d sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment....
His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in
his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have
studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear. But
with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.' Johnson's
_Works_, viii. 458, 462. Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 371) tells why
'Dr. Johnson despised Young's quantity of common knowledge as
comparatively small. 'Twas only because, speaking once upon the subject
of metrical composition, he seemed totally ignorant of what are called
rhopalick verses, from the Greek word, a club--verses in which each word
must be a syllable longer than that which goes before, such as:

Spes deus aeternae stationis conciliator.'

[731] He had said this before. _Ante_, ii. 96.

[732]

'Brunetta's wise in actions great and rare,
But scorns on trifles to bestow her care.
Thus ev'ry hour Brunetta is to blame,
Because th' occasion is beneath her aim.
Think nought a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountains, moments make the year,
And trifles life. Your care to trifles give,
Or you may die before you truly live.'

_Love of Fame_, Satire vi. Johnson often taught that life is made up of
trifles. See _ante_, i. 433.

[733]

"But hold," she cries, "lampooner, have a care;
Must I want common sense, because I'm fair?"
O no: see Stella; her eyes shine as bright,
As if her tongue was never in the right;
And yet what real learning, judgment, fire!
She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire:
How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair)
Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear?
We grant that beauty is no bar to sense,
Nor is't a sanction for impertinence.

_Love of Fame_, Satire v.

[734] Johnson called on Young's son at Welwyn in June, 1781. _Ante_, iv.
119. Croft, in his _Life of Young_ (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 453), says
that 'Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed with more ill-nature than
wit in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called _The Card_,
under the name of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby.'

[735] _Memoirs of Philip Doddridge_, ed. 1766, p. 171.

[736] So late as 1783 he said 'this Hanoverian family is isolee here.'
_Ante_, iv. 165.

[737] See _ante_, ii. 81, where he hoped that 'this gloom of infidelity