Select Essays of Dr Johnson - 1889 Author:Samuel Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: No. 24. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1750. Nemo in sese tentat descenders.—Persius. l None, none descends into himself.—Dryden. 1MONG the precepts, or aphorisms... more », admitted by general consent, and inculcated by frequent repetition, there is none more famous among the masters of ancient wisdom, than that compendious lesson, FvH1O1 otavrbv?Beacquaintedwiththyself; ascribed by some to an oracle, and by others to Chilo of Lacedemon. This is, indeed, a dictate, which, in the whole extent of its meaning, may be said to comprise all the speculation requisite to a moral agent. For what more can be necessary to the regulation of life, than the knowledge of our original, our end, our duties, and our relation to other beings ? It is however very improbable that the first author, whoever he was, intended to be understood in this unlimited and complicated sense ; 1 Satires, iv. 23. " None, none descends into himself, to find The secret imperfections of his mind." Dryden, Aldine ed., vol. v., p. 191. 2 In a Latin poem which Johnson wrote with this title, on the completion of his Dictionary,' " he has left," says Arthur Murphy, " a picture of himself, drawn with as much truth, and as firm a hand as can be seen in the portraits of Hogarth or Sir Joshua Reynolds."—Murphy's Essay on Johnson, p. 82. The poem is given in Johnson's Worhs, i. 164. for of the inquiries, which in so large an acceptation it would seem to recommend, some are too extensive for the powers of man, and some require light from above, which was not yet indulged to the heathen world. We might have had more satisfaction concerning the original import of this celebrated sentence, if history had informed us, whether it was uttered as a general instruction to mankind, or as a particular caution to some private...« less