Are what ten thousand envy and adore;
  All, all look up, with reverential awe,
  At crimes that ’scape, or triumph o’er the law;
  While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry—­
  “Nothing is sacred now but villainy “. 
    Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
  Show, there was one who held it in disdain.

[Footnote 207:  Cardinal:  and Minister to Louis XV.]

[Footnote 208:  This couplet alludes to the preachers of some recent Court Sermons of a florid panegyrical character; also to some speeches of a like kind, some parts of both of which were afterwards incorporated in an address to the monarch.]

[Footnote 209:  Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the Life of Cicero.]

[Footnote 210:  Queen Consort to King George II.  She died in 1737.]

[Footnote 211:  A title given to Lord Selkirk by King James II.  He was Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to William III., to George I., and to George II.  He was proficient in all the forms of the House, in which he comported himself with great dignity.]

[Footnote 212:  Referring to Lady M.W.  Montagu and her sister, the Countess of Mar.]

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

(1709-1784.)

XXXIX.  THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

    Published in January, 1749, in order, as was reported, to excite
    interest in the author’s tragedy of Irene.  The poem is written in
    imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal.

  Let observation, with extensive view,
  Survey mankind from China to Peru;
  Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
  And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
  Then say, how hope and fear, desire and hate,
  O’erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
  Where way’ring man, betray’d by vent’rous pride,
  To tread the dreary paths without a guide,
  As treach’rous phantoms in the mist delude,
  Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good;
  How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
  Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice;
  How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress’d,
  When Vengeance listens to the fool’s request. 
  Fate wings with ev’ry wish th’ afflictive dart,
  Each gift of nature, and each grace of art;
  With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
  With fatal sweetness elocution flows;
  Impeachment stops the speaker’s pow’rful breath,
  And restless fire precipitates on death. 
    But, scarce observ’d, the knowing and the bold
  Fall in the gen’ral massacre of gold;
  Wide wasting pest! that rages unconfin’d,
  And crowds with crimes the records of mankind: 
  For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
  For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws: 
  Wealth heap’d on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys,
  The dangers gather as the treasures rise.