ON MR. JOHNSON'S SEVERAL SHIPWRECKS by THOMAS FLATMAN

HE that has never yet acquainted been
With cruel Chance, nor Virtue naked seen,
Stripp'd from th' advantages (which vices wear)
Of happy, plausible, successful, fair;
Nor learnt how long the low'ring cloud may last,
Wherewith her beauteous face is overcast,
Till she her native glories does recover,
And shines more bright, after the storm is over;
To be inform'd, he need no further go,
Than this Divine Epitome of woe.
In Johnson's Life and Writings he may find,
What Homer in his Odysses design'd,
A virtuous man, by miserable fate,
Rend'red ten thousand ways unfortunate;
Sometimes within a leaking vessel tost,
All hopes of life and the lov'd shore quite lost,
While hidden sands, and eery greedy wave,
With horror gap'd themselves into a grave:
Sometimes upon a rock with fury thrown,
Moaning himself, where none could hear his moan;
Sometimes cast out upon the barren sand,
Expos'd to th' mercy of a barbarous land:
Such was the pious Johnson, till kind Heaven
A blessed end to all his toils had given:
To show that virtuous men, though they appear
But Fortune's sport, are Providence's care.

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