[Notes: _Dr. Samuel Johnson_, born 1709, died 1784 By hard and unaided
toil he won his way to the front rank among the literary men of his day.
He deserves the honour of having been the first to free literature from
the thraldom of patronage.


_Filial piety_. Piety is used here not in a religious sense, but in its
stricter sense of dutifulness. In Virgil "the Pious Aneas" means "Aneas
who showed dutifulness to his father."]




* * * * *




THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG LADY.


"Alas!" exclaimed a silver-headed sage, "how narrow is the
utmost extent of human knowledge! I have spent my life in acquiring
knowledge, but how little do I know! The farther I attempt to penetrate
the secrets of nature, the more I am bewildered and benighted. Beyond
a certain limit all is but conjecture: so that the advantage of the
learned over the ignorant consists greatly in having ascertained how