Sir, it is
amazing how little literature there is in the world.' BOSWELL.
[893] See _ante_, i. 320.
[894] Very near the College, facing the passage which leads to it from
Pembroke Street, still stands an old alehouse which must have been old
in Johnson's time.
[895] This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King's
Scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth
any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change, from an
Epigram by Crashaw:--
'Joann. 2,
'_Aquae in vinum versae.
Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis?
Qua rosa mirantes tam nova mutat aquas?
Numen, convinvae, praesens agnoscite numen,
Nympha pudica_ DEUM _vidit, et erubuit_.' MALONE.
What gave your springs a brightness not their own?
What rose so strange the wond'ring waters flushed?
Heaven's hand, oh guests; heaven's hand may here be known;
The spring's coy nymph has seen her God and blushed.
[896] 'He that made the verse following (some ascribe it to Giraldus
Cambrensis) could adore both the sun rising, and the sun setting, when
he could so cleanly honour King Henry II, then departed, and King
Richard succeeding.
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