Boswell, James (1740-1795)

The Hypochondriack, No. 7

April, 1778

"Cicero, upon whose mind the advancing rays of celestial philosophy beamed with a brightness very admirable in a Pagan period of time, before the Sun of Righteousness arose, and shone forth in full splendour upon the world, informs us, in his Tusculan Questions, of a very remarkable interview between Pompey and Posidonius, which does honour to both, and of which he had an account from Pompey himself."

Cicero, upon whose mind the advancing rays of celestial philosophy beamed with a brightness very admirable in a Pagan period of time, before the Sun of Righteousness arose, and shone forth in full splendour upon the world, informs us, in his Tusculan Questions, of a very remarkable interview between Pompey and Posidonius, which does honour to both, and of which he had an account from Pompey himself. In ancient times the eagerness to visit illustrious men was much greater than in the present state of the world; and although this may be explaine by the consideration that books are now much more generally diffused than they were then, so that as the streams of knowledge are conveyed to us in aqueducts, we have not the same reason for approaching the fountains; yet I am inclined not to hold the explanation as quite sufficient, and to allow credit to antiquity for a more generous enthusiasm that the moderns can boast. [...]
(I, p. 150 in SUP edition)

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The Hypochondriack, No. 7 (April, 1778). From The London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer.

See also James Boswell, The Hypochondriack, ed. Margery Bailey, 2 vols. (Stanford UP, 1928)

07/09/2013