Siste viator! 
     Si lepores ingeniique venam benignam,
     Si morum callidissimum pictorem, Unquam es miratus,
     Immorare paululum memoriae
     TOBIAE SMOLLET, M.D. 
     Viri virtutibus hisce
     Quas in homine et cive
     Et laudes et imiteris,
     Haud mediocriter ornati: 
     Qui in literis variis versatus,
     Postquam felicitate sibi propria
     Sese posteris commendaverat,
     Morte acerba raptus
     Anno aetatis 51,
     Eheu:  quam procul a patria! 
     Prope Liburni portum in Italia, Jacet sepultres. 
     Tali tantoque viro, patrueli suo, Cui in decursu lampada
     Se potius tradidisse decuit, Hanc Columnam,
     Amoris, eheu! inane monumentum In ipsis Leviniae ripis,
     Quas versiculis sub exitu vitae illustratas
     Primis infans vagitibus personuit, Ponendam curavit
     JACOBUS SMOLLET de Bonhill.  Abi et reminiscere,
     Hoc quidem honore, Non modo defuncti memoriae,
     Verum etiam exemplo, prospectum esse;
     Aliis enim, si modo digni sint,
     Idem erit virtutis praemium!

     BOSWELL.

[989] Baretti told Malone that, having proposed to teach Johnson Italian, they went over a few stanzas of Ariosto, and Johnson then grew weary.  ’Some years afterwards Baretti said he would give him another lesson, but added, “I suppose you have forgotten what we read before.”  “Who forgets, Sir?” said Johnson, and immediately repeated three or four stanzas of the poem.’  Baretti took down the book to see if it had been lately opened, but the leaves were covered with dust.  Prior’s Malone, p. 160.  Johnson had learnt to translate Italian before he knew Baretti. Ante, i. 107, 156.  For other instances of his memory, see ante, i. 39, 48; iii. 318, note 1; and iv. 103, note 2.

[990] For sixty-eight days he received no letter—­from August 21 (ante, p. 84) to October 28.

[991] Among these professors might possibly have been either Burke or Hume had not a Mr. Clow been the successful competitor in 1751 as the successor to Adam Smith in the chair of Logic.  ’Mr. Clow has acquired a curious title to fame, from the greatness of the man to whom he succeeded, and of those over whom he was triumphant.’  J.H.  Burton’s Hume, i. 351.

[992] Dr. Reid, the author of the Inquiry into the Human Mind, had in 1763 succeeded Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy.  Dugald Stewart was his pupil the winter before Johnson’s visit.  Stewart’s Reid, ed. 1802, p. 38.

[993] See ante, iv. 186.