uit, amata
Sum tibi; vixisti dum tuus ignis eram.
Cui Nemesis, quid, ait, tibi sint mea damna dolori?
Me tenuit moriens deficiente manu. Am. Lib. in. El. ix. 56.

Blest was my reign, retiring Cynthia cry'd;
Not till he left my breast, Tibullus dy'd.
Forbear, said Nemesis, my loss to moan,
The _fainting trembling hand_ was mine alone.

The beauty of this passage, which consists in the appropriation made by
Nemesis of the line originally directed to Cynthia, had been wholly
imperceptible to succeeding ages, had chance, which has destroyed so
many greater volumes, deprived us likewise of the poems of Tibullus.

[1] The obscurity of this philosopher's style is complained of by
Aristotle in his treatise on Rhetoric, iii. 5. We make the reference
with the view of recommending to attention the whole of that book,
which is interspersed with the most acute remarks, and with rules of
criticism founded deeply on the workings of the human mind. It is
undervalued only by those who have not scholarship to read it, and
surely merits this slight tribute of admiration from an Editor of
Johnson's works, with whom a Translation of the Rhetoric was long a
favourite project.

No. 62. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1753.

_O fortuna viris, invida fortibus
Quam non aequa bonis praemia dividis._ SENECA.

Capricious Fortune ever joys,
With partial hand to deal the prize,
To crush the brave and cheat the wise.

TO THE ADVENTURER.

Fleet, June 6.

SIR,

To the account of such of my companions as are imprisoned without being
miserable, or are miserable without any claim to compassion, I promised
to add the histories of those, whose virtue has made them unhappy or
whose misfortunes are at least without a crime. That this catalogue
should be very numerous, neither you nor your readers ought to expect:
_rari quippe boni_; "the good are few." Virtue is uncommon in all the
classes of humanity; and I suppose it will scarcely be imagined more
frequent in a prison than in other places.

Yet in these gloomy regions is to be found the tenderness, the
generosity, the philanthropy of Serenus, who might have lived in
competence and ease, if he could have looked without emotion on the
miseries of another. Serenus was one of those exalted minds, whom
knowledge and sagacity could not make suspicious; who poured out his
soul in boundless intimacy, and thought community of possessions