[896] Cicero De Finibus, ii. 32.

[897] I have lately observed that this thought has been elegantly expressed by Cowley:—­

     ’Things which offend when present, and affright,
      In memory, well painted, move delight.’

BOSWELL.

The lines are found in the Ode upon His Majesty’s Restoration and Return, stanza 12.  They may have been suggested by Virgil’s lines—­

     ’Revocate animos, maestumque timorem
      Mittite; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.’

Aeneid, i. 202.

[898] Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain.  The present respectable President of the Royal Society was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration, BOSWELL.  Boswell again quotes this passage (which is found in Johnson’s Works, ix. 145), ante, iii. 173.  The President was Sir Joseph Banks, Johnson says in Rasselas, ch. xi:—­’That the supreme being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another is the dream of idle superstition; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience will justify.  He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine will, perhaps, find himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned dishonours at once his reason and religion.’

[899] ’Sir Allan went to the headman of the island, whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds.  He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious require.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 146.

[900] An Account of the Isle of Man.  With a voyage to I-Columb-Kill.  By W. Sacheverell, Esq., late Governour of Man. 1702.

[901] ’He that surveys it [the church-yard] attended by an insular antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an end.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 148.

[902] On quitting the island Johnson wrote:  ’We now left those illustrious ruins, by which Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion.’ Ib. p. 150.

[903] Psalm xc. 4.

[904] Boswell wrote on Nov. 9, 1767:—­’I am always for fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible.  Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 122.  Five weeks later he wrote:—­’I have been as wild as ever;’ and then comes a passage which the Editor has thought it needful to suppress. Ib.p.128.