Dr Johnson:his Life & Times

No CLXI. TUESDAY OCTOBER 1, 1751

  (Greek characters) Hor.

Frail as the leaves that quiver on the sprays;

Like them man flourishes, like them decays.

Mr. Rambler

  Sir,

You have formerly observed that curiosity often terminates in barren knowledge, and that the mind is prompted to study and enquiry rather by the uneasiness of ignorance than the hope of profit. Nothing can be of less importance to any present interest than the fortune of those who have been long lost in the grave, and from whom nothing now can be hoped or feared. Yet to rouse the zeal of a true antiquary, little more is necessary than to mention a name which mankind have conspired to forget; he will make his way to remote scenes of action through obscurity and contradiction, as Tully sought amidst bushes and brambles the tomb of Archimedes.

  It is not easy to discover how it concerns him that gathers the produce, or receives the rent of an estate, to know through what families the land has passed, who is registered in the Conqueror’s survey as its possessor, how often it has been forfeited by treason, or how often sold by prodigality. The power or wealth of the present inhabitants of a country cannot be much increased by an enquiry after the names of those barbarians who destroyed one another twenty centuries ago in contests, for the shelter of woods or convenience of pasturage. Yet we see that no man can be at rest in the enjoyment of a new purchase till he has learned the history of his grounds from the ancient inhabitants of the parish; and that no nation omits to record the actions of their ancestors, however bloody, savage, and rapacious.

  The same disposition, as different opportunities call it forth, discovers itself in great or little things.. I have

always thought it unworthy of a wise man to slumber in total inactivity, only because he happens to have no employment equal to his ambition or genius.; it is therefore my custom to apply my attention to the objects before me, and as I cannot think any place wholly unworthy of notice that affords a habitation to a man of letters, I have collected the history and antiquities of the several garrets in which I have resided.