' He then emphatically broke out in the
words of Shakspeare:--
'Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?'
To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great poet:--
'--therein the patient
Must minister to himself.'
Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application.
On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr.
Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,--
'Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore sano,'
and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly
over, he happened, in the line,
'Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat,'
to pronounce supremum for extremum; at which Johnson's critical ear
instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical
effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit
of the grammarian.
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