The only instances are, in describing London
as the _sink_ of foreign worthlessness:
'----the _common shore_,
Where France does all her filth and ordure pour.'
OLDHAM.
'The _common shore_ of Paris and of Rome.'
JOHNSON.
and,
'No calling or profession comes amiss,
A _needy monsieur_ can be what he please.'
OLDHAM.
'All sciences a _fasting monsieur_ knows.'
JOHNSON.
The particulars which Oldham has collected, both as exhibiting the
horrours of London, and of the times, contrasted with better days, are
different from those of Johnson, and in general well chosen, and well
exprest[343].
There are, in Oldham's imitation, many prosaick verses and bad rhymes,
and his poem sets out with a strange inadvertent blunder:
'Tho' much concern'd to _leave_ my dear old friend,
I must, however, _his_ design commend
Of fixing in the country--.'
[Page 120: The publication of London. A.D. 1738.]
It is plain he was not going to leave his _friend_; his friend was going
to leave _him_. A young lady at once corrected this with good critical
sagacity, to
'Tho' much concern'd to _lose_ my dear old friend.'
There is one passage in the original, better transfused by Oldham than
by Johnson:
'Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit;'
which is an exquisite remark on the galling meanness and contempt
annexed to poverty: JOHNSON'S imitation is,
'Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
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