       Spes hominum et curas gens procul esse jubet.
     Ut precibus justas avertat numinis iras,
       Et summi accendat pectus amore boni.
     Ponti inter strepitus non sacri munera cultus
       Cessarunt, pietas hic quoque cura fuit.
     Nil opus est oeris sacra de turre sonantis
       Admonitu, ipsa suas nunciat hora vices.
     Quid, quod sacrifici versavit foemina libros?
       Sint pro legitimis pura labella sacris.
     Quo vagor ulterius? quod ubique requiritur hic est,
       Hic secura quies, hic et honestus amor.

Mr. Croker says of the third line from the end, that in a copy of these verses in Johnson’s own hand which he had seen, ’Johnson had first written

     Sunt pro legitimis pectora pura sacris.

He then wrote

     Legitimas faciunt pura labella preces.

That line was erased, and the line as it stands in the Works is substituted in Mr. Langton’s hand, as is also an alteration in the 16th line, velit into jubet.’ Jubet however is in the copy as printed by Boswell.  Mr. Langton edited some, if not all, of Johnson’s Latin poems. (Ante, iv. 384.)

[878] ’Boswell, who is very pious, went into the chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste for fear of spectres.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 173.

[879] Ante p. 169.

[880] John Gerves, or John the Giant, of whom Dr. Johnson relates a curious story; Works ix. 119.

[881] Lord Chatham in the House of Lords, on Nov. 22, 1770, speaking of ’the honest, industrious tradesman, who holds the middle rank, and has given repeated proofs that he prefers law and liberty to gold,’ had said:—­’I love that class of men.  Much less would I be thought to reflect upon the fair merchant, whose liberal commerce is the prime source of national wealth.  I esteem his occupation, and respect his character.’ Parl.  Hist. xvi. 1107.

[882] See ante, iii. 382.

[883] He was born in Nordland in Sweden, in 1736.  In 1768 he and Mr. Banks accompanied Captain Cook in his first voyage round the world.  He died in 1782.  Knight’s Eng.  Cyclo. v. 578.  Miss Burney wrote of him in 1780:—­’My father has very exactly named him, in calling him a philosophical gossip.’  Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 305.  Horace Walpole the same year, just after the Gordon Riots, wrote (Letters, vii. 403):—­’Who is secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind?  How I abominate Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions amongst them! not even that poor little speck could escape European restlessness.’  See ante ii. 148.