THE general sense of mankind, and the practice of the learned in all ages, have given a sanction to biographical history, and concurred to recommend that precept of the wise son of Sirach, in which we are exhorted to ‘'praise famous men, such as by their counsels and by their knowledge of learning were meet for the people,—and were wise and eloquent in their in­structions,—and such as recited verses in writing ^*.'’ In each of these faculties did the person, whose history I am about to write, so greatly excel, that, except for my presumption in the attempt to display his worth, the undertaking may be thought to need no apology; espe­cially if we contemplate, together with his mental endow­ments, those moral qualities which distinguished him, and reflect that, in an age when literary acquisitions and [Page 2] scientific improvements are rated at their utmost value, he rested not in the applause which these pro­cured him; but adorned the character of a scholar and a philosopher with that of a christian.

Justified, as I trust, thus far in the opinion of the reader, I may, nevertheless, stand in need of his ex­cuse; for that, in the narration of facts that respect others, I have oftener spoke of myself, and in my own person, than the practice of some writers will war­rant. To this objection, if any shall please to make it, I answer, that the reverse of wrong is not always right. By the office I have undertaken I stand en­gaged to relate facts to which I was a witness, con­versations in which I was a party, and to record me­morable sayings uttered only to myself. Whoever attends to these circumstances, must, besides the disgust which such an affectation of humility would excite, be convinced, that in some instances, the avoid­ing of egotisms had been extremely difficult, and in many impossible.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the subject of the following memoirs, was the elder of the two sons of Michael Johnson, of the city of Lichfield bookseller, and of Sarah his wife, a sister of Dr. Joseph Ford, a physician of great eminence, and father of the famous Cornelius otherwise called Parson Ford. ^* He was born, as I [Page 3] find it noted in his diary, on the seventh day of Sep­tember, 1709: his brother, named Nathanael, was born some years after. Mr. Johnson was a man of eminence in his trade, and of such reputation in the city abovementioned, that he, more than once, bore, for a year, the office of bailiff or chief magistrate thereof, and discharged the duties of that exalted station with honour and applause. It may here be proper, as it will account for some particulars respect­ing the character of his son Samuel, to mention, that his political principles led him to favour the pretensi­ons of the exiled family, and that though a very honest and sensible man, he, like many others inhabiting the county of Stafford, was a Jacobite.

It may farther be supposed, that he was possessed of some amiable qualities either moral or personal, from a circumstance in his early life, of which evidence is yet remaining. While he was an apprentice at Leek in Staffordshire, a young woman of the same town fell in love with him, and upon his removal to Lichfield fol­lowed him, and took lodgings opposite his house. Her passion was not unknown to Mr. Johnson, but he had no inclination to return it, till he heard that it so affect­ed her mind that her life was in danger, when he visited her, and made her a tender of his hand, but feeling the approach of death, she declined it, and shortly after died, and was interred in Lichfield cathedral. In pity [Page 4] to her sufferings, Mr. Johnson caused a stone to be placed over her grave with this inscription: ‘Here lies the body of
Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a stranger.
She departed this life,
2d of September, 1694.’

The first born child of Mr. Johnson and his wife, their son Samuel, had the misfortune to receive, toge­ther with its nutriment derived from a hired nurse, the seeds of that disease which troubled him through life, the struma, or, as it is called, the king's-evil; for the cure whereof his mother, agreeable to the opinion then entertained of the efficacy of the royal touch, presented him to Queen Anne, who, for the last time, as it is said, that she ever performed that office, with her accustomed grace and benignity administered to the child as much of that healing quality as it was in her power to dispense, and hung about his neck the usual amulet of an angel of gold, with the impress of St. Michael the archangel on the one side, and a ship under full sail on the other. ^* It was probably [Page 5] this-disease that deprived him of the sight of his left eye, for he has been heard to say, that he never re­membered to have enjoyed the use of it.

[Page 6] It may seem a ridiculous attempt to trace the dawn of his poetical faculty so far back as to his very in­fancy; but the following incident I am compelled to mention, as it is well attested, and therefore makes part of his history. When he was about three years old, his mother had a brood of eleven ducklings, which she permitted him to call his own. It hap­pened that in playing about he trod on and killed one of them, upon which running to his mother, he, in great emotion bid her write. Write, child? said she, what must I write? Why write, answered he, so: ‘Here lies good Master Duck,
That Samuel Johnson trod on,
If't had liv'd 'twould have been good luck,
For then there'd been an odd one.’ and she wrote accordingly.

Being arrived at a proper age for grammatical in­struction, he was placed in the free school of Lichfield, of which Mr. Hunter was then master. The progress he made in his learning soon attracted the notice of his teachers; and among other discernible qualities that distinguished him from the rest of the school, he was bold, active and enterprising, so that without affecting it, the seniors in the school looked on him as their head and leader, and readily acquiesced in whatever he proposed or did. There dwelt at Lichfield a gen­tleman of the name of Butt, the father of the reverend Mr. Butt, now a King's Chaplain, to whose house on holidays and in school-vacations he was ever welcome. The children in the family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing, said, [Page 7] ‘'you call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will one day prove a great man.'’

A more particular character of him while a school­boy, and of his behaviour at school, I find in a paper now before me, written by a person yet living, and of which the following is a copy:

In the autumn of the year 1725, he received an invitation from his uncle, Cornelius Ford, to spend a few days with him at his house, which I conjecture to have been on a living of his in one of the counties bor­dering upon Staffordshire; but it seems that the uncle, discovering that the boy was possessed of uncommon parts, was unwilling to let him return, and to make up for the loss he might sustain by his absence from school, became his instructor in the classics, and far­ther assisted him in his studies; so that it was not till the Whitfuntide following, that Johnson went back to Lichfield. Whether Mr. Hunter was displeased to find a visit of a few days protracted into a vacation of many months, or that he resented the interference of another person in the tuition of one of his scholars, and he one of the most promising of any under his care, cannot now be known; but, it seems, that at Johnson's return to Lichfield, he was not received into the school of that city; on the contrary, I am in­formed, by a person who was his school-fellow there, that he was placed in one at Stourbridge in Worces­tershire, under the care of a master named Winkworth, [Page 9] but who, affecting to be thought allied to the Strafford family, assumed the name of Wentworth.

When his school education was finished, his father, whose circumstances were far from affluent, was for some time at a loss how to dispose of him: he took him home, probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard Johnson say, that he himself was able to bind a book. This suspense continued about two years, at the end whereof, a neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbet, hav­ing a son, who had been educated in the same school with Johnson, whom he was about to send to Pem­broke college in Oxford, a proposal was made and accepted, that Johnson should attend this son thither, in quality of assistant in his studies; and accordingly, on the 31st day of October, 1728, they were both en­tered, Corbet as a gentleman-commoner, and Johnson as a commoner.

The college tutor, at that time, was a man named Jordan, whom Johnson, though he loved him for the goodness of his nature, so contemned for the mean­ness of his abilities, that he would oftener risque the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures; nor was he studious to conceal the reason of his absence. Upon occasion of one such imposition, he said to Jor­dan, ‘'Sir, you have sconced me two-pence for non|'attendance at a lecture not worth a penny.'’

Whether it was this discouragement in the outset of their studies, or any other ground of disinclination that moved him to it, is not known, but this is certain, that young Corbet could not brook submission to a man who seemed to be little more learned than himself, and [Page 10] that having a father living, who was able to dispose of him in various other ways, he, after about two years stay, left the college, and went home.

But the case of Johnson was far different: his fortunes were at sea; his title to a stipend was gone, and all that he could obtain from the father of Mr. Corbet, was, an agreement, during his continuance at college, to pay for his commons. With no exhibition, or other means of support in the prosecution of his studies, he had no­thing to depend on, save the assistance of a kind and indulgent parent. At that time the trade of a country bookseller, even in a city where was a cathedral and an incorporation of ecclesiastics, was less profitable than it is now; for though it may be said, that during the reign of Queen Anne, multitudes of controversial books and pamphlets were publishing, yet these yield­ed but small advantage to the mere venders of them: there were then no such publications for the mere amusement of young readers or idle persons as the press now daily sends forth; nor had any bookseller entertained in his mind the project of a circulating library: from hence it is evident, that his father, hav­ing no other means of subsisting himself and his chil­dren, than the ordinary income of his shop, was but little able to afford him any other than a scanty main­tenance.

The want of that assistance, which scholars in gene­ral derive from their parents, relations, and friends, soon became visible in the garb and appearance of Johnson, which, though in some degree concealed by a scholar's gown, and that we know is never deemed the less honourable for being old, was so apparent as to [Page 11] excite pity in some that saw and noticed him. Shall I be particular, and relate a circumstance of his distress, that cannot be imputed to him as an effect of his own extravagance or irregularity, and consequently reflects no disgrace on his memory? He had scarce any change of raiment, and, in a short time after Corbet left him, but one pair of shoes, and those so old, that his feet were seen through them: a gentleman of his college, the father of an eminent clergyman now living, directed a servitor one morning to place a new pair at the door of Johnson's chamber, who, seeing them upon his first go­ing out, so far forgot himself and the spirit that must have actuated his unknown benefactor, that, with all the indignation of an insulted man, he threw them away.

He may be supposed to have been under the age of twenty, when this imaginary indignity was offered him, a period of life at which, so far as concerns the know­ledge of mankind, and the means of improving adverse circumstances, every one has much to learn: he had, doubtless, before this time, experienced ‘'the proud man's contumely;'’ and in this school of affliction might have first had reason to say,—

his spirit was, nevertheless, too great to sink under this depression. His tutor, Jordan, in about a year's space, went off to a living which he had been presented to, upon giving a bond to resign it in favour of a mi­nor, and Johnson became the pupil of Mr. Adams, a person of far superior endowments, who afterwards at­tained a doctor's degree, and is at this time head of his college. Encouraged, by a change so propitious to his [Page 12] studies, he prosecuted them with diligence, attended both public and private lectures, performed his exer­cises with alacrity, and in short, neglected no means or opportunities of improvement. He had at this time a great emulation, to call it by no worse a name, to excel his competitors in literature. There was a young gentleman of his college, named Meekes, whose exer­cises he could not bear to hear commended; and when­ever he declaimed or disputed in the hall, Johnson would retire to the farthest corner thereof, that he might be out of the reach of his voice.

In this course of learning, his favourite objects were classical literature, ethics, and theology, in the latter whereof he laid the foundation by studying the Fa­thers. If we may judge from the magnitude of his Adversaria, which I have now by me, his plan for study was a very extensive one. The heads of science, to the extent of six folio volumes, are copiously branched throughout it; but, as is generally the case with young students, the blank far exceed in number the written leaves.

To say the truth, the course of his studies was far from regular: he read by fits and starts, and, in the intervals, digested his reading by meditation, to which he was ever prone. Neither did he regard the hours of study, farther than the discipline of the college com­pelled him. It was the practice in his time, for a ser­vitor, by order of the master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the door, to en­quire if they were within, and, if no answer was return­ed, to report them absent: Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have insured him from cen­sure; [Page 13] and, farther to be revenged for being disturbed when he was as profitably employed as perhaps he could be, would join with others of the young men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor, who was thus diligent in his duty; and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy-chace, the words in that old ballad,

not seldom to the endangering the life and limbs of the unfortunate victim.

These, and other such levities, marked his behaviour for a short time after his coming to college; but he soon convinced those about him, that he came thither for other purposes than to make sport either for him­self or them. His exercises were applauded, and his tutor was not so shallow a man, but that he could disco­ver in Johnson great skill in the classics, and also a talent for Latin versification, by such compositions as few of his standing could equal. Mr. Jordan taking advan­tage, therefore, of a transgression of this his pupil, the absenting himself from early prayers, imposed on him for a vacation exercise, the task of translating into Latin verse the Messiah of Mr. Pope, which being shewn to the author of the original, by a son of Dr. Arbuthnot, then a gentleman-commoner of Christ-church, and bro­ther of the late Mr. Arbuthnot of the Exchequer-office, was read, and returned with this encomium: ‘'The writer of this poem will leave it a question for poste­rity, whether his or mine be the original.' ^*’ This [Page 14] translation found its way into a miscellany published by subscription at Oxford, in the year 1731, under the name of J. Husbands.

He had but little relish for mathematical learn­ing, and was content with such a degree of know­ledge in physics, as he could not but acquire in the ordinary exercises of the place: his fortunes and circumstances had determined him to no particular course of study, and were such as seemed to exclude him from every one of the learned professions. He, more than once, signified to a friend who had been educated at the same school with him, then at Christ­church, and intended for the bar, an inclination to the practice of the civil or the common law; the for­mer of these required a long course of academical insti­tution, and how to succeed in the latter, he had not learned; ^* but his father's inability to support him [Page 15] checked these wishes, and left him to seek the means of a future subsistence. If nature could be said to have pointed out a profession for him, that of the bar seems to have been it: in that faculty, his acuteness and pe­netration, and above all, his nervous and manly elocu­tion, could scarcely have failed to distinguish him, and to have raised him to the highest honours of that lucra­tive profession; but, whatever nature might have in­tended for him, fortune seems to have been the arbiter of his destiny, and by shutting up the avenues to wealth and civil honours, to have left him to display his talents in the several characters of a moralist, a philosopher, and a poet.

The time of his continuance at Oxford is divisible into two periods, the former whereof commenced on the 31st day of October, 1728, and determined in Decem­ber, [Page 16] 1729, when, as appears by a note in his diary in these words, ‘'1729 Dec. S. J. Oxonio rediir,'’ he left that place, the reason whereof, was a failure of pecuniary supplies from his father; but meeting with another source, the bounty, as it is supposed, of some one or more of the members of the cathedral, he returned, and made up the whole of his residence in the university, about three years, during all which time his academical studies, though not orderly, were to an astonishing de­gree intense. Whoever has perused Mr. Spence's life of Antonio Magliabechi, may discern a near resemblance in their manner of reading, between that person and Johnson: the former, says his author, ‘'seems never to have applied himself to any particular study. A pas­sion for reading was his ruling passion, and a prodi­gious memory his great talent: he read every book almost indifferently, as they happened to come into his hands: he read them with a surprising quick­ness, and yet retained, not only the sense of what he read, but, often, all the words and the very manner of spelling them, if there was any thing peculiar of that kind in any author.'’

A like propensity to reading, and an equal celerity in the practice thereof, were observable in Johnson: it was wonderful to see, when he took up a book, with what eagerness he perused, and with what haste his eye, for it has been related, that he had the use of only one, travelled over it: he has been known to read a volume, and that not a small one, at a sitting; nor was he inferior in the power of memory to him with whom he is compared: whatever he read, became his own for ever, with all the advantages that a penetra­ting judgment and deep reflection could add to it. I [Page 17] have heard him repeat, with scarce a mistake of a word, passages from favourite authors, of three or four octavo pages in length. One instance of the greatness of his retentive faculty himself has thought fit to give, in his life of the Earl of Rochester, where may be seen a Latin poem upon Nothing, written by Passerat; for the infertion whereof he had, as it is said, no other aid than his own recollection. How far he approved that method of reading, which he is above said to have pursued, and what value he set on the powers of me­mory, may be inferred from his character of the former of those persons in his lives of the poets, of whom he thus speaks:

It is little less than certain, that his own indigence, and the inability of his father to help him, called Johnson from the university sooner than he meant to quit it: his father, either during his continuance there, or possibly before, had been by misfortunes rendered insolvent, if not, as Johnson told me, an actual bank­rupt. The non-attainment of a degree, which after a certain standing is conferred almost of course, he regretted not: it is true, he soon felt the want of one; but ample amends were afterwards made him, by [Page 18] the voluntary grant of the highest academical honours that two of the most learned seminaries in Europe could bestow.

The advantages he derived from an university edu­cation, small as they may hitherto seem, went a great way towards fixing, as well his moral as his literary character: the order and discipline of a college life, the reading the best authors, the attendance on public exercises, the early calls to prayer, the frequent in­structions from the pulpit, with all the other means of religious and moral improvement, had their proper effect; and though they left his natural temper much as they found it, they begat in his mind those senti­ments of piety which were the rule of his conduct throughout his future life, and made so conspicuous a part of his character.

He could not, at this early period of his life, divest himself of an opinion, that poverty was disgraceful; and was very severe in his censures of that oeconomy in both our universities, which exacted at meals the attendance of poor scholars, under the several denomi­nations of servitors in the one, and sizers in the other: he thought that the scholar's, like the christian life, levelled all distinctions of rank and worldly pre-emi­nence; but in this he was mistaken: civil policy had, long before his coming into the world, reduced the several classes of men to a regular subordination, and given servitude its sanction. The feudal system of government throughout Europe had so arranged the several orders of subjects, that the lower were uni­formly dependent on the higher; and in the history of the peerage of our own country, we find the retinues of the higher nobility made up of the sons and daugh­ters [Page 19] of those of the lower: Wolsey had in his train, earls, barons, and knights; and the founder of the present Cavendish family was his gentleman-usher, at a salary of ten pounds a year: and, to justify the practice of personal servitude at meals, we have an example of a child waiting on his parents while at dinner, in the Pietas Puerilis, among the colloquies of Erasmus ^*.

Upon his leaving the university, he went home to the house of his father, which he found so nearly filled with relations, that is to say, the maiden sisters of his mother and uncle Cornelius Ford, whom his father, on the decease of their brother in the summer of 1731, had taken in to board, that it would scarce receive him.

He brought with him a deep sense of religion, a due reverence for the national church, and a respect for its ministers; and these he retained, though he had been a witness to the profligacy of his uncle Ford, which was nearly enough to have effaced all such impressions from a young mind. Having not then seen, as we now do, ecclesiastical benefices advertised for sale, and consi­dered by the purchasers as lay-fees; nor beheld many of the beneficed clergy abandoning the duties of the cle­rical function to the lowest of their order, themselves becoming gentlemen at large, mixing in all public recreations and amusements ^†, neglecting their studies [Page 20] for cards, preaching the sermons of others, and af­fecting, in many particulars of their dress, the garb of the laity, in disobedience to the canon which en­joins decency of apparel to ministers ^*: I say, not having been a witness to these late refinements in manners, he, notwithstanding the ferocity of his temper, reverenced the clergy as a body of men, who have been the greatest improvers of learning, and to whom mankind have the highest obligations; but lamented that the race was nearly extinct.

As Johnson's stay at the university was not long enough for him to complete his studies, it is natural to suppose, that at his return to Lichfield, he devoted his time to the improvement of them, and that having no call from thence, he continued there till the death of his father, which, as he has noted it, was in the month of December, 1731.

Being thus bereft of the little support his father was able to afford him, and having, not only a profession, but the means of subsistence to seek, he, in the month of March 1732, accepted of an invitation to the office of under-master or usher of a free grammar-school, at Market-Bosworth in Leicestershire, founded and endowed by Sir Wolstan Dixie, lord mayor of Lon­don in 1586, the upper master whereof was the reve­rend Anthony Blackwall, the author of a well-known book on the sacred classics. The patron of this semi­nary was Sir Wolstan Dixie, baronet, a descendant of the original founder; and the endowment being very small, Johnson's residence was in the mansion-house of Sir Wolstan adjacent thereto; but the treatment he received from this person, who, in the pride of wealth, shewed no regard for learning or parts, nor respected [Page 21] any man for his mental endowments, was such that, preferring the chance of the wide world to his patro­nage, Johnson, in the month of July, in the same year in which he went to Bosworth, resigned his office, and took leave of a place, which he could never after speak of but in terms of the utmost dislike, and even of ab­horrence.

By the middle of June, in the year 1732, he was able to estimate that slender pittance which devolved to him upon the decease of his father; the amount whereof I find ascertained by a memorandum in his diary, which, as it is descriptive of his circumstances at the time, I here translate, and at the bottom of the page have in­serted verbatim.

1732, June 15, I laid by eleven guineas; on which day I received all of my father's effects which I can hope for till the death of my mother, (which I pray may be late), that is to say, twenty pounds; so that I have my fortune to make, and care must be taken, that in the mean time, the powers of my mind may not grow languid through poverty, nor want drive me into wickedness ^*.

In the month of June in the following year, 1733, I find him resident in the house of a person named Jarvis, at Birmingham, where, as he has noted in his diary, he rendered into English from the French, a voyage to Abyssinia, which has since appeared to be that of Padre Jerome Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, with [Page 22] the additions of Mons. l'Abbé Le Grand, very curious and entertaining, of which the following is a character:

It contains a narration of the endeavours of a com­pany of missionaries of the author's country to unite the Abyssins to the church of Rome. It was transla­ted from the original Portuguese into French by l'Abbé Le Grand, who, as Lobo had extended it no farther than his own concern in the mission, continued it down to the time when the Jesuits were finally driven out of Aethiopia, with the addition of fifteen dissertations on subjects relating to the history, antiquities, government, religion, manners, and natural history of Abyssinia, and other countries mentioned by the original author.

The preface, which bears stronger marks of John­son's hand than any part of the work, is calculated to attract attention and credit: it commends the unaffect­ed simplicity of the original narrative, and the learn­ing of M. Le Grand; it acknowledges the omissions and deviations which the translator thought it prudent to make, and it apologizes for any defects that may be discovered. Johnson's disquisitive propensity just dawns in an observation on the erroneous method of the Roman church, in making converts; but there is nothing striking in the composition.

Were we to rest our judgment on internal evidence, Johnson's claim to the title of translator of this work would be disputable; it has scarce a feature resembling him: the language is as simple and unornamented as John Bunyan's; the style is far from elegant, and sometimes it is not even correct. These circumstan­ces, together with frequent mistakes and various orthography, would almost stagger our belief, but [Page 23] that we have the authority of Johnson himself to rely on, who often acknowledged it for his own.

As this voyage to Abyssinia, notwithstanding the country and manners it describes are wonderful and interesting, has not been so much noticed as Johnson's later and original productions, it may not be thought impertinent to give the outline of the relation.

About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the then reigning emperor of Abyssinia, for considera­tions that favoured more of good policy than of religi­on, became a convert to the church of Rome: many of his subjects had followed his example; and the missi­onaries already in the country were in want of co-ad­jutors to extend their progress. Padre Jerome Lobo, who was then employed in the East-Indian mission at Goa, was one deputed to this enterprise, which, at length, proved too much for Romish zeal and Jesuitical dexterity.

With much difficulty he and his companions reach­ed and got footing in the empire, where they had to endure a climate rendered by excessive heats and rains pestiferous, and to engage in perilous journies across desarts infested by banditti, in perpetual fear of them and of wild beasts, the tokens of whose depredations marked their way. When they arrived at the habita­tions of the people, their dangers were changed, but not diminished; sometimes they could not obtain provisions, and at others, were confined to their houses by the dread of assassination. Those who were to be their disciples, professed, it is true, a superstitious religion, in some parts Judaical, in many others re­sembling that of the church of Rome; but it had had little effect on their minds: moral virtues they had [Page 24] scarcely any; in social affections they were miserably deficient, and their approaches to civilization and ele­gance were on a level with those of their southern neighbours at the Cape of Good Hope.

But labour and patience produced in time, a hope that the mission would not be fruitless: the number of their proselytes was, at one period, so great, that the corporal strength of the fathers was exhausted in the exhortations previous to baptism. ‘'We erected our tent,' says Lobo, 'and placed our altar under some great trees, for the benefit of the shade; and every day before sun-rising, my companion and I began to catechise and instruct these new catholics, and used our utmost endeavours to make them abjure their errors. When we were weary with speaking, we placed in ranks those who were suffi­ciently instructed, and passing through them with great vessels of water, baptized them according to the form prescribed by the church. As their num­ber was very great, we cried aloud —those of this rank are named Anthony —those of that rank Peter;—and did the same among the women, whom we se­parated from among the men. We then confessed them, and admitted them to the communion. After mass we applied ourselves again to catechise, to in­struct, and receive the renunciation of their errors, scarce allowing ourselves time to make a scanty meal, which we never did more than once a day.'’

Zeal equal to this, and rising in proportion to the opposition it met with, did these pious fathers exercise during nine years that they remained in Abyssinia. Their success was various and fluctuating; sometimes it gave them ground to hope that all would be con­verted, [Page 25] and sometimes their patrons and proselytes became their most inveterate persecutors: their hard­ships were increased by civil commotions, and all their expectations were clouded by the death of the Empe­ror, whose successor was a bigot in the religion of the country. They then put themselves under the pro­tection of a prince, who had emancipated himself from the power of Abyssinia, and thought, that as he had afforded them succour, they should be safe in his domi­nions; but they were soon convinced of their error, by receiving orders to prepare to serve, or in other words become slaves to the Turks:— ‘'a message,' says Lobo, 'which filled us with surprise; it having never been known that one of these lords had ever abandoned any whom he had taken under his protection; and it is, on the contrary, one of the highest points of honour amongst them, to risque their lives and their fortunes in the defence of their dependents who have implored their protection: but neither law nor justice were of any advantage to us, and the customs of the country were doomed to be broken when they would have contributed to our security.'’

From M. Le Grand's information it appears, that the conduct of these missionaries in Abyssinia had been such as tended rather to exasperate than conciliate: they considered themselves, not only figuratively, as the generals of Christ's church militant, and propa­gated their faith by measures that rendered them and their doctrine odious. The peace of the country and their residence in it were become incompatible: they were accordingly delivered into the hands of the Turks; and experienced, from a little troop sent to convoy them, greater humanity than the Abyssins had [Page 26] shewn them: at Suaquem, an island in the Red Sea, terms of ransom were proposed to them, which, though exorbitant, they were forced to accept; and, after surmounting many obstacles and perils, that part of the mission with which Lobo was engaged, returned to Goa.

The revenge, which it was reported in Abyssinia, the court of Portugal meditated, rendered a people naturally inhuman, ferocious: the remaining mission­aries experienced still harder fate than Lobo and his companions; many were put to death, and the whole fraternity so completely extirpated, that, after many efforts, all attempts to make a catholic people of the Abyssins were abandoned, as chimerical and im­practicable.

The dissertations at the end of this work, and which Johnson seems to estimate highly, contain va­riety of information and controversial learning, par­ticularly respecting the difference between the church that sent the mission, and that which received it, and point out very clearly the inutility of endeavours founded on the principles of the Jesuits.

Having completed this translation, which I con­jecture he was paid for by some bookseller of Birming­ham, who published it in an octavo volume, Johnson, in February 1733-4, left that place, and returned to Lichfield, from whence, in the month of August fol­lowing, he issued a proposal, soliciting a subscription to an edition of Politian's Poems ^*, with this title, ‘'Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus notas, cum [Page 27] Historia Latinae Poeseos a Petrarchae aevo ad Poli­tiani tempora deducta, et Vita Politiani fusius quam antehac enarrata, addidit Sam. Johnson.'’ The book was to be contained and printed in thirty octavo sheets, and delivered at the price of five shillings; but not meeting with sufficient encouragement, Johnson drop­ped the design.

From the above particulars it evidently appears, that he had entertained a resolution to depend for a livelihood upon what he should be able, either in the way of original composition, or translation, or in edit­ing the works of celebrated authors, to procure by his studies, and, in short, to become an author by profession; an occupation, which, though it may, in some views of it, be deemed mercenary, as adapting itself to particular occasions and conjunctures, nay, to the interests, passions and prejudices, and even hu­mours of mankind, has yet some illustrious examples, at least in our times, to justify it. It is true, that many persons distinguish between those writings which are the effect of a natural impulse of genius, and those other that owe their existence to interested motives, and, being the offspring of another parent, may, in some sense, be said to be illegitimate; but, Johnson knew of no such distinction, and would never acqui­esce in it when made by others: on the contrary, I have, more than once, heard him assert, that he knew of no genuine motive for writing, other than ne­cessity.

In the prosecution of this his design, he, in the year, 1734, made a tender of assistance to Cave, the editor, printer, and publisher of the Gentleman's Magazine; a man of whom I shall hereafter have [Page 28] frequent occasion to speak. The letter of Johnson to Cave, on this occasion, is yet extant, and is here given as a literary curiosity:

To this letter Cave returned an answer, dated 2d December following, wherein he accepted the services of Johnson, and retained him as a correspondent and a contributor to his Magazine.

This correspondence exhibits a view of the Gentle­man's Magazine in its rudiments, and may excite a curiosity in the patrons thereof, to trace back to its origin the publication of a miscellany, the fame where­of has extended itself to the most remote parts of the literary world. Histories of the learned men of mo­dern times, and short abridgments of their works, as also such pieces as for their brevity required some vehicle to convey them to posterity, it has been the practice of foreign countries, in their memoirs, and of universities and academies, in their acts and transactions, to give. The historical and memorable diurnal events of the passing times, have also been recorded in publi­cations variously denominated, particularly, in a work, entitled the Political State of Great Britain, begin­ning with the year 1711, and compiled by the well known Abel Boyer. In this are contained debates and speeches in parliament; and also, abstracts of po­litical [Page 30] pamphlets; but of a work that should com­prehend intelligence of both these kinds, we know of no exemplar in this country, earlier than the year 1716, when an essay towards such a one was made in the publication of a book, entitled The Historical Register, containing, an impartial relation of all trans­actions foreign and domestic, by a body of men, from whom few would have expected any thing of the kind. In short, the editors of the Historical Register, were the members of a society, associated about the year above-mentioned, for the purpose of insurance from fire, which, from the badge assumed by them, obtained the denomination of the Sun-fire-Office, and is still subsisting in a flourishing state. One of the managing persons in this society, was, if my informa­tion misleads me not, a man of the name of Povey, who, by the way, was a great improver of that useful project, the Penny Post, ^* and died within my memory. Having a scheming head, a plausible tongue, and a ready pen, he prevailed on his fellow-members to un­dertake the above publication, foreign as it was to the nature of their institution. In Strype's continuation of Stow's Survey, I find the following article respect­ing this society: ‘'All persons taking out policies for insurance, must pay two shillings and six-pence per quarter; and, besides their insurance, shall have a book, called the Historical Register, left every quarter at their house.'’

The Historical Register gave also an account of the proceedings of Parliament: the first volume contains [Page 31] the speeches in both houses, on the debate on the Septennial Bill; but, so great is the caution observed in drawing them up, that none of those in the House of Lords are appropriated, otherwise, than by such words as these: ‘'A noble Duke stood up, and said,' 'This speech was answered by a Northern Peer,'’ and other such vague designations. In those in the House of Commons, the names of the speakers, Mr. Shippen, Mr. Hampden, Sir Richard Steele, and others are gi­ven, without any artifices of concealment.

This publication was continued to the year 1737, inclusive, and may be supposed to have been super­seded by the Gentleman's Magazine, which was then rising very fast in its reputation.

From the Historical Register the hint was taken, of a publication, entitled The Grub-street Journal, ^* which, besides a brief account of public occurrences, contained criticisms and censures of dull and profane [Page 32] or immoral books and pamphlets, as also, original essays and letters to the editors. The chief conductors of it, were, Dr. John Martyn, then a young physician, afterwards professor of botany in the university of Cam­bridge, and Dr. Russel, also a physician; the former as­sumed the name Bavius, and the latter Maevius. Its first publication was in January, 1730, and it meeting with encouragement, Cave projected an improvement there­on in a pamphlet of his own, and in the following year gave to the world the first number of the Gentleman's Magazine, with a notification that the same would be continued monthly, incurring thereby a charge of plagiarism, which, as he is said to have confessed it, we may suppose he did not look upon as criminal ^*.

Johnson had not by his letter, herein before inserted, so attached himself to Cave, as not to be at liberty to enter into a closer engagement with any other person: he, therefore, in 1736, made overtures to the Rev. Mr. Budworth, then master of the grammar school at Brerewood, in Staffordshire, and who had been bred under Mr. Blackwall, at Market Bosworth, to become his assistant; but Mr. Budworth thought him­self under a necessity of declining them, from an ap­prehension that those convulsive motions to which Johnson through life was subject, might render him an object of imitation, and possibly of ridicule, with his pupils.

It may be remembered that in a preceding page, Johnson is said to have resided for some months, in the year 1734, in the house of a person named [Page 33] Jarvis, at Birmingham. To this circumstance, by a conjecture not improbable, may be referred an impor­tant event of his life. At that time there dwelt at Bir­mingham a widow, the relict of Mr. Porter a mercer, who dying, left her, if not well jointured, so provided for, as made a match with her to a man in Johnson's circumstances desirable: report says, she was rather advanced in years; it is certain that she had a son and daughter grown up; the former was in the last war a captain in the navy, and his sister, lately dead, inherited from him a handsome fortune, acquired in the course of a long service. Of her personal charms little can now be remembered: Johnson has celebrated them in an in­scription on her tomb at Bromley; but, considering his infirmity, and admitting the truth of a confession, said to have been made by him, that he never saw ‘'the human face divine,'’ it may be questioned, whether himself was ever an eye-witness to them. The in­scription further declares her to have been of the family of Jarvis, and gives colour to a supposition that she was either a sister or other relation of the Jarvis above-mentioned.

With this person he married, his age being then about twenty-seven. Her fortune, which is conjectured to have been about eight hundred pounds, placed him in a state of affluence, to which before he had been a stranger. He was not so imprudent as to think it an inexhaustable mine; on the contrary, he reflected on the means of improving it. His acquisitions at school and at the university, and the improvement he had made of his talents in the study of the French and Italian languages, qualified him, in an eminent degree, for an instructor of youth in classical litera­ture; [Page 34] and the reputation of his father, [...]d the con­nections he had formed in and about Lichfield, pointed out to him a fair prospect of succeeding in that useful profession.

There dwelt in the above-mentioned city, a very respectable gentleman, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley, register of the ecclesiastical court of the bishop thereof, to whose house, in his school and also in his university vacations, Johnson was a welcome guest: the same person was also a friend of captain Garrick, who had for some time been resident at Lichfield, and, by con­sequence, of Mr. David Garrick, his son. His cha­racter is so well pourtrayed by Johnson, and represents in such lively colours his friendship for him, that it would be injustice to omit the insertion of it, as given in the life of Edmund Smith:—

The benevolent person, so gratefully remembered in the above encomium, knowing the abilities of Johnson, encouraged him in his design of becoming a teacher of literature: he suggested to him the taking a large house, situate in a place adjacent to Lichfield; which, however the name of it be spelt, the common people call Edjal: thither Johnson went, and with him young Garrick, who, though he had been educated in Lichfield school, and was then near eighteen years old, having been diverted in the course of his studies by a call to Lisbon, stood in need of improvement in the Latin and French languages.

The placing Garrick under the tuition of Johnson, was an act of Mr. Walmsley's, and resembles that [Page 36] politic device of country house-wives, the placing one egg in the nest of a hen to induce her to lay more: it succeeded so far, as to draw from the families of the neighbouring gentry a few pupils, and among the rest, a son of Mr. Offley, of Staffordshire; a name, that for centuries past, may be traced in the history and records of that county. But, so adverse were his fortunes in this early period, that this well-planned scheme of a settlement disappointed the hopes of Johnson and his friends; for, neither his own abilities; nor the patronage of Mr. Walmsley, nor the exertions of Mrs. Johnson and her relations, succeeded farther than to produce an accession of about five or six pupils; so that his number, at no time, exceeded eight, and of those not all were boarders.

After waiting a reasonable time in hopes of more pupils, Johnson, finding they came in but slowly, had recourse to the usual method of raising a school. In the year, 1736, he advertised the instructing young gentlemen in the Greek and Latin languages, by him­self, at his house, describing it near Lichfield. ^* That this notification failed of its end, we can scarce wonder, if we reflect, that he was little more than twenty-seven years of age when he published it, and that he had not the vanity to profess teaching all sciences, nor the effrontery of those, who, in these more modern times, undertake, in private boarding-schools to qualify young men for holy orders.

[Page 37] By means of a paper which I have now before me, I am able to furnish, what I take to have been his me­thod or plan of institution; and, as it may be deemed a curiosity, and may serve the purpose of future in­structors of youth, I here insert it:

When the introduction or formation of nouns and verbs is perfectly mastered, the pupils learn

Corderius, by Mr. Clarke; beginning at the same time to translate out of his introduction. They then proceed to

Erasmus, reading him with Clarke's translation. These books form the first class.

• Class II.

  Read Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin with the translation. The first class to repeat by memory, in the morning, the rules they had learned before; and, in the afternoon, the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs. They are also, on Thursdays and Saturdays to be examined in the rules they have learned.

  The second class does the same while in Eutropius; afterwards, they are to get and repeat the irregular nouns and verbs; and also, the rules for making and scanning verses, in which they are to be examined as the first class.

• Class III.

  Read Ovid's Metamorphoses in the morn­ing, and Caesar's Commentaries in the afternoon. Continue the Latin rules till they are perfect in them. Proceed then to Leeds's Greek Grammar, and are ex­amined as before.

  [Page 38] They then proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to compose themes and verses, ^* and learn Greek, and from thence pass on to Horace, Terence, and Sallust. The Greek authors afterwards read are, first, those in the Attic dialect, which are Cebes, Aelian, Lucian by Leeds, and Xenophon: next Homer in the Ionic, Theocritus Doric, Euripides Attic and Doric.

From two letters, first inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, and since in sundry other publications, from Mr. Walmsley to his friend the reverend Mr. Colson, a mathematician, and, in his later years, Lucasian professor at Cambridge, little is to be learnt respecting the history of Johnson and Garrick, at this period: the one wants the date of the month, the other that of the year; and though, in the order of their pub­lication, the one immediately follows the other, there must have been some interval between the times of writing the first and the last. The first is dated in 1737, and, as it contains a recommendation of Gar­rick to Mr. Colson, for instruction in mathematics, philosophy, and human learning, leads us to suppose, that before the time of writing it, Johnson's scheme of taking in boarders had proved abortive. The latter, written in what year we know not, and inserted below, recommends both Johnson and Garrick to his notice, the former as a good scholar and one that gave hopes [Page 39] of turning out a fine tragedy-writer; and, we are from good authority assured, that in March, in the year last above-mentioned, they, on horse-back, arrived in town together.

The hope suggested in this letter is grounded on a circumstance which will lead us back to about the year before he quitted his school at Edial. It must be ima­gined, the instruction of so small a number of scholars as were under his care, left him at leisure to pursue his [Page 40] private studies and amusements, which, for the most part, consisted in desultory reading. Let it not excite wonder in any that shall peruse these memoirs, to be told, that Burton on Melancholy was a book that he frequently resorted to for the purpose of exhilara­tion, or that, at times, he should find entertainment in turning over Knolles's voluminous and neglected his­tory of the Turks. In the many hours of leisure which he may be said rather to have endured than enjoyed, we must suppose some employed in the contemplation of his fortunes, the means of improving them, and of resisting the adverse accidents to which human life is exposed, and of which he had already had some experience. The stage holds forth temptations to men of genius, which many have been glad to embrace: the profits arising from a tragedy, including the re­presentation and printing of it, and the connections it sometimes enables the author to form, were in John­son's idea inestimable; and, it is not impossible, but that Garrick, who, before this time, had manifested a propensity towards the stage, had suggested to him the thought of writing one: certain it is, that during his residence at Edial, and under the eye of his friend Mr. Walmsley, he planned and completed that poem which gave this gentleman occasion to say, he was likely to become a fine tragedy-writer.

He chose for his story an action related by Knolles in his history above-mentioned with all the powers of the most affecting eloquence: to give it at large would be to transgress the limits I have prescribed myself, and to abridge it would injure it: I will do neither; but referring the reader to the historian himself, will relate it as a bare historical fact.

[Page 41] Mahomet the Great, first emperor of the Turks, in the year 1453 laid siege to the city of Constantinople, then possessed by the Greeks, and, after an obstinate resist­ance, took and sacked it. Among the many young women whom his commanders thought fit to lay hands on and present to him, was one, named Irene, a Greek, of incomparable beauty and such rare per­fection of body and mind, that the emperor becoming enamoured of her, neglected the care of his govern­ment and empire for two whole years, and thereby so exasperated the Janizaries and other of his warlike subjects, that they mutinied, and threatened to dethrone him. To prevent this mischief, Mustapha Bassa, a person of great credit with him, undertook to repre­sent to him the great danger to which he lay exposed by the indulgence of his passion: he called to his re­membrance the characters, actions, and atchievements of many of his predecessors, and the state of his govern­ment; and, in short, so roused him from his lethargy, that he took a horrible resolution to silence the clamours of his people, by the sacrifice of this ad­mirable creature: accordingly, on a future day, he commanded her to be dressed and adorned in the richest manner that she and her attendants could de­vise, and against a certain hour issued orders for the nobility and leaders of his army to attend him in the great hall of his palace. When they were all assembled, himself appeared with great pomp and magnificence, leading his late captive, but now ab­solute mistress, by the hand, unconscious of guilt and ignorant of his design. With a furious and menacing look, he gave the beholders to understand, that he knew the cause of their discontent, and that he meant [Page 42] to remove it; but bade them first view that lady, whom he still held with his left hand, and say whe­ther any of them being possessed of a jewel so rare and precious, a woman so lovely and fair, would for any cause forego her; to which they answered, that he had great reason for his affection towards her.

To this the emperor replied, that this being their opinion, he would convince them that his actions were in his own power, and that he was yet master of himself. ‘'And having so said,' says my author, 'presently with one of his hands catching the fair Greek by the hair of the head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and having so done, said unto them, ‘"Now by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not." ^*’’

It no where appears that, in this journey to London, Mrs. Johnson was one of the company; it is rather to be conjectured, that her husband, having abandoned the hope of succeeding in his attempt to raise a school, left to her the care of the house, and the management of the small part of her fortune, which, after the fitting [Page 43] up and furnishing the same, together with two years' expenditure, must be supposed to be left; and, that this could be no other than small, may be inferred from her natural temper, which it is said was as little disposed to parsimony as that of her husband.

It is not my intention to pursue the history of Mr. Garrick's progress in life, both because I have not taken upon me to be his biographer, and, because the principal events of it occur in the memoirs of him, written with great candour and, I dare say, truth, by Mr. Thomas Davies, and by him published in two volumes, octavo; but the course of this narration re­quires me occasionally to mention such particulars concerning him, as in any manner connect him with the subject I am engaged in; and this leads me to mention a fact concerning them both, that I had from a person now living, who was a witness to it, and of whose veracity the least doubt cannot be entertained. They had been but a short time in London before the stock of money that each set out with, was nearly exhausted; and, though they had not, like the pro­digal son, ‘'wasted their substance in riotous living,'’ they began, like him, ‘'to be in want.'’ In this ex­tremity, Garrick suggested the thought of obtaining credit from a tradesman, whom he had a slight know­ledge of, Mr. Wilcox a bookseller, in the Strand: to him they applied, and representing themselves to him, as they really were, two young men, friends, and travellers from the same place, and just arrived with a view to settle here, he was so moved with their art­less tale, that, on their joint note, he advanced them all that their modesty would permit them to ask, (five pounds), which was, soon after, punctually re­paid.

[Page 44] It has been before related, that Johnson had en­gaged his pen in the service of Cave; as it seems, under some fictitious name, perhaps, that common one of Smith, which he directs Cave to address him by, in his letter of 25th Nov. 1734. Being now come to town, and determined, or rather constrained, to rely on the labour of his brain for support, he, to improve the correspondence he had formed, thought proper to discover himself, and in his real name to communicate to Cave a project which he had form­ed, and which the following letter will explain:

Cave's acquiescence, in the above proposal, drew Johnson into a close intimacy with him: he was much at St. John's Gate, and taught Garrick the way thi­ther. Cave had no great relish for mirth, but he could bear it; and having been told by Johnson, that his friend had talents for the theatre, and was come to London with a view to the profession of an actor, ex­pressed a wish to see him in some comic character: Garrick readily complied; and, as Cave himself told me, with a little preparation of the room over the great arch of St. John's gate, and, with the assistance of a few journeymen printers, who were called together for the purpose of reading the other parts, represented, with all the graces of comic humor, the principal cha­racter in Fielding's farce of the Mock-Doctor.

[Page 46] Cave's temper was phlegmatic: though he assumed, as the publisher of the Magazine, the name of Sylva­nus Urban, he had few of those qualities that consti­tute the character of urbanity. Judge of his want of them by this question, which he once put to an author: ‘'Mr. —, I hear you have just published a pam­phlet, and am told there is a very good paragraph in it, upon the subject of music: did you write that yourself?'’ His discernment was also slow; and as he had already at his command some writers of prose and verse, who, in the language of booksellers are called good hands, ^* he was the backwarder in making [Page 47] advances, or courting an intimacy with Johnson. Up­on the first approach of a stranger, his practice was to continue sitting, a posture in which he was ever to be found, and, for a few minutes, to continue silent: [Page 48] if at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine, then in the press, into the hand of his visitor, and asking his opinion of it. I remember that, calling in on [Page 49] him once, he gave me to read the beautiful poem of Collins, written for Shakespeare's Cymbeline, ‘'To fair Fidele's grassy tomb,'’ which, though adapted to a particular circumstance in the play, Cave was for inserting in his Magazine, without any reference to the subject: I told him it would lose of its beauty if it were so published: this he could not see; nor could he be convinced of the propriety of the name Fidele: he thought Pastora a better, and so printed it.

He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson's abili­ties, that, meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendor of some of those luminaries in literature who favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would, in the evening, be at a certain ale­house in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or [Page 50] two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note: Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introdu­ced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.

Johnson saw very clearly those offensive particulars that made a part of Cave's character; but, as he was one of the most quick-sighted men I ever knew in discovering the good and amiable qualities of others, a faculty which he has displayed, as well in the life of Cave, as in that of Savage, printed among his works, so was he ever inclined to palliate their defects; and, though he was above courting the patronage of a man, whom, for many reasons, he could not but hold cheap, he disdained not to accept it, when tendered with any degree of complacency.

And this was the general tenor of Johnson's beha­viour; for, though his character through life was marked with a roughness that approached to ferocity, it was in the power of almost every one to charm him into mildness, and to render him gentle and placid, and even courteous, by such a patient and respectful at­tention as is due to every one, who, in his discourse, signifies a desire either to instruct or delight. Bred to no profession, without relations, friends, or inte­rest, Johnson was an adventurer in the wide world, and had his fortunes to make: the arts of insinuation and address were, in his opinion, too slow in their operation to answer his purpose; and, he rather chose to display his parts to all the world, at the risque of being thought arrogant, than to wait for the assistance [Page 51] of such friends as he could make, or the patronage of some individual that had power or influence, and who might have the kindness to take him by the hand, and lift him into notice. With all that asperity of manners with which he has been charged, and which kept at a distance many, who, to my knowledge, would have been glad of an intimacy with him, he possessed the affections of pity and compassion in a most eminent de­gree. In a mixed company, of which I was one, the conversation turned on the pestilence which raged in London, in the year 1665, and gave occasion to John­son to speak of Dr. Nathanael Hodges, who, in the height of that calamity, continued in the city, and was almost the only one of his profession that had the cou­rage to oppose the endeavours of his art to the spread­ing of the contagion. It was the hard fate of this per­son, a short time after, to die a prisoner for debt, in Ludgate: Johnson related this circumstance to us, with the tears ready to start from his eyes; and, with great energy, said, ‘'Such a man would not have been suffered to perish in these times.'’

It seems by the event of this first expedition, that Johnson came to London for little else than to look about him: it affored him no opportunity of forming connections, either valuable in themselves, or available to any future purpose of his life. Mr. Pope had seen and commended his translation of the Messiah; but Johnson had not the means of access to him; and, be­ing a stranger to his person, his spirit would not per­mit him to solicit so great a favour from one, who must be supposed to have been troubled with such kind of applications. With one person, however, he com­menced an intimacy, the motives to which at first [Page 52] view, may probably seem harder to be accounted for, than any one particular in his life. This person was Mr. Richard Savage, whose misfortunes, together with his vices, had driven him to St. John's gate, and thereby introduced him to the acquaintance of Johnson, which, founded on his part in compassion, soon improv­ed into friendship and a mutual communication of sen­timents and counsels. The history of this man is well known by the life of him written by Johnson; which, if in no other respect valuable, is curious, in that it gives to view a character self-formed, as owing nothing to parental nurture, and scarce any thing to moral tuition, and describes a mind, in which, as in a ne­glected garden, weeds, without the least obstruction, were suffered to grow into luxuriance: nature had en­dowed him with fine parts, and those he cultivated as well as he was able; but his mind had received no moral culture, and for want thereof, we find him to have been a stranger to humility, gratitude, and those other virtues that tend to conciliate the affections of men, and insure the continuance of friendship.

It may be conjectured that Johnson was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, at his first approach; for it must be noted of him, that, though he was always an admirer of genteel manners, he a [...] this time had not been accustomed to the conversation of gentlemen; and Savage, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished: he was a handsome well-made man, and very courteous in the modes o [...] salutation. I have been told, that in the taking off hi [...] hat and disposing it under his arm, and in his bow, h [...] displayed as much grace as those actions were capabl [...] of; and that he understood the exercise of a gentleman's [Page 53] weapon, may be inferred from the use he made of it in that rash encounter which is related in his life, and to which his greatest misfortunes were owing. These accomplishments, and the ease and pleasantry of his conversation, were, probably, the charms that wrought on Johnson, and hid from his view those baser qualities of Savage, with which, as his historian, he has nevertheless been necessitated to mark his cha­racter. The similarity of their circumstances might farther conduce to beget an unreserved confidence in each other; they had both felt the pangs of poverty, and the want of patronage: Savage had let loose his resent­ment against the possessors of wealth, in a collection of poems printed about the year 1727, and Johnson was ripe for an avowal of the same sentiments: they seemed both to agree in the vulgar opinion, that the world is divided into two classes, of men of merit with­out riches, and men of wealth without merit; never considering the possibility that both might concenter in the same person, just as when, in the comparison of women, we say, that virtue is of more value than beauty, we forget that many are possessed of both.

In speculations of this kind, and a mutual condo­lence of their fortunes, they passed many a melancholy hour, and those at a time when, it might be supposed, the reflection on them had made repose desirable: on the contrary, that very reflection is known to have in­terrupted it. Johnson has told me, that whole nights have been spent by him and Savage in conversations of this kind, not under the hospitable roof of a tavern, where warmth might have invigorated their spirits, and wine dispelled their care; but in a perambulation round the squares of Westminster, St. James's in [Page 54] particular, when all the money they could both raise was less than sufficient to purchase for them the shelter and fordid comforts of a night cellar.

Of the result of their conversations little can now be known, save, that they gave rise to those principles of patriotism, that both, for some years after, avowed; they both with the same eye saw, or believed they saw, that the then minister meditated the ruin of this coun­try; that excise laws, standing armies, and penal statutes, were the means by which he meant to effect it; and, at the risque of their liberty, they were bent to oppose his measures; but Savage's spirit was broken by the sense of his indigence, and the pressure of those misfor­tunes which his imprudence had brought on him, and Johnson was left alone to maintain the contest.

The character and manners of Savage were such, as leave us little room to think, that Johnson could pro­fit by his conversation: whatever were his parts and accomplishments, he had no reading, and could fur­nish no intelligence to such a mind as Johnson's: his vagrant course of life had made him acquainted with the town and its vices; and though I am not warranted to say, that Johnson was infected with them, I have reason to think, that he reflected with as little appro­bation on the hours he spent with Savage as on any period of his life.

Doubtless there is in the example and conversation of some men a power that fascinates, and suspends the operation of our own will: to this power in Savage, which consisted in the gentleness of his man­ners, the elegance of his discourse, and the viva­city of his imagination, we must attribute the ascen­dant which he maintained over the affections of [Page 55] Johnson, and the inability of the latter to pursue the suggestions of his own superior understanding. To the purpose of this sentiment, I am tempted to relate a fact which Mr. Garrick once communicated to me in conversation, who, speaking of the irresistible charm of engaging manners, told me, that being an actor at Drury-lane theatre, under Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee thereof, whose extravagances rendered him incapable of fulfilling his engagements, his salary became deeply in arrear, and he began to feel the want of money: in answer to his many applications for payment, he had obtained promises, and even oaths; but these had been so often broken, that, pressed by necessity, and provok­ed by ill usage, he was determined to have recourse to law for payment: he however thought it but right to declare his intention; and, for that purpose, invited himself to breakfast with Fleetwood. ‘'It was on a Sunday,' said Mr. Garrick, 'that he appointed to see me; he received me with great courtesy and affability, and entertained me for some hours with discourse, foreign to the subject of our meeting, but so bewitching in its kind, that it deprived me of the power of telling him that he owed me six hundred pounds, and that my necessities compelled me to de­mand it.'’

The intimacy between Savage and Johnson conti­nued till the beginning of the year 1738, when the distresses of the former, and the cessation, by the death of Queen Caroline, of a pension, which, for some years, she had directed to be paid him, moved some of his friends to a subscription for his support, in a place so far distant from the metropolis, as to be out of the reach of its temptations; where he might beget [Page 56] new habits, and indulge himself in those exercises of his imagination, which had been the employment of his happiest hours. The place fixed on for his resi­dence was Swansea in Wales; but as it was some time before the subscription could be completed, his re­tirement thither was retarded.

In this suspense of Savage's fortunes, Johnson seems to have confirmed himself in a resolution of quarrelling with the administration of public affairs, and becoming a satirist on the manners of the times; and because he thought he saw a resemblance between his own and those of Rome in its decline, he chose to express his sense of modern depravity by an imitation of the third satire of Juvenal, in which, with great judgment, and no less asperity, he drew a parallel between the cor­ruptions of each, and exemplified it by characters, then subsisting. In it he anticipated the departure of his friend Thales, i. e. Savage, whom he describes as

To this exercise of his talent he was, probably, ex­cited by the success of Mr. Pope, who had done the same by some of the satires of Horace, and had vin­dicated, by the example of Dr. Donne a divine, that species of writing, even in Christian times, from the imputation of malevolence and the want of that cha­rity ‘'which is not easily provoked, and endureth all things.'’

[Page 57] The poem was finished, as appears by a manuscript note of the author in his own corrected copy, in 1738. While he was writing it, he lodged in an upper room of a house in Exeter street, behind Exeter 'change, inhabited by one Norris, a stay-maker; a particular which would have been hardly worth noticing, but that it, in some measure, bespeaks his circumstances at the time, and accounts for his having, more than once, mentioned in the poem, and that with seeming abhorrence, the dungeons of the Strand. It is not unlikely that his aversion to such an abode was increas­ed by the reflection on that distress, which by this time had brought his wife to town, and obliged her to par­ticipate in the inconveniences of a dwelling too ob­scure to invite resort, and to be a witness of the diffi­culties with which he was struggling.

Having completed his poem, he looked round for a bookseller, to whom, with a likelihood of ob­taining the value of it, he might treat for the sale of it. His friend Cave, in respect of publications, was a haberdasher of small wares; the greatest of his un­dertakings being a translation of Du Halde's History of China, which was never completed.

Johnson thinking him a man for his purpose, made him an offer of his poem, in a letter in which, with great art, but without the least violation of truth, he conceals that himself was the author of it. The letter I here insert, as also another of his on the same subject.

[Page 60] Johnson and Dodsley were soon agreed; the price asked by the one and assented to by the other, was, as I have been informed, fifty pounds; a reward for his labour and ingenuity, that induced Johnson ever after to call Dodsley his patron. It is pretty certain that in his offer of the poem to Dodsley, Cave stipulated for the printing of it, for it came abroad in the year above­mentioned with the name of Cave as the printer, though without that of the author. Lord Lyttelton, the instant it was published, carried it in rapture to Mr. Pope, who, having read it, commended it highly, and was very importunate with Dodsley to know the author's name; but, that being a secret the latter was bound not to reveal, Pope assured him that he could not long be unknown, recollecting, perhaps, a passage recorded of Milton, who, seeing a beautiful young lady pass him whom he never had seen before, turned to look at her, and said, ‘'Whoever thou art, thou canst not long be concealed.'’

The topics of this spirited poem, so far as it respects this country, or the time when it was written, are evi­dently drawn from those weekly publications, which, to answer the view of a malevolent faction, first created, and for some years supported, a distinction between the interests of the government and the people, under the several denominations of the court and the country parties: these publications were carried on under the direction of men, professing themselves to be whigs and friends of the people, in a paper intitled, ‘'The Country Journal or the Craftsman,'’ now deservedly forgotten, the end whereof was, to blow the flame of national discontent, to delude the honest and well-meaning people of this country into a belief that the minister [Page 61] was its greatest enemy, and that his opponents, only, meant its welfare. To this end it was necessary to fur­nish them with subjects of complaint, and these were plentifully disseminated among them; the chief of them were, that science was unrewarded, and the arts neglected; that the objects of our politics were peace and the extension of commerce; that the wealth of the nation was unequally divided, for that, while some were poor, others were able to raise palaces and pur­chase manors; that restraints were laid on the stage; that the land was plundered, and the nation cheated; our senators hirelings, and our nobility venal; and, lastly, that in his visits to his native country, the king drained this of its wealth.

That Johnson has adopted these vulgar complaints, his poem must witness. I shall not take upon me to demonstrate the fallacy of most of the charges contain­ed in it, nor animadvert on the wickedness of those, who, to effect their own ambitious designs, scruple not to oppose the best endeavours of the person in power, nor shall I mark the folly of those who suffer themselves to be so deluded: the succession of knave to knave, and fool to fool, is hereditary and inter­minable: our fathers were deceived by the pre­tensions of false patriots; the delusion stopped not with their children, nor will it with our's.

The publication of this poem was of little advan­tage to Johnson, other than the relief of his immediate wants: it procured him fame, but no patronage. He was therefore disposed to embrace any other pro­spect of advantage that might offer; for, a short time after, viz. in August 1738, hearing that the master­ship [Page 62] of Appleby school in Leicestershire was become vacant, he, by the advice of Sir Thomas Griesly a Derbyshire baronet, and other friends, went to Appleby, and offered himself as a candidate for that employment; but the statutes of the school requiring, that the person chosen should be a Master of Arts, his application was checked. To get over this difficulty, he found means to obtain from the late Lord Gower, a letter to a friend of his, soliciting his interest with Dean Swift towards procuring him a master's degree from the university of Dublin: the letter has appeared in print, but with a mistaken date of the year, viz. 1737; for it mentions Johnson's being the author of the poem of ‘'London,'’ which, as I have above fixed it, was writ­ten in 1738. It is as follows:

If ever Johnson had reason to lament the shortness of his stay at the university, it was now. The want of an honour, which, after a short efflux of years, is con­ferred almost of course, was, at this crisis, his greatest misfortune: it stood between him and the acquisition of an income of 60l. a year, in a country and at a [Page 64] time that made it equivalent to a much larger sum at present.

The letter of Lord Gower failing of its effect, Johnson returned to London, resolving on a vigorous effort to supply his wants: this was a translation into English of Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent ^*: the former by Sir Nathaniel Brent, though a faithful one, being, in the judgment of some persons, rather obsolete. Johnson was well enough skilled in the Italian language for the undertaking, and was encou­raged to it by many of his friends; as namely, Mr. Walmsley, Mr. Caslon the letter-founder, Mr. [after­wards Dr.] Birch, and others; but he chose to make it a joint project, and take Cave into the adventure, who, as the work proceeded, advanced him small sums, at two or three guineas a week, amounting to­gether to near fifty pounds. ^†

It happened at this time that another person of the same christian and surname, the then keeper of Dr. Tenison's library in St. Martin's parish, had engaged in the like design, and was supported therein by Dr. Zachary Pearce, and also by most of the bishops, and by many of the dignified clergy, which being the case, the solicitations in behalf of the two versions crossed [Page 65] each other, and rendered both abortive. Twelve quarto sheets of Johnson's were printed off; but what became of the other is not known. This disappoint­ment, however mortifying, did not hinder Johnson from prosecuting a part of his original design, and writing the life of the author, which, with the assistance of a life of him, written by an Italian nobleman, whose name I could never learn, and published in a closely printed duodecimo, he was enabled to complete, and in an abridgment to insert in Cave's Maga­zine.

Various other projects about this time did he form of publications on literary subjects, which, in a subse­quent page, by the help of a list in his own hand-writ­ing, I have enumerated, but they were either blasted by other publications of a similar nature, or abandoned for want of encouragement.

However, that he might not be totally unemployed, Cave engaged him to undertake a translation of an Ex­amen of Pope's Essay on Man, written by Mr. Crousaz, a professor in Switzerland, who had acquired some eminence by a treatise on Logic of his writing, and also, by his Examen de Pyrrhonisme; and of whom Johnson, after observing that he was no mean anta­gonist, has given this character:— ‘'His mind was one of those in which philosophy and piety are happily united. He was accustomed to argument and disqui­sition, and perhaps was grown too desirous of detect­ing faults, but his intention was always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure. His in­cessant vigilance for the promotion of piety disposed him to look with distrust upon all metaphysical sys­tems of Theology, and all schemes of virtue and hap­piness purely rational; and therefore, it was not long [Page 66] before he was persuaded that the positions of Pope, as they terminated for the most part in natural reli­gion, were intended to draw mankind away from Revelation, and to represent the whole course of things as a necessary concatenation of indissoluble fatality; and it is undeniable, that in many passages, a religious eye may easily discover expressions not very favourable to morals or to liberty.' ^*’

The reputation of the Essay on Man soon after its publication invited a translation of it into French, which was undertaken and completed by the Abbé Resnel, and falling into the hands of Crousaz, drew from him first a general censure of the principles maintained in the poem, and afterwards, a commen­tary thereon containing particular remarks on every paragraph. The former of these it was that Johnson translated, as appears by the following letter of his to Cave, which is rendered somewhat remarkable by his stiling himself Impransus.

Johnson's translation of the Examen was printed by Cave, and came abroad, but without a name, in No­vember, 1738, bearing the title of, ‘'An Examination of Mr. Pope's Essay on Man, containing a succinct view of the system of the Fatalists, and a confutation of their opinions; with an illustration of the doctrine of Free-Will, and an enquiry what view Mr. Pope might have in touching upon the Leibnitzian Philo­sophy and Fatalism. By Mr. Crousaz, professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Lausanne, &c.'’

All the world knows that the Essay on Man was composed from the dictamen of Lord Bolingbroke, and it is little less notorious that Pope was but mean­ly skilled in that sort of learning to which the subject of his poem related: he had not been conversant with the writings or opinions of the different sects of phi­losophers [Page 68] of whom some maintained and others denied the freedom of the will, and knew little more of the arguments for and against human liberty in opposi­tion to what is called Necessity, than he was able to gather from the controversy between Anthony Collins and his opponents, or that between Dr. Clarke and Leibnitz. He was therefore unable to defend what he had written, and stood a dead mark for his adversaries to shoot at. Fortunate for him it was, that at this crisis there was living such a person as Mr. Warburton; and Pope had for all the remainder of his life reason to reflect with pleasure on the accident that brought them acquainted, and which I will presently relate.

Warburton's origin and rise into literary reputation are pretty well known. He had served a clerkship to an attorney the town-clerk of Newark upon Trent, and for a short time was himself a practiser in that profession; but having a strong propensity to learning, he determined to quit it, and pursue a course of study such as was necessary to qualify him for the ministerial function, and having completed it, got admitted into holy orders, and settled in London, where, upon his arrival, he became acquainted with some of the inferior wits, Concannen, Theobald, and others the enemies of Pope, and adopted many of their sentiments. In a letter to the former of these he writes, ‘'Dryden I observe borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addi­son out of modesty;'’ further he assisted Theobald with notes on many passages in his edition of Shake­speare, which charge Mr. Pope with ignorance, and incapacity for the office of an editor.

[Page 69] But leaving literal criticism to these his first associ­ates, Warburton betook himself to studies of greater importance, and before the publication of the Examen of the Essay on Man, had made himself known, as an original thinker, by his Divine Legation of Moses, a work which, as it met with great opposition, gave him occasion to display a singular talent in controversy. As there was nothing congenial in the minds of him and Pope, they neither of them sought the acquain­tance of the other, but mere chance brought them to­gether, a chance so propitious to Warburton's fortunes that it became an epoch in his life, and was the leading circumstance to his becoming the owner of a fair estate, and his promotion to a bishopric.

The friendship of these two persons had its com­mencement in that bookseller's shop which is situate on the West side of the gate-way leading down the Inner Temple-lane. Warburton had some dealings with Jacob Robinson the publisher, to whom the shop belonged, and may be supposed to have been drawn there on business; Pope might have a call of the like kind: however that be, there they met, and entering into a conversation which was not soon ended, con­ceived a mutual liking, and as we may suppose, plighted their faith to each other. The fruit of this interview and the subsequent communications of the parties was, the publication, in November 1739, of a pamphlet with this title, ‘'A Vindication of Mr. Pope's Essay on Man. By the author of the Divine Legation of Moses. Printed for J. Robinson.'’

Whether or not Crousaz ever replied to this vindi­cation, I am not at leisure to enquire. I incline to [Page 70] think he did not, and that the controversy rested on the foot of the Examen and the Commentary on the one part, and the Vindication on the other. In the year 1743, Johnson took it into his head to review the argument, and became a moderator in a dispute which, on the side of Warburton, had been conducted with a great degree of that indignation and contempt of his adversary, which is visible in most of his writ­ings. This he did in two letters severally published in the Gentleman's Magazine for the months of March and November in the above year, with a promise of more, but proceeded no farther than to state the sen­timents of Mr. Crousaz respecting the poem, from a seeming conviction that he was discussing an uninter­esting question.

Johnson had already tried his hand at political satire, and had succeeded in it; and though no new occasion offered, he was either urged by distress or prompted by that clamour against the minister which in the year 1739 was become very loud, to join in the popular cry, and as it were, to carry war into his own quarters. This he did in a pamphlet, intitled, ‘'Marmor Norfol­ciense, or an essay on an ancient prophetical inscrip­tion, in Monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynn in Norfolk, by Probus Britannicus.'’

This mode of satire, the publication of prophecies adapted to the incidents of the time when written, and not so genuine as that of Nixon, the Cheshire seer, which some thought was fulfilled in 1745, is not an invention so new as many may think. In some in­stances it has been a mere exercise of wit; in others it has been used as a means to excite a people to [Page 71] sedition. Under the first class is noted that mentioned by Lord Bacon;

whereby, as his lordship says, it was generally con­ceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word Hempe, (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip and Elizabeth) England should come to utter confusion; which, adds he, thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of name, for the king's stile is now no more, of Eng­land, but of Britain. Of the latter class of feigned prophecies many have, within these few years, been published by authors who had not wit enough to put them into verse.

The inscription mentioned in the title-page of the Marmor Norfolciense, as also the relation of the man­ner of finding it, are, as will be readily supposed, equally fictitious, as the sole end of writing and publishing it was to give occasion for a comment, which should concentrate all the topics of popular discontent: ac­cordingly it is insinuated, because an act of parliament had then lately passed, by which it was enacted that all law proceedings should be in English, that therefore few lawyers understood Latin; and the people are taught to look on the descendants of the Princess So­phia as intruders of yesterday, receiving an estate by voluntary grant, and erecting thereon a claim of here­ditary right. The explanation of the prophecy, which is all ironical, resolves itself into an invective against a standing army, a ridicule of the balance of power, complaints of the inactivity of the British lion, and that the Hanover horse was suffered to suck his blood.

[Page 72] A publication so inflammatory as this, could hardly escape the notice of any government, under which the legal idea of a libel might be supposed to exist. The principles it contained were such as the Jacobites of the time openly avowed; and warrants were issued and messengers employed to apprehend the author, who, though he had forborne to subscribe his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of those in pursuit of him had discovered. To elude the search after him, he, toge­ther with his wife, took an obscure lodging in a house in Lambeth marsh, and lay there concealed till the scent after him was grown cold.

In the same year, 1739, an event arose that gave oc­casion to Johnson again to exercise his talent of satire; viz. the refusal of a licence for acting a tragedy inti­tled, ‘'Gustavus Vasa, or the deliverer of his country,'’ written by Henry Brooke, to account for which seeming injury, some previous information, such as I am now about to give, appears necessary.

The places for theatrical representations in this country were anciently the king's palace, and the man­sions of the nobility; but, as the love of them increased, taverns and other public houses in different parts of the city and suburbs, were fitted up for the purpose, and called play-houses. The usurpation and the principles of the times put a stop to stage entertainments: at the restoration they were revived, and the places for repre­sentation constructed in the form of theatres: their number, at no time after that period, exceeded four, and in the year 1728, and long before, it was reduced to three, namely, Drury lane, Lincoln's-inn fields, and the French playhouse in the Hay-market. In that [Page 73] year, a man, of the name of Odell, took a throwster's shop in Ayliffe street, Goodman's fields, and collecting together a number of strolling players of both sexes, opened it as a theatre. Its contiguity to the city, soon made it a place of great resort, and what was ap­prehended from the advertisement of plays to be ex­hibited in that quarter of the town, soon followed: the adjacent houses became taverns, in name, but in truth they were houses of lewd resort ^*; and the former oc­cupiers of them, useful manufacturers and industrious artificers, were driven to seek elsewhere for a residence. In the course of the entertainments of this place, the manager ventured to exhibit some few new plays; among the rest a tragedy, intitled, ‘'King Charles the First,'’ containing sentiments suited to the characters of republicans, sectaries and enthusiasts, and a scenical representation of the events of that prince's disastrous reign, better forgotten than remembered. Sober per­sons thought that the revival of the memory of past transactions of such a kind as these were, would serve no good purpose, but, on the contrary, perpetuate that enmity between the friends to and opponents of our ecclesiastical and civil establishment, which they [Page 74] had heretofore excited; and for suffering such repre­sentations as these, they execrated not so much the author as the manager. In this instance, the indigna­tion of the public was ill-directed: the arguments arising from this supposed abuse of histrionical liberty were not local; they proved too much, and rather ap­plied to stage entertainments in general than to the conduct of a particular manager.

But others looked on this new-erected theatre with an eye more penetrating: the merchants of London, then a grave sagacious body of men, found that it was a temptation to idleness and to pleasure that their clerks could not resist: they regretted to see the corruptions of Covent-garden extended, and the seats of industry hold forth allurements to vice and debauchery. The principal of these was Sir John Barnard, a wise and venerable man, and a good citizen: he, as a magistrate, had for some time been watching for such information as would bring the actors at Goodman's-fields play­house within the reach of the vagrant laws; but none was laid before him that he could, with prudence, act upon. At length, however, an opportunity offered, which he not only embraced, but made an admirable use of: Mr. Henry Fielding, then a young barrister without practice, a dramatic poet, and a patriot, under the extreme pressure of necessity, had, in the year 1736, written a comedy, or a farce, we may call it either or both, intitled, ‘'Pasquin,'’ a dramatic satire on the times, and brought it on the stage of the little play­house in the Hay-market, which, being calculated to encourage popular clamour, and containing in it many reflections on the public councils, furnished reasons for bringing a bill into the house of commons for prohibit­ing [Page 75] the acting of any interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, &c. without the authority of his Majesty's letters-patent or a licence from the lord-chamberlain. In this bill a clause was inserted on the motion of Sir John Barnard, and a very judicious one it was, by which it was made penal, even with any such patent or licence, to act or represent any such interlude, &c. in any part of Great Britain, except in the city of West­minster and such other places as his Majesty, in person, should reside in.

Before 1737, the year in which this bill was brought in, the property of Goodman's-fields playhouse had passed into the hands of Mr. Henry Giffard, who, en­couraged by a subscription, pulled it down, and, under the direction of Shephard, the architect, the same that afterwards built Covent-garden theatre, had erected a new one. This man, while the bill was depending, pe­titioned against it, and, in his printed case, represented the injury he was likely to sustain: all the specious ar­guments of the great sums he had expended on the pur­chase of the house, and rebuilding it, in scenes, cloaths, &c. were urged with their utmost force, and his right to an equivalent stated; but all to no effect: the bill passed, and the statute is now part of the law of the land. It is true, an evasion of it was afterwards con­trived by an advertisement of a concert, with a play given gratis, but that subterfuge was soon aban­doned.

The operation of this statute was two-fold; it sub­jected theatrical representations to a licence, and sup­pressed a nuisance. And here let me observe, that although of plays it is said that they teach morality, and [Page 76] of the stage that it is the mirror of human life, these assertions are mere declamation, and have no founda­tion in truth or experience: on the contrary, a play­house, and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds of vice: how else comes it to pass that no sooner is a playhouse opened in any part of the kingdom, than it becomes surrounded by an halo of brothels? Of this truth, the neighbourhood of the place I am now speak­ing of has had experience; one parish alone, adjacent thereto, having to my knowledge, expended the sum of 1300l. in prosecutions for the purpose of removing those inhabitants, whom, for instruction in the science of human life, the playhouse had drawn thither.

Mr. Brooke, the author above-mentioned, having with his eyes open, and the statute of the tenth of George the second staring him in the face, written a tragedy, in which, as will be presently shewn, under pretence of a laudable zeal for the cause of liberty, he inculcates principles, not only anti-monarchical, but scarcely consistent with any system of civil subordina­tion; what wonder is it, that, under a monarchical government, a licence for such a theatrical represen­tation should be refused? or that such a refusal should be followed by a prohibition of the acting it?

This interposition of legal authority was looked upon by the author's friends, in which number were included all the Jacobites in the kingdom, as an in­fraction of a natural right, and as affecting the cause of liberty. To express their resentment of this injury, they advised him to send it to the press, and by a sub­scription to the publication, of near a thousand persons, encouraged others to the like attempts. By means of the printed copy any one is enabled to judge of its [Page 77] general tendency, and, by reflecting on the sentiments inculcated in the following speeches therein to be found, to measure the injustice done him:

The dedication to the play, addressed to the sub­scribers, gives the reader to understand, that the au­thor had ‘'studied the ancient laws of his country, though not conversant with her present political state,' that he is 'a friend to national liberty and personal free­dom,' (meaning by the first, 'a state resulting from virtue or reason ruling in a breast superior to appetite and passion,' and, by the last, 'a security arising from the nature of a well-ordered constitution, for those ad­vantages [Page 78] and privileges that each man has a right to by contributing as a member to the weal of that com­munity;')’ these declarations are interspersed with re­flections on the lord-chamberlain, and a complaint that his treatment of the author ‘'was singular and un­precedented;'’ after which follows an effusion of patri­otic sentiments serving to shew, that a monarch or head of such a constitution as he above has described, is ‘'sceptered in the hearts of his people.'’

Upon occasion of this publication, Johnson was em­ployed by one Corbet, a bookseller of small note, to take up the cause of this injured author, and he did it in a pamphlet, intitled, ‘'A Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke, author of Gustavus Vasa.'’ 4to. 1739.

Criticism would be ill employed in a minute exami­nation of the Marmor Norfolciense, and the Vindicati­on of the Licensers: in general it may suffice to say that they are both ironical, that they display neither learn­ing nor wit, and that in neither of them is there to be discovered a single ray of that brightness which beams so strongly in the author's moral and po­litical essays. Did it become a man of his discern­ment, endowed with such powers of reasoning and eloquence as he possessed, to adopt vulgar preju­dices, or, in the cant of the opposition, to clamor against place-men, and pensioners and standing ar­mies? to ridicule the apprehension of that invasion in favour of the pretender, which himself, but a few years after became a witness to, or to compare the improbability of such an event with that of a general insurrection of all who were prohibited the use of gin?

[Page 79] Of all the modes of satire, I know none so feeble as that of uninterrupted irony. The reason of this seems to be, that in that kind of writing the author is compelled to advance positions which no reader can think he believes, and to put questions that can be answered in but one way, and that such an one as thwarts the sense of the propounder. Of this kind of interrogatories the pamphlet I am speaking of seems to be an example; ‘'Is the man without pension or place to suspect the impartiality or the judgment of those who are entrusted with the administration of public affairs? Is he, when the law is not strictly observed in regard to him, to think himself aggrieved, to tell his sentiments in print, to assert his claim to better usage, and fly for redress to another tri­bunal?'’

Who does not see that to these several queries the answer must be in the affirmative? and, if so, the point of the writer's wit is, in this instance, blunted, and his argument baffled.

In the course of this mock vindication of power, Johnson has taken a wide scope, and adopted all the vulgar topics of complaint as they were vented weekly in the public papers, and in the writings of Boling­broke, flimsy and malignant as they are. And here let me note a curious sophism of that superficial thinker, which I remember to have seen in his celebrated Disser­tation on Parties; but which, not having the book by me, I cite by memory: it is to this purpose: ‘'The advocates of the minister,' says his Lordship, 'defy us to shew, that, under his administration, any infraction had been made of the original contract.'’ To this we answer, that between such an infraction and the loss of [Page 80] our liberties, there can no point of time intervene; such a cause and such an effect being so closely con­nected, that we cannot see the one till we feel the other.

Such was the conduct of opposition at this time, and by such futile arguments as the above were the silly people of three kingdoms deluded into a belief, that their liberties were in danger, and that nothing could save this country from impending ruin, and that the most formidable of all the evils they had to dread, was the continuance of the then administration, of which they had nothing worse to say than that they hated it.

The truth is, that Johnson's political prejudices were a mist that the eye of his judgment could not penetrate: in all the measures of government he could see nothing right; nor could he be convinced, in his invectives against a standing army, as the Jacobites affected to call it, that the peasantry of a country was not an ade­quate defence against an invasion of it by an armed force. He almost asserted in terms, that the succession to the crown had been illegally interrupted, and that from whig-politics none of the benefits of government could be expected. He could but just endure the op­position to the minister because conducted on whig principles; and I have heard him say, that during the whole course of it, the two parties were bidding for the people. At other times, and in the heat of his re­sentment, I have heard him assert, that, since the death of Queen Anne, it had been the policy of the admi­nistration to promote to ecclesiastical dignities none but the most worthless and undeserving men: nor would he then exclude from this bigotted censure those illustrious divines, Wake, Gibson, Sherlock, Butler, Herring, Pearce, and least of all Hoadly; [Page 81] in competition with whom he would set Hickes, Brett, Leslie, and others of the nonjurors, whose names are scarcely now remembered. From hence it appears, and to his honour be it said, that his principles co­operated with his necessities, and that the prostitution of his talents, taking the term in one and that its worst sense, could not, in justice, be imputed to him.

But there is another, and a less criminal sense of the word prostitution, in which, in common with all who are called authors by profession, he may be said to stand in need of an excuse. When Milton wrote the Para­dise Lost, the sum he received for the copy was not his motive, but was an adventitious benefit that resulted from the exercise of his poetical faculty. In Johnson's case, as well in the instances above given as almost all the others that occurred during the course of his life, the impulse of genius was wanting: had that alone operated in his choice of subjects to write on, mankind would have been indebted to him for a variety of ori­ginal, interesting and useful compositions; and tran­slations of some, and new editions of others of the ancient authors. The truth of which assertion I think I may safely ground on a catalogue of publica­tions projected by him at different periods, and now ly­ing before me, a copy whereof is given below: ^*

[Page 82] Under this notion of works written with a view to gain, and those that owe their existence to a more libe­ral motive, a distinction of literary productions arises [Page 83] which Johnson would never allow; on the contrary, to the astonishment of myself who have heard him, and many others, he has frequently declared, that the [Page 84] only true and genuine motive to the writing of books was the assurance of pecuniary profit. Notwithstanding the boldness of this assertion, there are but few that can be persuaded to yield to it; and, after all, the best apology for Johnson will be found to consist in his want of a profession, the pressure of his necessities, and the example of such men as Castalio, Gesner, and Sal­masius, among foreigners; and Fuller, Howel, L'Estrange, Dryden, Chambers, and Hume, not to mention others now living, among ourselves.

The principle here noted was not only in the above instance avowed by Johnson, but seems to have been wrought by him into a habit. He was never greedy of money, but without money could not be stimu­lated to write. I have been told by a clergyman of some eminence with whom he had been long ac­quainted, that, being to preach on a particular occa­sion, he applied, as others under a like necessity had frequently done, to Johnson for help. ‘'I will write a [Page 85] sermon for thee,' said Johnson, 'but thou must pay me for it.'’

Yet was he not so indifferent to the subjects that he was requested to write on, as at any time to abandon either his religious or political principles. He would no more have put his name to an Arian or Socinian tract than to a defence of Atheism. At the time when ‘'Faction Detected'’ came out, a pamphlet of which the late lord Egmont is now generally understood to have been the author, Osborne the bookseller, held out to him a strong temptation to answer it, which he refused, being convinced, as he assured me, that the charge contained in it was made good, and that the argument grounded thereon was unanswerable.

Indeed whoever peruses that masterly performance must be convinced that a spirit similar to that which induced the Israelites, when under the conduct of their wise legislator, to cry out ‘'Ye take too much upon ye,'’ is the most frequent motive to opposition, and that whoever hopes to govern a free people by reason, is mistaken in his judgment of human nature. ‘'He,' says Hooker, 'that goeth about to persuade a people that they are not well governed, shall never want atten­tive and favourable hearers:'’and the same author speak­ing of legislation in general, delivers this as his senti­ment: ‘'Laws politic ordained for external order and regimen amongst men are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be obstinate, rebellious and averse from all obedience unto the sa­cred laws of his nature: In a word, unless presuming man, in regard of his depraved mind, little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide, notwithstand­ing, so to frame his outward actions as that they be no hindrance unto the common good, for which societies [Page 86] were instituted. Unless they do this they are not per­fect.'’ Eccles. Pol. Lib. I. Sect. 1. Ibid. Sect. 10.

That these were the sentiments of Johnson also, I am warranted to say, by frequent declarations to the same purpose, which I have heard him make; and to these I attribute it, that he ever after acquiesced in the mea­sures of government through the succession of admi­nistrations.

It has already been mentioned in the account above given of Savage, that the friends of that ill-starred man had set on foot a subscription for his support, and that Swansea was the place they had fixed on for his resi­dence: the same was completed at the end of the year 1739. Johnson at that time lodged at Greenwich, and there parted with that friend and companion of his midnight rambles, whom it was never his fortune again to see. The event is antedated in the poem of ‘'Lon­don';’ but in every particular, except the difference of a year, what is there said of the departure of Thales must be understood of Savage, and looked upon as true history. In his life of Savage, Johnson has mentioned the circumstances that attended it, and deplored this separation as he would have done a greater misfortune than it proved: that it was, in reality, none, may be inferred from Savage's inability, arising from his cir­cumstances, his course of life, and the laxity of his mind, to do good to any one: it is rather to be sus­pected that his example was contagious, and tended to confirm Johnson in his indolence and those other evil habits which it was the labour of his life to conquer. They who were witnesses of Johnson's persevering temperance in the article of drinking, for, at least, the latter half of his life, will scarcely believe that, during part of the former, he was a lover of wine, that he not [Page 87] only indulged himself in the use of it when he could procure it, but, with a reflex delight, contemplated the act of drinking it, with all the circumstances that render it grateful to the palate or pleasing to the eye: in the language of Solomon ‘'he looked upon the wine when it was red, when it gave his colour in the cup, and when it moved itself aright ^*.'’ In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, that a tavern-chair was the throne of human felicity.— ‘'As soon,' said he, 'as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude ^†: when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sen­timents I find delight.'’

[Page 88] How far his conversations with Savage might induce him thus to delight in tavern-society, which is often a temptation to greater enormities than excessive drink­ing, cannot now be known, nor would it answer any good purpose to enquire. It may, nevertheless, be conjectured, that whatever habits he had contracted of idleness, neg­lect of his person, or indifference in the choice of his company, received no correction or check from such an example as Savage's conduct held forth; and farther it is conjectured, that he would have been less troubled with those reflections, which, in his latest hours, are known to have given him uneasiness, had he never be­come acquainted with one so loose in his morals, and so well acquainted with the vices of the town as this man appears to have been. We are to remember that Johnson was, at this time, a husband: can it therefore be supposed that the society of such a man as Savage had any tendency to improve him in the exercise of the domestic virtues? nay rather we must doubt it, and [Page 89] ascribe to an indifference in the discharge of them, arising from their nocturnal excursions, the incident of a temporary separation of Johnson from his wife, which soon took place, and that, while he was in a lodging in Fleet street, she was harboured by a friend near the Tower. It is true that this separation con­tinued but a short time, and that if indeed his affection, at that instant, was alienated from her, it soon returned; for his attachment to her appears, by a variety of notes and memorandums concerning her in books that she was accustomed to read in, now in my custody, to have been equal to what it ought to be: nay Garrick would often risque offending them both, by mimicking his mode of gallantry and his uxorious behaviour towards her.

The little profit, or indeed reputation, that accrued to Johnson by the writing of political pamphlets, led him to think of other exercises for his pen. He had, so early as 1734, solicited employment of Cave; but Cave's correspondents were so numerous that he had little for him till the beginning of the year 1738, when Johnson conceived a thought of enriching the Magazine with a biographical article, and wrote for it the Life of Father Paul, an abridgement, as it seems to be, of that life of him which Johnson intended to have prefixed to his translation of the History of the Council of Trent. The motive to this and other exer­tions of the same talent in the lives of Boerhaave, Blake, Barretier, and other eminent persons, was his wants, which at one time were so pressing as to induce him in a letter to Cave, hereinbefore inserted, to intimate to him that he wanted a dinner.

[Page 90] Johnson who was never deficient in gratitude, for the assistance which he received from Cave became his friend; and, what was more in Cave's estimation than any personal attachment whatever, a friend to his Ma­gazine, for he being at this time engaged in a contro­versy with a knot of booksellers the proprietors of a rival publication, the London Magazine, Johnson wrote and addressed to him the following Ode:

It was published in the Magazine for March 1738, and imitated in the following stanzas in that for the month of May following:

The provocation that gave rise to this furious con­test, as it will presently appear to have been, was the increasing demand for Cave's publication, and the check it gave to the sale of its rival, which at one time was so great as to throw back no fewer than seventy thousand copies on the hands of the pro­prietors. To revenge this injury, the confederate booksellers gave out, that Sylvanus Urban, whom, for no conceivable reason, they dignified with the appel­lation of Doctor, was become mad, assigning as the cause of his insanity, his publication in the Magazine of sundry mathematical problems, essays and questions on abstruse subjects, sent him by many of his learned correspondents. Cave who for some months had been rebutting the calumnies of his adversaries, and that with such success as provoked them to the outrage above-mentioned, now felt that he had them at mercy. With that sagacity which we frequently observe, but wonder at in men of slow parts, he seemed to antici­pate [Page 93] the advice contained in the second and third stanzas of Johnson's ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge, which he gratified in such a manner as seems to absolve him from the guilt im­putable in most cases to that passion; this he did by inserting as an article of public intelligence in his Historical Chronicle for the month of February 1738, the following paragraph: ‘"Monday 20. About 8 o'clock the famous Dr. Urban, having some time past been possessed with a violent frenzy, broke loose from his nurse, and run all through the streets of London and Westminster distributing quack bills, swearing he would go visit his beautiful Garden of Eden; raving against Common Sense ^*, and the London Magazine, and singing a mad song set to music by Peter the Wild Youth; but being at last secured, was conveyed to his lodgings in Moor­fields, where he continues uttering horrid impreca­tions against several booksellers and printers. 'Tis thought this poor man's misfortune is owing to his having lately perplexed himself with biblical questions, mathematical problems, astronomical equations, and methods to find the longitude."’ ‘—' This silly para­graph, and such like buffoonery, inserted in the news­papers at the charge of the proprietors of the London Magazine, is all the answer given to the remarks on their inimitable preface, some passages of which are quoted in the beginning of this magazine ^†.'’

[Page 94] The publication in the manner above-mentioned of this senseless and malignant fiction, and the care and attention of Cave in the compilation of his maga­zine, together with the assistance he received from a variety of ingenious and learned correspondents, ena­bled him in a short time to triumph over his rivals, and increased the sale thereof to a number that no other could ever equal.

It was no part of Cave's original design to give the debates in either house of parliament, but the opposi­tion to the minister, and the spirit that conducted it, had excited in the people a great eagerness to know what was going forward in both, and he knew that to gratify that desire was to encrease the demand for his pamphlet. Indeed the experiment had already been made, for the speeches in parliament had for some time been given in the Political State of Great Britain, a publication above spoken of, and though drawn up by persons no way equal to such an undertaking, were well received. These for the most part were taken by stealth, and were compiled from the information of listeners and the under-officers and door-keepers of either house; but Cave had an interest [Page 95] with some of the members of both, arising from an employment he held in the post-office, that of inspector of the franks, which not only gave him the privilege of sending his letters free of postage, but an acquaintance with, and occasions of access to many of them.

Of this advantage he was too good a judge of his own interest not to avail himself. He therefore de­termined to gratify his readers with as much of this kind of intelligence as he could procure and it was safe to communicate: his resolution was to frequent the two houses whenever an important debate was likely to come on, and from such expressions and par­ticulars in the course thereof as could be collected and retained in memory, to give the arguments on either side. This resolution he put into practice in July 1736. His method of proceeding is variously reported; but I have been informed by some who were much about him, that taking with him a friend or two, he found means to procure for them and himself admission into the gallery of the house of commons, or to some con­cealed station in the other, and that then they pri­vately took down notes of the several speeches, and the general tendency and substance of the arguments, Thus furnished, Cave and his associates would adjourn to a neighbouring tavern, and compare and adjust their notes, by means whereof and the help of their memo­ries, they became enabled to fix at least the substance of what they had so lately heard and remarked.

The reducing this crude matter into form, was the work of a future day and of an abler hand, viz. Guthrie, the historian, a writer for the booksellers, whom Cave retained for the purpose: the speeches thus composed were given monthly to the public, [Page 96] and perused and red with great eagerness; those who contemplated them thought they discovered in them not merely the political principles, but the stile and manner of the speaker; the fact is, that there was little discrimination of the latter between the speeches of the best and the worst orators in either assembly, and in most instances the persons to whom they were ascribed were here made to speak with more eloquence and even propriety of diction than, in the place of de­bate they were able to do: Sir John Barnard, for instance, a man of no learning or reading, and who by the way had been bred a quaker, had a stile little better than an ordinary mechanic, and which abounded with such phrases as, if so be—set case—and—nobody more so—and other such vulgarisms, yet was he made in the magazine to debate in language as correct and polished as that of Sir William Wyndham or Mr. Pulteney; though it must be confessed that so weighty was his matter on subjects of commerce, that Sir Robert Walpole, as I have been credibly informed, was used to say, that when he had answered Sir John Bar­nard, he looked upon that day's business in the house of commons to be as good as over.

The vigorous opposition to the minister, and the motion in both houses of the thirteenth of February, 1740-1 to remove him, were a new aera in politics; and, as the debates on that occasion were warmer than had ever then been known, the drawing them up re­quired, in Cave's opinion, the pen of a more nervous writer than he who had hitherto conducted them. Johnson, who in his former publications in prose, had given no very favorable specimens of stile, had by this time, by the study of the best of our old English [Page 97] writers, such as Sir Thomas More, Ascham, Hooker, Spenser, archbishop Sandys, Jewel, Chillingworth, Hales, of Eton, and others, formed a new one, consisting in original phrases and new combinations of the integral parts of sentences, which, with the infusion of words derived from the Latin and accommodated to our idiom, were such an improvement of the language as greatly tended to enrich it: Cave therefore thought him a fit person to conduct this part of his monthly publication, and, dismissing Guthrie, committed the care of it to Johnson.

Before this change of hands, Cave had been checked by some intimations from the clerks of the house of commons, that his printing the debates had given offence to the speaker, and might subject him to censure: this he, for some time, regard­ed but little, relying possibly upon the indulgence that had been shewn as well to the publishers of the Political State of Great Britain, who were the first that ventured on this practice, as to himself; but a resolution of the house at length gave him to under­stand, that it would be prudence in him to desist from it. The thought of putting his readers on short allowance was very unpleasing to him, and this, with the apprehension that the sale of his Magazine might be affected by the omission of a kind of intelligence which they had been accustomed to, drove him to many contrivances to evade the prohibition, out of which he chose one that scarce any man but himself would have thought of: it was the giving to the pub­lic the debates in the British senate under a fictitious designation. Every one, he knew, was acquainted with Gulliver's Travels; he therefore, in his magazine [Page 98] for June 1738, begins the month by feigning, that the debates in the senate of Magna Lilliputia were then extant; and referring to the resolution of the house of commons, above-mentioned, whereby he was for­bidden to insert any account of the proceedings of the British parliament, he pretends to doubt not but his readers will be pleased with the insertion of what he calls the appendix to captain Gulliver's account of Lilliput, in their room. A change of fictitious for real names of persons, countries, and provinces, was absolutely necessary for the carrying on this design, and accordingly, by transposing the letters and otherwise anagrammatizing proper names, he has, through the medium of nonsense, given light to that which he would be thought to conceal.

Farther to aid his reader as to the names of coun­tries, &c. he published, at the end of his magazine for 1738, a fictitious proposal for printing, by sub­scription, a work, intitled, Anagrammata Rediviva, or the art of composing and resolving anagrams, with a reference to the booksellers, agents, and masters of ships, in the cities, countries, and provinces therein described by barbarous names opposed to those which they are meant to signify: he also, at the end of the magazines for 1739, 1740, 1741, 1742, and 1743, gave a list of christian and surnames pretendedly synonimous, forming thereby a key to that otherwise unintelligible jargon which Cave, by this subterfuge, had introduced into the debates.

The proprietors of the London Magazine, who also gave the debates, but from documents less authentic than those of C [...]ve, compelled by the same necessity [Page 99] that forced him to this artifice, took another course: they feigned to give the debates in the Roman senate, and by adapting Roman names to the several speeches, rendered them more plausible than they appear under Cave's management.

The artifice however succeeded in both instances: the resolution of the commons was never enforced, and the debates were published with impunity. I will not disgrace my page by the insertion of any of those barbarous appellations which Cave had invented, and which, I dare say, were music to his ear; but content myself with saying, that Guthrie acquiesced in Cave's fiction and the nonsense which it involved, and as it was found to answer its end, Johnson scrupled not to adopt it.

The debates penned by Johnson were not only more methodical and better connected than those of Guthrie, but in all the ornaments of stile superior: they were written at those seasons when he was able to raise his imagination to such a pitch of servour as bordered upon enthusiasm, which, that he might the better do, his practice was to shut himself up in a room assigned him at St. John's gate, to which he would not suffer any one to approach, except the compositor or Cave's boy for matter, which, as fast as he composed it, he tumbled out at the door.

Never were the force of reasoning or the powers of popular eloquence more evidently displayed, or the arts of sophistry more clearly detected than in these animated compositions. Nor are they more worthy of admiration for these their excellencies than for that peculiarity of language which discriminates [Page 100] the debates of each assembly from the other, and the various colouring which he has found the art of giv­ing to particular speeches. The characteristic of the one assembly we know is Dignity; the privilege of the other Freedom of Expression. To speak of the first, when a member thereof endowed with wisdom, gravity, and experience, is made to rise, the stile which Johnson gives him is nervous, his matter weighty, and his arguments convincing; and when a mere popular orator takes up a debate, his elo­quence is by him represented in a glare of false rheto­ric, specious reasoning, an affectation of wit, and a disposition to trifle with subjects the most interesting. With great judgment also does Johnson adopt the unrestrained oratory of the other house, and with equal facility imitate the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney, and the yelping pertinacity of Pitt.

As an illustration of the former part of this position, I shall here give two speeches, the one of the lord­chancellor Hardwicke on the motion of lord Car­teret for an address to his Majesty, beseeching him to remove Sir Robert Walpole from his presence and councils for ever; and the other of lord Chesterfield on a bill, intitled ‘'An act for repealing certain duties on spirituous liquors, and on licences for retailing the same, and for laying other duties on spirituous liquors and on licenses for retailing the said liquors.'’ That of lord Hardwicke is as follows:

[Page 101]

This nervous speech was occasioned by one of the earl of Abingdon in support of the motion, which he grounded on the evidence of common fame. The drift of lord Hardwicke's speech is to invalidate that kind of testimony, and in this he displays the talents of a sound lawyer and an eloquent orator; but the private virtues of Sir Robert Walpole were such, that few of his enemies wished for a greater punishment on him than the divesting him of power, and accordingly the motion contained no specific charge of crimes that called for public justice: it tended to shew that the minister had been inattentive to the complaints of the [Page 113] merchants, averse to the prosecution of the war, and unskilful in the conduct of it, and that the councils of the nation had not prospered under his influence, and that these facts were notorious: these were surely reasons for his removal, and superseded the necessity of legal forms, and that kind of evidence which is required to support a bill of attainder or an im­peachment. Lord Hardwicke's argument may there­fore seem fallacious, but it was admirably calculated to elude the charge; he wilfully mistook the design of the motion, and set himself to invalidate the kind of evidence on which it was grounded, and to shew its insufficiency to support a legal prosecution, and suc­ceeding therein, his opponents thought their arguments refuted when in truth they were not.

The speech of Lord Chesterfield on a different sub­ject, and against a measure of a succeeding, and, as it was pretended, a purer administration, is as follows.

This speech is a contrast to that of lord Hard­wicke, and to him who uttered it may be applied the character which bishop Burnet gives of Waller, viz. ‘'That he was only concerned to say that which should make him applauded; he never laid the business of the house to heart, being a vain and empty, though a witty man.'’

The subject of this important debate was a bill to restrain the use of spirituous liquors, founded on evi­dence that no less a quantity than seven millions of gallons thereof were yearly distilled and consumed in this country, and that in many parishes within the [Page 122] bills of mortality, exclusive of London and South­wark, every sixth house retailed them. The bill, under the influence of the duke of Newcastle, lord Carteret, Mr. Sandys and others, the then ministry, passed the commons with little or no opposition, and money was immediately raised on the tax thereby im­posed. In the house of lords it was vehemently opposed by the bishops and many of the lay lords, with great force of reasoning, and by lord Chesterfield in the above speech, which has little of argument in it, though it goes to prove, that the practice ought to have been suppressed rather than tolerated. It how­ever passed, and notwithstanding the subsequent laws since made to palliate it, the evil to a great degree subsists at this day.

In the perusal of these debates, as written, we can­not but wonder at the powers that produced them. The author had never passed those gradations that lead to the knowledge of men and business: born to a narrow fortune, of no profession, conversant chiefly with books, and, if we believe some, so deficient in the formalities of discourse, and the practices of cere­mony, as in conversation to be scarce tolerable; unac­quainted with the stile of any other than academical disputation, and so great a stranger to senatorial man­ners, that he never was within the walls of either house of parliament. That a man, under these disadvantages, should be able to frame a system of debate, to compose speeches of such excellence, both in matter and form, as scarcely to be equalled by those of the most able and experienced statesmen, is, I say, matter of astonishment, and a proof of talents that qualified him for a speaker in the most august assembly on earth.

[Page 123] Cave, who had no idea of the powers of eloquence over the human mind, became sensible of its effects in the profits it brought him: he had long thought that the success of his Magazine proceeded from those parts of it that were conducted by himself, which were the abridgement of weekly papers written against the ministry, such as the Craftsman, Fog's Journal, Common Sense, the Weekly Miscellany, the West­minster Journal, and others, and also marshalling the pastorals, the elegies, and the songs, the epigrams, and the rebuses that were sent him by various correspon­dents, and was scarcely able to see the causes that at this time increased the sale of his pamphlet from ten to fifteen thousand copies a month. But if he saw not, he felt them, and manifested his good fortune by buying an old coach and a pair of older horses; and, that he might avoid the suspicion of pride in setting up an equipage, he displayed to the world the source of his affluence, by a representation of St. John's gate, instead of his arms, on the door-pannel. This he told me himself was the reason of distinguishing his carriage from others, by what some might think a whimsical device, and also for causing it to be engraven on all his plate.

Johnson had his reward, over and above the pecu­niary recompence vouchsafed him by Cave, in the general applause of his labours, which the increased demand for the Magazine implied; but this, as his performances fell short of his powers, gratified him but little; on the contrary, he disapproved the deceit he was compelled to practice; his notions of morality were so strict, that he would scarcely allow the violation of truth in the most trivial instances, and saw, in falshood [Page 124] of all kinds, a turpitude that the could never be tho­roughly reconciled to: and though the fraud was perhaps not greater than the fictitious relations in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, lord Bacon's Nova Atlantis, and bishop Hall's Mundus alter et idem, Johnson was not easy till he had disclosed the deception.

In the mean time it was curious to observe how the deceit operated. It has above been remarked, that Johnson had the art to give different colours to the several speeches, so that some appear to be declama­tory and energetic, resembling the orations of De­mosthenes; others like those of Cicero, calm, persua­sive; others, more particularly those attributed to such country-gentlemen, merchants, and seamen as had seats in parliament, bear the characteristic of plainness, bluntness, and an affected honesty as opposed to the plausibility of such as were understood or suspected to be courtiers: the artifice had its effect; Voltaire was betrayed by it into a declaration, that the eloquence of ancient Greece and Rome was revived in the British senate, and a speech of the late earl of Chatham when Mr. Pitt, in opposition to one of Mr. Horatio Walpole, received the highest applause, and was by all that red it taken for genuine; ^* and we are further [Page 125] told of a person in a high office under the government, who being at breakfast at a gentleman's chambers in [Page 126] Gray's inn, Johnson being also there, declared, that by the style alone of the speeches in the debates, he [Page 127] could severally assign them to the persons by whom they were delivered. Johnson upon hearing this, could [Page 128] not refrain from undeceiving him, by confessing that himself was the author of them all.

It must be owned, that with respect to the general principles avowed in the speeches, and the sentiments therein contained, they agree with the characters of the persons to whom they are ascribed. Thus, to instance in those of the upper house, the speeches of the duke of Newcastle, the lords Carteret and Ilay, are calm, temperate and persuasive; those of the duke of Argyle and lord Talbot, furious and declamatory, and lord Chesterfield's and lord Hervey's florid but flimsy. In the other house the speeches may be thus characte­rised; the minister's mild and conciliatory, Mr. Pulte­ney's [Page 129] nervous, methodical and weighty, Mr. Shippen's blunt and dogmatical, Sir John Barnard's clear, espe­cially on commercial subjects, Lyttelton's stiff and imi­tative of the Roman oratory, and Pitt's void of argument but rhapsodically and diffusively eloquent ^*. In other particulars the debates of Johnson are liable to the same objections, but in a greater degree, as those of Guthrie; the language of them is too good, and the style such as none of the persons to whom the speeches are assigned were able to discourse in.

The confession of Johnson above-mentioned, was the first that revealed the secret that the debates in­serted in the Gentleman's Magazine were fictitious, and composed by himself. After that, he was free, and indeed industrious, in the communication of it, for being informed that Dr. Smollet was writing a history of England, and had brought it down to the last reign, he cautioned him not to rely on the debates as given in the Magazine, for that they were not au­thentic, but, excepting as to their general import, the work of his own imagination.

As the subjects of these debates are at this time be­come very little interesting, I shall not attempt, farther than I have already done, to embellish these memoirs by a selection of any of those nervous arguments, or eloquent passages with which they abound, and the rather as it is impossible in the relation of a conflict between two contending parties, to determine the me­rits of their several pretensions, or distinguish between [Page 130] specious, and sound reasoning. In the attempts to remove the minister, experience has however con­vinced us, that ambition and personal resentment were the motives that actuated his opponents, for neither when they attained to power did they manifest greater integrity, nor did they cease to practise those methods for the maintaining their influence over the public councils, which were imputed to him as criminal.

It is beside my purpose to enter into a formal defence of the administration of this servant of the public, or to attempt a detection of the arts that were practised to render him odious: I will never­theless mention a few facts respecting him that have come to my own knowledge, and may serve to excul­pate him, in some degree, from the charge of being an enemy to the constitution or the interests of this country.

When he first came into power, he found it his duty to undertake the arduous task of reconciling the people to the dominion of a prince born in a foreign country, and securing the succession to his descendants, and this he lived to see effected. War he hated as much as some of his successors did peace, and from a war with Spain he foresaw that no good could follow: the settlements abroad of that power are very remote, and in a climate destructive to Englishmen; so that what we were ever able to take from them we never could hold. The extension of empire was never his wish; but the encouragement of commerce and the improve­ment of the revenue, in both which subjects his skill was unrivalled, engrossed his attention. To effect the one, a greater number of laws in its favour were framed and [Page 131] passed under his sanction, than had ever been enacted in any known period of equal duration with his ministry; and to carry the other into practice, he projected a scheme for an extension of the excise, as the only means of put­ting a stop to the frauds of merchants and illicit traders, and making the receipts of that branch of the public income equal to what they were computed at. This scheme, it is true, subjected him to much ob­loquy, and he was necessitated to abandon it; but in a succeeding administration it was partly carried into execution, at the express solicitation of the principal persons concerned in that article of trade which it was suggested would have been most affected had the scheme passed into a law: and afterwards the most popular minister that ever directed the councils of this country, scrupled not to declare in full senate, that if ever a time should arrive that was likely to render the project feasible, himself would recommend an ex­tension of the excise-laws as a measure big with ad­vantage to commerce, to the revenue, and to the general interests of the kingdom.

The question whether he was in principle an enemy to his country or not, will possibly be decided by the following fact, which the best authority warrants me in relating: When he was seized with the disorder that put a period to his days, and from its violence he had abandoned the hope of living much longer, he called one of his sons to him, gave him his blessing, and with tears in his eyes told him, that from intelli­gence he had obtained, he would assure him that with­in a twelvemonth's time the crown of England would be fought for upon English ground: the subsequent [Page 132] rebellion in 1745, and the irruptions of the enemy beyond the borders of the north, verified this pre­diction.

As I shall have but little occasion to say more of the debates in parliament as they appear in the Ma­gazine, I shall close the account above given of them with saying, that Johnson continued to write them till the passing the bill for restraining the sale of spirituous liquors, which was about the end of the year 1743. After that, they were written by Dr. Hawkesworth, and by him continued to about 1760, within which period the plan of the Magazine was enlarged by a review of new publications. In this, Mr. Owen Ruffhead was first employed, but he being, in about two years, invited to superinted a re-publication of the Statutes at large, the office of reviewer dropped into the hands of Dr. Hawkesworth, who, though he was thought to exercise it with some asperity, conti­nued in it till about the year 1772, when he was em­ployed to digest the papers of sundry late navigators, and to become the editor of that collection of voyages, which in the catalogues of booksellers is distinguish­ed by his name.

About this time Johnson was solicited to undertake an employment of a kind very different from any he had ever been accustomed to: it was to compile a catalogue of books; a task, which at first view, seems to be not above the capacity of almost the lowest of literary artificers, but on a nearer was found to re­quire the abilities of one of the highest. Osborne the bookseller, had ventured on the purchase of the earl of Oxford's library of printed books, at the price of 13000l. and meaning to dispose of them by sale [Page 133] at his shop in the ordinary way, projected a catalogue thereof distributed into common-places, in five octavo volumes, which being sold for five shillings each, would pay itself, and circulate throughout the king­dom and also abroad.

It is probable that Osborne had consulted Mait­taire, then one of the masters of Westminster school, and who had formerly assisted in making out the Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum Angliae & Hiberniae, on the subject of his intended catalogue, and that Maittaire might have furnished the general heads or classes under which the several books are arranged, a work of some labour, and that required no small stock of erudition. This at least is certain, that he drew up a Latin dedica­tion of the whole to Lord Carteret, then secretary of state, and subscribed it with his name; but the un­der-workmen were, as I conjecture, first Oldys, and afterwards Johnson, who while he was engaged in so servile an employment resembled a lion in harness. The former of these persons was a natural son of Dr. Oldys, a civilian of some eminence, and subsisted by writing for the booksellers. Having a general know­ledge of books, he had been long retained in the ser­vice of Edward earl of Oxford, and was therefore by Osborne thought a fit person for his purpose; but whe­ther they disagreed, or that Oldys was hindered by the restraint of his person in the Fleet, a misfortune that he laboured under some time about that period, he desist­ed, after having proceeded to the end of the second volume. The third and fourth I conceive to be the work of Johnson ^*; the fifth is nothing more than a catalogue of Osborne's old stock.

[Page 134] The catalogue of the Harleian printed books, for of the manuscripts there is another in being, drawn up by an able hand, is of that kind which philolo­gists call Bibliotheque Raisonée, in which besides the title, and the colophon containing the place and year of publication, a description of each article is given, serving to shew both its intrinsic and extrinsic worth, the hands through which it has passed, and various other particulars that tend to recommend it. I will select a few examples of this kind from the third volume, and leave the reader to applaud the judg­ment of Osborne in appointing so able a man as Johnson to this laborious task, and the industry and perseverance of the latter in the performance of it.

• ‘'No. 412. The Antiquities of Stone-Henge on Salisbury plain restored by Inigo Jones, architect­general to the King, published by J. Webb, 1655.’

  ‘'This book has its margins (sides, tops and bottoms, in many leaves) almost written throughout, with some of the strangest notes, perhaps, to be met with, no ways re­lating to the subject-matter, nor to one ano­ther, [Page 135] except in one or two places. The book is inscribed by J. Webb to Philip earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, some time lord­chamberlain to King Charles I. and chancellor of Oxford. And it had been his own copy; for the said earl has, in the next leaf, writ his own name, which is apparently the same hand with that in which all those marginal eruptions of his memory and imagination were written. Some following possessor, or reader of this book, discovering the said writing to be his lordship's, has written in the margin against his name ‘"This Philip earl of Pembroke and Montgomery was the writer of these wild notes. A. Wood would have less belied him in calling him a mad­man, than in saying he was illiterate and could not write his name."’ The notes are written in Latin, French and English, in prose and verse, containing truth, fiction, trifles, matters of useful intelligence, some enough to make you merry, others melan­choly. He seems to have been under the displeasure of Cromwell and his daughters. Of the former he says ‘" Ravilliac Cromuell is to be pulled a pieces with wild horses, upon London streets, and then to be hanged, drawn, &c. not decapited in jest." p. 31.’ In the same page where he has writ his name, he has these words: ‘"If he be mad, as my lady Harwood sais, (whose tongue is no slaunder,) it is rather for wanting the 10000 pounds a year his father promised to give [Page 136] him, than that he thinks 6000 pounds a year too much for him to manage, with Wilton and Ramsbury; for he is very learnedly proud, and proudly learned."’ In several places he has mentioned Inigo Jones, the King's surveyor, affirming in one place, ‘"He had, for 20 years together, sixteen thou­sand pounds a year, for keeping the King's houses in repair, and yet they lay worse than any house in Turnball street." P. 3.’ But in one place he augments his salary very much, when he says, ‘" Hinnico Jones, alias Iniquity Jones, a justice of peace, and of the Quorum, i and Custos Rotulorum, hath for keeping the King's houses in re­pair, deux cens mil escu per an. threescore thousand pounds sterling a year, i and well paid: He is fourscore years ould." P. 34.’ &c. &c.'’

• ‘'No. 1168. Glossarium Archaiologicum, Authore Henrico Spelmanno, Equite—1664.’

  ‘'Because it had been intimated as if the latter part of this famous work, now first published with the former, and makes it complete, was not that learned author's own to whom it is ascribed, Dr. Robert Brady has satisfied the world of this particular in the following curious anecdote: ‘"The first part of the Glossary, to the letter N, was published in the year 1626, the whole being then finished and offered by Sir Henry Spelman to Mr. Bill, the King's printer, for the value of five pounds in books only; but [Page 137] he refusing to give him that small rate for the copy, he ventured to print the first part of it at his own charge, and most of the books lay upon his hands until the latter end of the year 1637, when Mr. Stephens and Mr. Meredith (booksellers in St. Paul's church-yard) took them off. The next year, viz. Sir William Dugdale being with Sir Henry Spelman, and telling him that many learned men were very desirous to see the remaining part of that work, Sir Henry then told him what is here related, and produced both parts of the Glossary, the first whereof was printed, and interleaved with blank leaves, as also was the second, which was in manuscript, wherein he had added and altered much. After his Majesty's restaura­tion, the earl of Clarendon, then lord-chan­cellor, and Dr. Sheldon, then bishop of London, inquired of Sir William Dugdale what was become of the remaining part of the Glossary, or whether ever it was finished? He told them it was finished, and in the hands of Mr. Charles Spelman, grand­child to Sir Henry, and youngest son to Sir John. Whereupon they desired Sir William to move him to print it, which he did: but finding that the booksellers would give nothing for the copy, and that he was not able to print it at his own charge, and returning this answer to the lord chancellor and bishop of London, they contributed liberally themselves; and procuring many [Page 138] subscriptions to that purpose, desired Sir William Dugdale to receive the money, and deal with a printer to perform the work; which he did, and caused it to be printed as he received it, all under the proper hand­writing of Sir Henry Spelman, without altera­tion or addition. And had it not been for the dreadful fire in London, wherein both the copy and the greatest part of the im­pression were consumed, it might at this day have been produced, to have confirm­ed what is here reported. For the truth whereof, Sir William Dugdale, a person of great learning, worth, and integrity, and now a living testimony, without exception, may be consulted if any man doubts what is here delivered. See Animadversions upon a book called Jani Anglorum Facies Nova, p. 96. annexed to an Answer to a book written by William Petit, Esq 8vo. 1681."’’

• ‘'No. 1528. Missale Mixtum secundum Regulam Beati Isidori dictum Mozarabes. Toleti 1500.’

  ‘'This is the scarcest book in the whole Harleian collection. At the end of it are the following words, which deserve to be insert­ed here:’

  ‘" Ad laudem omnipotentis Dei, nec non Vir­ginis Mariae matris ejus, omnium sanctorum sanctarum (que) expletum est missale mixtum secundum regulam beati Isidori dictum Moza­rabes: Maxima cum diligentia perlectum et emendatum, per reverendum in utro (que) jure [Page 139] doctorem dominum Alfonsum Ortiz canonicum Toletanum. Impressum in regal, civitate Toleti jussu reverendissimi in Christo Patris Domini D. Francisci Ximenii, ejusdem civitatis ar­chiepiscopi. Impensis nobilis Melchioris Gor­riccii Novariensis, per Magistrum Petrum Hagembach, Alemanum, anno salutis nostrae 1500. Die 29 ^o mensis Januarii."’

  ‘'This is supposed to be the ancient missal amended and purged by St. Isidore, arch­bishop of Sevil, and ordered by the council of Toledo to be used in all churches, every one of which, before that time, had a missal peculiar to itself. The Moors afterwards committing great ravages in Spain, destroy­ing the churches, and throwing every thing there, both civil and sacred, into confusion, all St. Isidore's missals, excepting those in the city of Toledo, were lost. But those were preserved, even after the Moors had made themselves masters of that city; since they left six of the churches there to the Christians, and granted them the free exercise of their religion. Alphonsus the sixth, many ages afterwards, expelled the Moors from Toledo, and ordered the Roman missal to be used in those churches where St. Isidore's missal had been in vogue, ever since the council above-mentioned. But the people of Toledo insisting that their missal was drawn up by the most ancient bishops, revised and cor­rected by St. Isidore, proved to be the best [Page 140] by the great number of saints who had follow­ed it, and been preserved during the whole time of the Moorish government in Spain, he could not bring his project to bear without great difficulty. In short, the contest be­tween the Roman and Toletan missals came to that height, that, according to the genius of the age, it was decided by a single com­bat, wherein the champion of the Toletan missal proved victorious. But King Alphonso, say some of the Spanish writers, not being satisfied with this, which he considered as the effect of chance only, ordered a fast to be proclaimed, and a great fire to be then made, into which, after the King and people had prayed fervently to God for his assistance in this affair, both the missals were thrown, but the Toletan only escaped the violence of the flames. This, continue the same authors, made such an impression upon the King, that he permitted the citizens of Toledo to use their own missal in those churches that had been granted the Christians by the Moors. How­ever, the copies of this missal grew afterwards so scarce, thar cardinal Ximenes found it ex­tremely difficult to meet with one of them, which induced him to order this impression, and to build a chapel, in which this service was chanted every day, as it had at first been by the antient Christians. But notwithstand­ing this, the copies of the Toletan missal are become now so exceeding rare, that it [Page 141] is at present almost in as much danger of being buried in oblivion, as it was when committed to the press by cardinal Ximenes.’

• ‘'No. 3517. All the workes of John Taylor the water poet, being sixty and three in number, collect­ed into one volume by the author, with sundry new additions; corrected, revised, and newly imprinted—1630.’

  ‘'These works consist of several pieces, partly serious, but mostly comical, in prose as well as verse, which the author had pub­lished from time to time in single pamphlets. He frankly owns himself no scholar, but being a man of good natural parts, of a ready and copious invention, and having travell­ed much, and seen company of all sorts, he has in many things made good use, especially in the satirical vein of his fancy and observa­tions. Several of the nobility, &c. encou­raged him, and to them he dedicates several of these tracts. There are also commenda­tory verses before many of them, by some ingenious writers. Among the pieces for which he was most noted, may be reckoned his Whip of Pride, the Travels of Twelve Pence, Taylor's Goose, Taylor's Motto, his Chronicles in Verse, the Cormorant, Praise of Hempseed, Praise of Clean Linen, the Peace with France in praise of Archy, several Elegies, &c. Among the prose pieces: His Pennyless Pilgrimage from London to Edinburgh, in which he travelled a mile underneath the sea. The acts of Nich. Wood the Kentish [Page 142] Gormund. His pieces upon Tho. Coriat the Odcumbian Traveller. Wit and Mirth, or Pleasant Jests, &c. As to the author, he is said to have been a Gloucestershire man, and was bred a sailor; he was at the taking of Cadiz under the earl of Essex, in 1596, and at Flores, in the Island-Voyage, next year: he was besides in Germany, Bohemia, Scot­land, &c. He was many years collector for the lieutenant of the tower, of the wines which were his see from all ships which brought them up the Thames; but was at last discharged because he would not pur­chase the place at more than it was worth. He calls himself the King's Water-poet and the Queen's Water-man, and did wear the badge of the royal arms. After the beheading of King Charles, he kept a public-house in Phoenix alley, near Long-acre, and set up the Mourning-Crown, for his sign; but found it safer to take it down again and hang up his own head instead of it. It is said he died about the year 1654. ^*.'’

[Page 143] Of this stupendous work the Harleian catalogue, it is difficult to give an idea, save by such extracts as those above, and others in Latin of a like kind. Pre­fixed to it is a Latin dedication to lord Carteret by Mr. Michael Maittaire, dated February 1742-3, and after that, a preface, doubtless drawn up by Johnson, beginning ‘'To solicit a subscription for a catalogue of books exposed to sale,'’ wherein with great learning and no less judgment, he points out the excellence and extent of the collection, urges those arguments which should induce men of learning to become purchasers, and anticipates whatever objections could be made to this uncommon species of catalogue, and the method of circulating it.

The several articles are distributed in the order of a common place, that does honour to Johnson and Mait­taire, who are supposed to have been jointly the fra­mers of it. Here follows a specimen of the subdivision of the first of the heads therein contained, viz. Theo­logy.

• Biblia Sacra
  • Polyglotta.
  • Hebraica.
  • Graeca.
• Nov. Testamentum.
• Biblia
  • Vulgata.
  • Latina variorum Interpretum.
  • [Page 144] Gallica.
  • Italica.
  • Hispanica, Germanica, &c.
  • Anglica.
  • in linguis Variis Hodiernis.
• Psalteria.
• Psalteria Metrica.
• Concordantiae & Lexica Biblica.
• Comment.
  • Biblicorum Scriptores.
  • Veterum.
  • Recentiorum.
• Patres
  • Graeci & Scriptores Ecclesiastici.
  • Latini & Scriptores Ecclesiastici.
• Concilia.
• Conciliorum Compendia.
• Hist. Ecclesiast.
• Vitae
  • Sanctorum & Theologorum.
  • Pontificum Rom.
• Hist.
  • Ord. Monastic.
  • Eccles.
    • Orientalis.
    • Linguis Hodiernis conscripta.
• Theologia
  • Judaica.
  • Scholastica.
  • Ascetica.
  • Miscellanea.
• Catecheses.
• Controversiae
  • Theologicae.
  • Contra Judeos.
  • Graecorum Scripta contra Latinos.
  • Contra Eccles. Roman.
• Scriptores pro Romana Ecclesia.
• [Page 145] Libri de Jesuitarum Moribus.
• Libri
  • de Ritibus, Caeremoniis et Institutis Ecclesiast.
  • De Ritibus Graecorum.
  • Liturgiae Graecorum.
• De Ritibus Rom. eccl. &c.
• Liturgiae.
  • Missalia Angliae, sive ad usum Ecclesiae Sa­risburiensis.
  • Missalia Romana.
  • Missalia variarum Ecclesiarum.
• Liturgiae orientalium Ecclesiarum.
• Breviaria.
• Ritualia.
• Processionalia.
  • Antiphonaria.
  • Litaniae.
  • Ceremonalia & Pastoralia.
• Officia Mariae Virginis.
• Horae Romanae.
• Horae Sarisburiensis.
• Manualia.
• Hymnorum libri.
• Scriptores de Trinitate.
• Theologia Gallica.
• Scriptores de Ritibus Judaicis.

The catalogue having passed the press, turned out to be very voluminous, and being of a singular kind, Osborne hoped to be able to make the public pay for it; to this end it was, that he directed Johnson to draw up the preface, giving an account of the contents of the library, and containing a variety of arguments to vindicate a solicitation for a subscription, that is to [Page 146] say, a demand of five shillings for each volume of the catalogue, to defray the expence of printing it; the volume or volumes so purchased, to be taken in exchange for any book rated at the same value. This paper, of which a character has already been given, was, as I conjecture, a precursor to the cata­logue, and was with great industry circulated through­out the kingdom. It answered its end; the catalogue was printed in five octavo volumes, the collectors and lovers of books bought it, and Osborne was reim­bursed.

While the catalogue was compiling, Johnson was fur­ther employed by Osborne to select from the many thou­sand volumes of which the library consisted, all such small tracts and fugitive pieces as were of greatest value or were most scarce, with a view to the reprint­ing and publishing them under the title of the Har­leian Miscellany. To recommend a subscription for printing the collection, proposals were published con­taining an account of the undertaking, and an enume­ration of its contents, penned by Johnson with great art; which being very short, may itself be deemed a fugitive piece, and is therefore here inserted.

We may well conclude that the proposal met with all due encouragement, as the pieces recommended in it were in the year 1749, published in eight quarto volumes. To the first of them was prefixed, as an introduction, an essay on the origin and importance of small tracts and fugitive pieces.

Osborne was an opulent tradesman, as may be judg­ed from his ability to make so large a purchase as that above-mentioned; he was used to boast that he was worth forty thousand pounds, but of booksellers he was one of the most ignorant: of title-pages or edi­tions he had no knowledge or remembrance, but in all the tricks and arts of his trade he was most expert. Johnson, in his life of Pope says, that he was entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace, but that of poverty. He purchased a number of unsold copies of Mr. Pope's Iliad, of the folio size, printed on an inferior paper and without cuts, and cutting off the top and bottom margins, which were very large, had the impudence to call them the subscription books, and [Page 150] to vend them as such ^*. His insolence to his custo­mers was also frequently past bearing. If one came for a book in his catalogue, he would endeavour to force on him some new publication of his own, and, if he refused, would affront him.

I mention the above particulars of this worthless fellow as an introduction to a fact respecting his be­haviour to Johnson, which I have often heard related, and which himself confessed to be true. Johnson, while employed in selecting pieces for the Harleian Miscel­lany, was necessitated, not only to peruse the title-page of each article, but frequently to examine its contents, in order to form a judgment of its worth and importance, in the doing whereof, it must be supposed, curiosity might sometimes detain him too long, and whenever it did, Osborne was offended. Seeing Johnson one day deeply engaged in perusing a book, and the work being for the instant at a stand, he reproached him with in­attention and delay, in such coarse language as few men would use, and still fewer could brook: the other in his justification asserted somewhat, which Osborne answered by giving him the lie; Johnson's anger at so soul a charge, was not so great as to make him for­get that he had weapons at hand: he seized a folio that lay near him, and with it felled his adversary to the ground, with some exclamation, which, as it is dif­ferently related, I will not venture to repeat.

This transaction, which has been seldom urged with any other view than to shew that Johnson was of [Page 151] an irascible temper, is generally related as an entertain­ing story: with me it has always been a subject of me­lancholy reflection. In our estimation of the enjoy­ments of this life, we place wisdom, virtue, and learn­ing in the first class, and riches and other adventitious gifts of fortune in the last. The natural subordination of the one to the other we see and approve, and when that is disturbed we are sorry. How then must it affect a sensible mind to contemplate that misfortune, which could subject a man endued with a capacity for the highest offices, a philosopher, a poet, an orator, and, if fortune had so ordered, a chancellor, a prelate, a statesman, to the insolence of a mean, worthless, ig­norant fellow, who had nothing to justify the superi­ority he exercised over a man so endowed, but those advantages which Providence indiscriminately dispenses to the worthy and the worthless! to see such a man, for the supply of food and raiment, submitting to the commands of his inferior, and, as a hireling, look­ing up to him for the reward of his work, and receiv­ing it accompanied with reproach and contumely, this, I say, is a subject of melancholy reflection.

Having completed the Harleian catalogue and mis­cellany, and thereby disengaged himself from Osborne, Johnson was at liberty to pursue some scheme of profit, less irksome than that in which he had so lately been employed. Biography was a kind of writing that he delighted in; it called forth his powers of reflection, and gave him occasion to contemplate human life and manners. He had made some essays of his ta­lent in the lives of Barretier and Boerhaave, men un­known to him, and was now prompted to give to the [Page 152] world that of a friend with whom he had been closely intimate, whose singular character and adverse fortunes afforded ample scope for discussion, and fur­nished matter for many admirable lessons of mo­rality.

This friend was Savage, of whom it has above been related, that his friends had undertaken to raise an annual subscription for his support at Swansea in Wales, but that his departure for that place was retarded by some difficulties that occurred in the course of their endeavours to raise it: these, however, were overcome, and Savage, in July 1739, took leave of London, and also of Johnson, who, as himself tells us, parted from him with tears in his eyes. His sub­sequent history is, that taking his way through Bristol, he was for some time detained there by an embargo on the shipping. After some stay he was enabled to de­part, and he reached Swansea; but not liking the place, and resenting the treatment of his contributors, who seem to have been slack in the performance of their engagements to support him, he returned to Bristol with an intent to come to London, a purpose he was hindered from effecting by an arrest of his person, on the 10th of January 1742-3, for the small sum of eight pounds, and carried to Newgate in that city, where, not being able to extricate himself from his confinement, he, on the 31st day of July, in the same year, died.

This event, and the affection which he had long en­tertained for the man, called forth Johnson to an exer­cise of his pen, which, as it is said, employed it only thirty-six hours, in a narrative of events so singular [Page 153] as could scarcely fail to gratify the curiosity of every one who wished to be instructed in the science of human life. The subject was such an one as is seldom exhibited to view; a man dropped into the world as from a cloud, committed to the care of those who had little interest in his preservation, and none in the forming his temper, or the infusing into him those little precepts of morality, which might germinate in his mind, and be productive of habitual virtue; these are advantages which children of the lowest birth enjoy, in some degree, in common with those of a higher; but of these he never participated. All the knowledge he attained to, from his infancy upwards, was self-acquired, and, bating that he was born in a city where the refinements of civil life presented to his view a rule of moral conduct, he may be said to have been little less a miracle than Hai Ebn Yokdhan is feigned to be.

It has been observed of those children who owe their nurture and education to a certain benevolent institution in this metropolis, that being by their misfortune strangers to those charities that arise from the relations of father, son, and brother, their charac­ters assume a complexion that marks their conduct through life. The same may be said of Savage, and will perhaps account for that want of gratitude to his benefactors, and other defects in his temper, with which he seems to have been justly chargeable.

The manner in which Johnson has written this life is very judicious: it afforded no great actions to cele­brate, no improvements in science to record, nor any variety of events to remark on. It was a succession [Page 154] of disappointments, and a complication of miseries; and as it was an uniform contradiction to the axiom that human life is chequered with good and evil acci­dents, was alone singular. The virtues and vices which like flowers and weeds sprang up together, and perhaps with an equal degree of vigour, in the mind of this unfortunate man, afforded, it is true, a subject of speculation, and Johnson has not failed to avail himself of so extraordinary a moral phenomenon as that of a mind exalted to a high degree of improve­ment without the aid of culture.

But if the events of Savage's life are few, the reflections thereon are many, so that the work may as well be deemed a series of oeconomical precepts as a narrative of facts. In it is contained a character, which may be said to be sui generis; a woman who had proclaimed her crimes, and solicited reproach, disowning from the instant of his birth, and procuring to be illegitimated by parliament, her own son, doom­ing him to poverty and obscurity, and launching him upon the ocean of life, only that he might be swallowed by its quick-sands, or dashed upon its rocks, and lastly, endeavouring to rid herself from the danger of being at any time made known to him, by secretly sending him to the American plantations.

It farther exhibits to view, a man of genius destitute of relations and friends, and with no one to direct his pursuits, becoming an author by necessity, and a writer for the stage, and forming such connections as that profession leads to, sometimes improving, and at others slighting them, but at all times acting with a spirit that better became his birth than his circum­stances; [Page 155] for who that knew how to distinguish between one and the other, would, like Savage, have solicited assistance, and spurned at the offer of it? or repaid reiterated kindnesses with neglect or oblivious taci­turnity?

Interspersed in the course of the narrative are a great variety of moral sentiments, prudential maxims, and miscellaneous observations on men and things; but the sentiment that seems to pervade the whole is, that idleness, whether voluntary or necessitated, is pro­ductive of the greatest evils that human nature is ex­posed to; and this the author exemplifies in an enu­meration of the calamities that a man is subjected to by the want of a profession, and by shewing how far less happy such an one must be than he who has only a mere manual occupation to depend on for his support.

The concluding paragraph of the book explains the author's intention in writing it, and points out the use that may be made of it in such pointed terms, that I shall need, as I trust, no excuse for inserting so fine a specimen of stile and sentiment.

‘'This relation will not be wholly without its use, if those who languish under any part of his suffer­ings shall be enabled to fortify their patience by re­flecting, that they feel only those afflictions from which the abilities of Savage did not exempt him; or if those who in confidence of superior capacities or attainments, disregard the common maxims of life, shall be reminded, that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregu­larity long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.'’

[Page 156] This celebrated essay in biography was published in the month of February 1744, and gave occasion to Henry Fielding, the author of a periodical paper intitled ‘'The Champion,'’ to commend it in these words: ‘'This pamphlet is, without flattery to its author, as just and well written a piece as, of its kind, I ever saw; so that, at the same time that it highly deserves, it stands certainly very little in need of this recom­mendation.—As to the history of the unfortunate person whose memoirs compose this work, it is cer­tainly penned with equal accuracy and spirit, of which I am so much the better judge, as I knew many of the facts mentioned in it to be strictly true, and very fairly related. Besides, it is not only the story of Mr. Savage, but innumerable incidents relating to other persons and other affairs, which render this a very amusing, and withal, a very instructive and valuable performance. The author's observa­tions are short, significant and just, as his narrative is remarkably smooth and well disposed: his re­flections open to us all the recesses of the human heart, and, in a word, a more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more improving treatise on the excellencies and defects of human nature, is scarce to be found in our own or perhaps in any other language.'’

The life I am now writing seems to divide itself into two periods; the first marked by a series of afflic­tions, the last by some cheering rays of comfort and comparative affluence. Johnson, at this time, had passed nearly the half of his days: here, therefore, let me make a stand, and having hitherto represented [Page 157] him in his literary, endeavour to exhibit him in his religious, moral, and oeconomical character, adverting first to such particulars respecting the course of life he had chosen, and the evils to which it exposed him, as seem properly to belong to the first member of the above division.

As the narrowness of his father's circumstances had shut him out of those professions for which an univer­sity education is a necessary qualification, and his project of an academy had failed, he had, as to his course of life, no choice but idleness or the exercise of his talents in a way that might afford him subsistence, and provide for the day that was passing over him, so that the profession of an author was the only one in his power to adopt. That it was far from an eligible one, he had in some degree experienced, and his aversion to labour magnified the evils of it, by bringing to his recollection the examples of Am­hurst, of Savage, of Boyse ^*, and many others, [Page 158] from which he inferred, that slavery and indigence were its inseparable concomitants, and reflecting on [Page 159] the lives and conduct of these men, might fear that it had a necessary tendency to corrupt the mind, and [Page 160] render the followers of it, with respect to religion, to politics, and even to morality, altogether indifferent. Nor could he be ignorant of that mortifying depen­dence which the profession itself exposes men to, a profession that leads to no preferment, and for its [Page 161] most laborious exertions confers no greater a reward than a supply of natural wants.

Ralph, a writer of this class, and who had formed some such connections as would have flattered the hopes of any man, was the tool of that party of which the late lord Melcombe laboured to be the head. To serve the interests of it, he wrote a periodical paper, and a voluminous history of England, fraught with such principles as he was required to disseminate. This man, in a pamphlet intitled ‘'The case of authors by profession,'’ has enumerated all the evils that attend it, and shewn it to be the last that a liberal mind would choose.

All this Johnson knew and had duly weighed: the lesser evils of an author's profession, such as a depen­dence on booksellers, and a precarious income, he was able to endure, and the greater, that is to say, the prostitution of his talents, he averted; for, whatever sacrifices of their principles such men as Waller, Dryden, and others, have made in their writings, or to whatever lengths they may have gone in panegyrics or adulatory addresses, his integrity was not to be warped: his religious and political opini­ons he retained and cherished; and in a sullen confi­dence in the strength of his mental powers, disdained to solicit patronage by any of the arts in common use with writers of almost every denomination. That this firmness was not affected, will appear by a retro­spect to the methods he took for the attainment of knowledge, and the settling his notions as to the great duties of life.

His course of study at the university was irregular and desultory, and scarcely determined as to its object. [Page 162] Mathematics and physics he had but little relish for, from whence it may be inferred, that his natural powers had received comparatively but small improve­ment from an academical education. An habitual disposition to thought and reflection enabled him how­ever upon his leaving it, to attain to that degree of im­provement which, in many minds, is not effected with­out intense application and labour; and the sentiments of piety which he had imbibed in his youth, directed him to those studies, which, without attending to secular rewards, he thought of greatest importance to his future happiness. In conformity to this motive, he applied himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, and the evidences of religion, to the writings of the fathers and of the Greek moralists, to ecclesiastical and civil history, and to classical literature and philology.

The result of these his mental exercises was a thorough conviction of the truth of the Christian religion, an adherence to the doctrine and discipline of our established church, and to that form of civil government which we number among the blessings derived to us from the wisdom and bravery of our ancestors, with this farther advantage, that they rooted in his mind those principles of religion, morality, and I will add, loyalty, that influenced his conduct during the remainder of his life.

To speak of the first, his religion, it had a tincture o enthusiasm, arising, as is conjectured, from the fervou of his imagination, and the perusal of St. Augustin and other of the fathers, and the writings of Kempi and the ascetics, which prompted him to the employ ment of composing meditations and devotional exer [Page 163] cises. It farther produced in him an habitual reverence for the name of God, which he was never known to utter but on proper occasions and with due respect, and operated on those that were admitted to his con­versation as a powerful restraint of all profane discourse, and idle discussions of theological questions; and, lastly, it inspired him with that charity, meaning thereby a general concern for the welfare of all man­kind, without which we are told that all pretensions to religion are vain.

To enable him at times to review his progress in life, and to estimate his improvement in religion, he, in the year 1734, began to note down the transactions of each day, recollecting, as well as he was able, those of his youth, and interspersing such reflections and resolutions as, under particular circumstances, he was induced to make. This register, which he intitled ‘'Annales,'’ does not form an entire volume, but is contained in a variety of little books folded and stitched together by himself, and which were found mix­ed with his papers. Some specimens of these notanda have been lately printed with his prayers; but to warrant what I have said, respecting his religious cha­racter, I have selected from the ‘'Annales,'’ and insert in the margin below, an earlier extract than any con­tained in that collection ^*.

[Page 164] His moral character displayed itself in the sincerity of his friendships, his love of justice and of truth, and his placability; of all which qualities, the testimonies in his favour are innumerable. But as the character here proposed to be given him is not intended to palliate his errors in behaviour, truth obliges me to say, that his outward deportment was in many instan­ces a just subject of censure. Before his arrival in town, he was but little accustomed to free conver­sation with his superiors, so that that kind of sub­mission he had been used to pay them he seemed to exact from others, and when it was refused him he was petulant, captious, and dogged. His discourse, which through life was of the didactic kind, was replete with original sentiments expressed in the strongest and most correct terms, and in such language, that whoever could have heard and not seen him, would have thought him reading. For the pleasure he com­municated to his hearers, he expected not the tribute of silence: on the contrary, he encouraged others, particularly young men, to speak, and paid a due at­tention to what they said; but his prejudices were so strong and deeply rooted, more especially against Scotchmen and whigs, that whoever thwarted him ran the risque of a severe rebuke, or at best be­came entangled in an unpleasant altercation.

He was scarce settled in town before this dogmatical behaviour, and his impatience of contradiction, became [Page 165] a part of his character, and deterred many persons of learning, who wished to enjoy the delight of his con­versation, from seeking his acquaintance. There were not wanting those among his friends who would some­times hint to him, that the conditions of free con­versation imply an equality among those engaged in it, which are violated whenever superiority is assumed: their reproofs he took kindly, and would in excuse for what they called the pride of learning, say, that it was of the defensive kind. The repetition of these had, however, a great effect on him; they abated his preju­dices, and produced a change in his temper and man­ners that rendered him at length a desirable companion in the most polite circles.

In the lesser duties of morality he was remiss: he slept when he should have studied, and watched when he should have been at rest: his habits were slovenly, and the neglect of his person and garb so great as to render his appearance disgusting. He was an ill husband of his time, and so regardless of the hours of resection, that at two he might be found at break­fast, and at dinner at eight. In his studies, and I may add, in his devotional exercises, he was both intense and remiss, and in the prosecution of his literary em­ployments, dilatory and hasty, unwilling, as himself confessed, to work, and working with vigour and haste ^*.

His indolence, or rather the delight he took in reading and reflection, rendered him averse to bodily exertions. He was ill made for riding, and took so [Page 166] little pleasure in it, that, as he once told me, he has fallen asleep on his horse. Walking he seldom prac­tised, perhaps for no better reason, than that it requir­ed the previous labour of dressing. In a word, mental occupation was his sole pleasure, and the knowledge he acquired in the pursuit of it he was ever ready to com­municate: in which faculty he was not only excellent but expert; for, as it is related of lord Bacon by one who knew him ^*, that ‘'in all companies he appeared a good proficient, if not a master, in those arts entertained for the subject of every one's discourse,'’ and that ‘'his most casual talk deserved to be written,'’ so it may be said of Johnson, that his conversation was ever suited to the profession, condition, and capacity of those with whom he talked.

Of a mind thus stored it is surely not too much to say, that it qualified the possessor of it for many more important employments than the instruction of non-adults in the elements of literature; yet so humbly did he seem to think of himself when he published the advertisement of his little academy at Edial, that to be able to establish it, was the utmost of his ambition; but that hope failing, his necessities drove him to London, and placed him in the station of life in which we are now to contemplate him.

It has been mentioned in a preceding page, that in the course of his studies he had formed a list of literary undertakings, on which, when time should serve or occasion invite, he meant to exercise his pen: but such was the versatility of his temper, that of forty-nine articles which he had fixed [Page 167] on, not one appears to have engaged his future at­tention. Among the rest he had purposed to give a history of the revival of learning in Europe, and also a comparison of philosophical and christian mo­rality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers ^*. The former of these, as it required the labour of deep research, and the perusal of a great variety of authors, was a work that we may suppose he was deterred from by frequent reflections on the pains it would cost him; but that he should abandon a work so easy in the execution, and so much to the credit of the religion he professed, as the latter, is not less to be wondered at than lamented.

These projects of Johnson were most of them re­solved on in his earlier days, but it is not improbable that he was induced to give them up by the prospect of the gain that might arise from the publication of a new edition of Shakespeare, which it is certain he meditated, about the year 1745. To an undertak­ing of this kind the temptations were very strong, for, besides that the former editors had fallen short in their endeavours to explain and settle the text, he had great reason to hope it would be well received, for at that time it was observable, that the taste of the public was refining, and that the lovers of stage entertainments and dramatic literature had begun to nauseate the tragedies and comedies of the last age, which were formed after French models, and to discern the beauties and excellencies of this au­thor.

[Page 168] That this hope was not ill-grounded, may rea­sonably be inferred from the success of those many editions of this author that have appeared since the above time, of one whereof above eleven thousand copies have been sold, and next, from the effects of Mr. Garrick's acting, which had revived the exhibition of Shakespeare's plays, and excited readers of every class to the perusal of them.

But, perhaps, the greatest of Johnson's temptations to this undertaking, saving at all times his necessities, was, a desire to display his skill in English literature and rational criticism in their widest extent, in both which requisites the deficiences of the former edi­tions were obvious. Of those of the players and others, down to the year 1685, little in favour can be said: the first that made any pretensions to correctness was that of Rowe in 1709, and next to that, Mr. Pope's in 4to, 1723. Whatever other were the merits of these two persons, it is certain that neither of them was sufficiently qualified for the task he had undertaken; not that they wanted the power of discerning the ex­cellences of their author, or clearing his page of many corruptions that had long obscured his sense, but that they were deficient in that lower kind of literature, without which all endeavours to fix or explain the text of an old writer will ever be found to be vain.

To this kind of knowledge, as far as may be judged from the course of his studies, and indeed from the preface to his edition, Rowe had not the least preten­sion. Nor does it appear that Pope was at all con­versant with, or that he understood the phraseology [Page 169] of the writers contemporary with his author. So little was he used to that kind of reading, that, as himself confessed, he had never heard of the Virgidemiarum of bishop Hall, a collection of the wittiest and most pointed satires in our language, till it was shewn to him, and that so late in his life, that he could only express his approbation of it by a wish that he had seen it sooner. That vernacular erudition, contemptible as it has been represented, is an indispensable qualification for the restoring or explaining the sense of corrupted or obso­lete authors, and even of those more recent, is most clearly evidenced in one case by the later editions of our great dramatic poet, and in the other by Dr. Grey's edition of Hudibras, without the assistance whereof, the many allusions to facts, circumstances, and situa­tions therein contained, must for ever have remained unintelligible. Theobald was the first of this class of editors. For the purpose of publishing Shakespeare, he, in the preface to his first edition, asserts, that he had read no fewer than eight hundred old English plays, besides histories and novels to a great amount; and the same kind of study has, with different degrees of assiduity, been pursued by others, even to the last of his successors.

With these inducements, and the aid of two va­luable editions then extant, Theobald's and that of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Johnson projected a new one, and, as a specimen of his abilities for the undertaking, published in the year 1745, ‘'Miscellaneous observa­tions on the tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare,'’ with proposals for one by himself. These observations, as [Page 170] they go rather to adjust the various readings, and settle the text by conjectural notes, than explain allusions, did not enough attract the notice of the public to induce him actually to engage in the work; they were however evidences of great sagacity, and drew from Dr. War­burton a testimony that set him above all other com­petitors; for thus does he speak of Johnson: ‘'As to all those things which have been published under the tirles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakespeare, (if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written as appears by a man of parts and genius) the rest are absolutely below a serious notice;'’ and Johnson, who never forgot a kindness, remembered it by mentioning Warburton in terms of great re­spect, as occasion offered, in his edition of Shakespeare, which he published many years after.

By this and other of Johnson's writings, his reputa­tion as a scholar and a philogist was so well establish­ed, that the booksellers of greatest opulence in the city, who had long meditated the publication of a dictionary, after the model of those of France and the Academia della Crusca, looked upon him as a fit person to be employed in such an undertaking. He was at that time in the vigour of his life, and by the offer of a li­beral reward from men of such known worth as those were who made it, was tempted to engage with them, and accordingly set himself to compile that work, which, he living to complete it, does him and all con­cerned in it great honour.

Nor can we suppose but that he was in a great mea­sure incited to the prosecution of this laborious work [Page 171] by a reflection on the state of our language at this time, from the imperfection of all English dictionaries then extant, and the great distance in point of im­provement in this kind of literature between us and some of our neighbours. And here let me take oc­casion, by an enumeration of the several authors that had gone before him, to point out the sources of that intelligence which Johnson's voluminous work contains.

Of Latin dictionaries and such as give the signi­fications of English appellatives with a view only to illustrate the Latin, he must be supposed to have made some use, and of these the earliest is Sir Thomas Elyot's Bibliotheca Eliotae, published in 1541. This was improved by Cooper after many years' labor, by the addition of 33000 words, and published in 1565 in a large folio, and was a reason with Queen Elizabeth for promoting him to the bishopric of Lincoln. ^*

In 1572 was published an Alvearie or quadruple dictionary of four sundry tongues, namely, English, Latin, Greek and French, by John Baret of Cambridge, complied with the assistance of his pupils, but arranged and methodized by himself. This fact he ingenuously [Page 172] confessed in his preface, which, as a literary curiosity, is inserted below. ^*

To Baret's succeeded John Minsheu's Guide into the tongues, first published in 1617 in eleven, and in 1627 in nine languages, but with a consi­derable increase in the number of radical words. In this the author undertakes to give the etymologies or derivations of the greater part of the words therein contained, but as they amount at the most to no more than 14713, the work must be deemed not sufficiently copious.

In 1656, Thomas Blount a lawyer of the Inner Temple, published a small volume, intitled ‘'Glosso­graphia, [Page 173] or a dictionary interpreting such hard words, whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, &c. that are now used in our refined English tongue, &c.'’ in which the articles though few are well explained. This book, as far as it went, was of singular use to Edward Philips, a nephew and pupil of Milton, in the compilation of a dictionary by him published in folio, 1657, intitled ‘'The New World of Words,'’ which, as it is much more copious than that of Blount, and comprehends a great quantity of matter, must be looked on as the basis of English lexicography.

Of technical as also of etymological dictionaries, many have long been extant, namely, The Inter­preter [Page 174] or Law Dictionary of Dr. Cowell a civilian, a Common-Law Dictionary of the above Thomas Blount, the Etymologicum of Junius, and another of Skinner, both well known and frequently referred to, and of these did Johnson avail himself.

The dictionary of Nathan Bailey a school-master, was first published in a thick octavo volume, so well disposed with respect to the character and method of printing, as to contain more matter than could otherwise have been comprized in a vo­lume of that size. After it had passed many editions with improvements by the author himself, he medi­tated an enlargement of it, and being assisted in the [Page 175] mathematical part by Mr. Gordon, in the botanical by the famous gardener Philip Miller, and in the ety­mological by Mr. Lediard, a professor of the modern languages, it was published in a folio size. The last improvement of it was by Dr. Joseph Nicoll Scott, who, of a dissenting teacher had become a physician and a writer for the booksellers.

Johnson, who before this time, together with his wife, had lived in obscurity, lodging at different houses in the courts and alleys in and about the Strand and Fleet street, had, for the purpose of carrying on this arduous work, and being near the printers employed in it, taken a handsome house in Gough square, and fitted up a room in it with desks and other accommo­dations for amanuenses, who, to the number of five or six, he kept constantly under his eye. An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the repo­sitory of the several articles, and these he collected by incessant reading the best authors in our language, in the practice whereof, his method was to score with a black-lead pencil the words by him selected, and give them over to his assistants to insert in their places. The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet, some of his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities.

It seems that Johnson had made a considerable progress in his work when he was informed, that the earl of Chesterfield had heard and spoken favourably of his design. He had never till this time experi­enced [Page 176] the patronage of any other than booksellers, and though he had but an indistinct idea of that of a nobleman, a reputed wit, and an accomplished courtier, and doubted whether he was to rate it among the happy incidents of his life, it might mean a liberal present or an handsome pension to encourage him in the prosecution of the work; he therefore resolved not to reject it by a supercilious comparison of his own talents with those of his lordship, or to slight a favour which he was not able to estimate. Accordingly, he in the year 1747, drew up and dedicated to lord Chesterfield, then a secretary of state, a plan of his dictionary, the manuscript whereof he delivered to Mr. Whitehead the late laureat, who undertook to convey it to his lordship, but he having communicated it first to another person, it passed through other hands be­fore it reached that to which it was immediately di­rected: the result was an invitation from lord Chester­field to the author.

Never could there be a stronger contrast of characters than this interview produced: a scholar and a courtier, the one ignorant of the forms and modes of address, the other, to an affected degree, ac­complished in both: the one in a manly and senten­tious stile directing his discourse to a weighty subject; the other dreading to incur the imputation of pedantry, and by the interposition of compliments and the intro­duction of new topics as artfully endeavouring to evade it. The acquaintance thus commenced was never im­proved into friendship. What his lordship thought of Johnson we may learn from his letters to an illegi­timate son, now extant ^*. Johnson was so little pleased [Page 177] with his once supposed patron, that he forbore not ever after to speak of him in terms of the greatest contempt.

How far Johnson was right in his opinion of this popular nobleman, or whether he is to be suspected of having resented more than he ought to have done, the coldness of his reception, or the disappointment of his hopes, will best appear by a survey of his character, as it arises out of the memoirs of his life prefixed to his miscellaneous works, and the sentiments and prin­ciples which, for the instruction of his son, he, in a course of letters to him, from time to time commu­nicated, and with the utmost solicitude laboured to inculcate and enforce.

His lordship's descent was from an illustrious, though not a very ancient family. Being, as himself relates, rather neglected by his father, and in his tender years bereft of his mother, the care of his education devolved on his grandmother, the marchioness of Halifax, a woman of exemplary virtue and discretion, who fearing, perhaps, the contagion of a public semi­nary, kept him in her family, and with the best assis­tance of instructors that she could procure, conferred on him all the benefits that could be hoped for in a course of domestic education.

At the age of eighteen he was sent to Trinity hall, Cambridge, where, as he informs us, he had a great deal of business on his hands, for he spent above an hour every day in studying the civil law, and as much in philosophy, and attended the mathemati­cal lectures of the blind man [professor Saunderson] so that, adds he, I am now fully employed. But not­withstanding [Page 178] this intense application to his studies, this hopeful young nobleman seems to have brought from the university less of what all such seminaries profess to teach, sound learning and good morals, than a hatred of that pedantry and illiberality of manners, which, throughout his writings, he reprobates as the inseparable concomitant of all academical institutions.

As I have not taken upon me the office of his lord­ship's biographer, I shall content myself with mention­ing only those circumstances of his life and conduct that may serve to display his genuine character, and enable the world to determine whether it was such a one as a wise man would chuse as a model for imitation, or the standard by which he would form his own.

After about two years stay at the university, lord Stanhope, for that was then his only title, went abroad to travel, and at that enchanting place the Hague, began to be acquainted with the world. The college rust, which, if we may believe his panegyrist, he con­tracted in the university during so long a residence there, he found means to rub off, and exchanged for the polish of gaming, which rendered him the dupe of knaves and sharpers almost throughout his life, and this not from any real propensity to this pernicious vice, arising either from avarice or the exercise of those mental powers that make it a delight to many, but to acquire, what throughout his life he seems to have above all things been desirous of, the insipid cha­racter of a man of fashion.

Nature, it must be owned, had endowed him with fine parts, and these he cultivated with all the industry usually practised by such as prefer the semblance of [Page 179] what is really fit, just, lovely, honourable, to the qua­lities themselves; thus he had eloquence without learning, complaisance without friendship, and gal­lantry without love.

Not much to his honour, he, in the year 1715, suffered himself to be chosen for a Cornish borough, and took his seat in the house of commons, at an age when it was in the power of any single member, by the speaking of a very few words, to have turned him out of it. Upon a hint of his incapacity, occasioned by a pert speech of his making, he had the prudence to quit the house and retire to Paris, glad of an op­portunity of finishing his noviciate in a city that abounded with those pleasures and amusements that best suit with a mind to which study and the rational exercise of its faculties are labour.

Upon the death of his father in 1726, he succeeded to his title, and his seat in the house of peers. His speeches in that assembly, which were, though flimsy, florid, gave him, as that species of eloquence will ever do, the reputation of a fine orator; and in this he was so confident, that he has not scrupled to confess, that he has spoken with great applause, as on the bill for reforming the calendar, on subjects that he under­stood not. ‘'For my own part,' says he, 'I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them [the lords] as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well; so I resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of informing them;'’ and for this he gives as a reason, what per­haps will be found to be a true one, that every nu­merous ^* [Page 180] merous assembly is a mob, and to such a one reason and good sense are never to be talked.

In addition to his character of an orator and a states­man, he was emulous of that of a poet, his pretensions to which were founded on sundry little compositions in verse that from time to time appeared in collections of that kind; elegant it must be confessed; but gene­rally immoral and oft times profane.

His dissimulation, deep and refined as it was, did not lead him to profess any sincere regard to virtue or religion: the grosser immoralities he affects to speak of with abhorrence; but such as might be practised without the loss of health and reputation he seemed to think there was no law against. He was therefore, if secret, vain in his amours, and though, setting aside his mien, his person had little to recommend it, for he was low of stature, had coarse features, and a ca­daverous complexion ^*, his confidence in the prose­cution of them was such as exposed him to greater risques of personal safety than most men would chuse to run; and of this I shall now produce an in­stance.

A lady of high quality, and a relation of one who had the story from her own mouth and told it me, having been married some few years but never having brought her lord a child, was surprised one morning by a visit from lord Chesterfield, whom she had frequently seen and conversed with at court. After the usual compli­ments [Page 181] had passed, his lordship in that easy gay style which he so strongly recommends to his son, gave her to understand, that he should be happy to form such a connection with her ladyship, as it was more than probable might give being to an heir to the honours and possessions of that noble family into which she had matched. I will not attempt to describe the indigna­tion which the lady felt at such an unexampled instance of impudence as the proposal indicated. She rose from her chair, and with all the dignity of insulted modesty, commanded this well-bred lover, this minion of the graces, to quit her house, with this menace, ‘'Think yourself well off, my lord, that for this affront I do not order my servants to push you headlong out of doors.'’

It is a refinement in modern gallantry, but an affront to human policy, to recognize in public, by the un­qualified appellation of son, those to whom the laws of most civilized countries deny not only that but the privilege of heirs; yet this has this slave to forms and usages done in a series of letters to a young gentleman begotten by him out of wedlock, and in the life-time of one to whom we must suppose he once tendered himself, his honours, his possessions, and his heart. With a solicitude for his welfare, commendable it must be said in its general intention, he takes on himself to mold his person, to form his manners, and to furnish his mind. In the first of these particulars his lordship had great difficulties to encounter: the clay he had chosen to work upon was stiff, and resisted the plastic touch: the boy was encumbered with flesh, and na­ture had so carelessly compacted his limbs as scarcely [Page 182] to leave them the power of flexure. In a word, in in­fancy he was shapeless, and in youth a looby. Never did a she-bear with more anxious assiduity labour to lick her cub into shape than this fond parent did to correct the errors of nature in the formation of this his darling: the head, the shoulders and the hands, were, by turns, the objects of his care; but the legs and feet seem to have engaged most of his attention: these upon his being sent abroad, were committed to the care of a dancing-master at Paris, whose instructions he esti­mates at a higher rate than the precepts of Aristotle ^*. He recommends to form his manners les agrémens et les graces, ^† les manieres, la tournure, et les usages du beau monde ^‡; and is perpetually reminding him of that trite maxim ‘'Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.' ^‖’

The best furniture of a young man's mind are the precepts of religion and sound morality. Not a word of either of these do we meet with in two quarto volumes of those letters which I am now citing, but in them precepts of a different kind, such as respect his pleasures, abound. Assuming an air of sapience, which was not very natural to his lordship, he remarks, that in the course of the world the qualifications of the cameleon are often necessary, nay, they must be car­ried a little farther, and exerted a little sooner; ‘'for you should,' adds he, 'to a certain degree take the hue of either the man or woman that you want and wish to be upon terms with.'’ Fatherly curiosity then prompts him to an enquiry into certain particulars, which these his own words will go near to explain:— [Page 183] ‘'Apropos: have you yet found out at Paris any friendly and hospitable Madame de Lursay, qui veut bien se charger du soin de vous éduquer? And have you had any occasion of representing to her, qu'elle faisoit donc des noeuds? But I ask your pardon, Sir, for the abruptness of the question, and acknow­ledge that I am meddling with matters that are out of my department. However, in matters of less importance I desire to be de vos secrets le fidele dé­positaire. Trust me with the general turn and colour of your amusements at Paris. Is it le fracas du grand monde, comédies, bals, opéras, cour, &c.? Or is it des petites societés moins bruiantes mais pas pour cela moins agréables? Where are you the most établi? Where are you le petit Stanhope? Voyez vous encore jour, à quelque arrangement honnête?'’ Letter 212.

Farther to initiate him into vice, he recommends to him the ‘'turning over men by day and women by night,'’ for thus it pleases him to render the pre­cept Nocturna versate manu versate diurna ^*; and with matchless effrontery and total disregard for the personal safety of him whom he is instructing, advises him, in effect, to risque being run through the body, or the breaking his neck out of a bed-chamber win­dow, by commencing an intrigue with a new-married and virtuous young lady. Hear the documents of our Metnor to this purpose: ‘'Go,' says he, 'among women, with the good qualities of your sex, and you will acquire from them the softness and the graces of theirs. Men will then add affection to the esteem [Page 184] which they before had for you.—Women are the only refiners of the merit of men: it is true they cannot add weight; but they polish and give lustre to it. Apropos: I am assured that Madame de Blot, although she has no great regularity of features, is notwithstanding, excessively pretty, and that for all that, she has as yet been scrupulously constant to her husband, though she has now been married above a year. Surely she does not reflect that woman wants polishing. I would have you polish one another reciprocally. Assiduities, at­tentions, tender looks, and passionate declarations on your side, will produce some irresolute wishes at least on hers, and when even the slightest wishes arise, the rest will soon follow ^*.'’

Finally, to attain these and the other ends which his lordship points out as the objects of his son's pursuit, he inculcates in the strongest terms the practice of those arts of crooked cunning, which, as lord Bacon has remarked, oftner defeat than effect their purpose, and together with these, the general exercise of that dissimulation which was one of the most prominent features in his own character.

The letters from lord Chesterfield to his son are two hundred and eighty-five in number. The precepts contained in them are multifarious, and it is to be feared that they have not only been adopted by many ignorant parents and indiscreet tutors, but that they have greatly tended to corrupt the morals of the rising generation. As an antidote to the poison which they must be supposed to have diffused, I shall [Page 185] here insert a letter of moral instruction from one of the wisest and greatest men that this nation ever had to boast of, to his son, and leave the reader to make the comparison between it and those of the nobleman of whom I am now speaking. It is from Sir Henry Sydney to his son Philip, afterwards the famous Sir Philip, who, when arrived at the age of manhood, combining the qualities of a soldier, a scholar, a poet, and a courtier, was confessedly one of the most ac­complished gentlemen in Europe.

The hopeful documents contained in this institute of politeness, lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, failed in a great measure of their end. His lordship's interest with the ministry, founded on a seat in par­liament, which, though a great declaimer against corruption, he bought as he would have done a horse, procured him the appointment of an envoy-extraor­dinary to the court of Dresden. We find not that the young man had any female attachments, but that on the contrary he had more grace than his father. He married a woman, who becoming a widow, and pro­voked by real or imaginary ill treatment of lord Ches­terfield, published those letters, which, had he been living, he would have given almost any thing to have suppressed, as they shew him to have been a man devoted to pleasure, and actuated by vanity, without religious, moral, or political principles, a smatterer in learning, and in manners a coxcomb.

Such was the person whom Johnson in the simplicity of his heart chose for a patron, and was betrayed to ce­lebrate as the Mecaenas of the age; and such was the opinion he had conceived of his skill in literature, his love of eloquence, and his zeal for the interests of learn­ing, that he approached him with the utmost respect, and that he might not err in his manner of expressing [Page 189] it, the stile and language of that address which his plan includes are little less than adulatory. With a view farther to secure his patronage, he waited on him in person, and was honoured by him with con­versations on the subject of literature, in which he found him so deficient as gave him occasion to repent the choice he had made, and to say, that the labour he had bestowed in his address to lord Chesterfield resem­bled that of gilding a rotten post, that he was a wit among lords and a lord among wits, and that his accomplishments were only those of a dancing­master.

It is pretty well understood that, as Johnson had chosen this nobleman for his patron, he meant to have dedicated to him his work, and he might possibly have done so, even after he had discovered that he was un­worthy of that honour; but the earl's behaviour in a particular instance prevented him. Johnson one day made him a morning visit, and being admitted into an anti-chamber, was told, that his lordship was engaged with a gentleman, but would see him as soon as the gentleman went. It was not till after an hour's wait­ing that Johnson discovered that this gentleman was Colley Cibber, which he had no sooner done, than he rushed out of the house with a resolution never to enter it more.

What impression Johnson's visits made upon his lordship, we are told by the latter in a character of him, which, as well for the sake of the one as the other, I wish to be held forth to the public. Speaking, as his lordship is ever doing, to his son of the engaging manners, the pleasing attentions, the graces, with the rest of that nonsense which was ever floating in his [Page 190] mind, he thus delineates the person, who, in language the most nervous and elegant had endeavoured to ren­der him respectable in the republic of letters, and in that particular to do for him what he was never able to do for himself. ‘'There is a man whose moral cha­racter, deep learning, and superior parts, I acknow­ledge, admire, and respect; but whom it is so impossi­ble for me to love, that I am almost in a fever when­ever I am in his company. His figure (without being deformed) seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. His legs and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in, but constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the graces. He throws any where, but down his throat, whatever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means to carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mis-times and mis-places every thing. He disputes with heat, and indiscri­minately, mindless of the rank, character, and situa­tion of them with whom he disputes: absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity and respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors; and therefore, by a ne­cessary consequence, absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him, is, to consider him as a respectable Hottentor ^*.'’ Had Socrates been living, and not learned, as we are told he did in his old age, to dance, lord Chesterfield had passed the same censure on him.

Johnson was, by this time, able to determine on a fact which, in his address to this nobleman, he ex­presses [Page 191] a doubt of, viz. whether the unexpected distinc­tion his lordship had shewn him, was to be rated among the happy incidents of his life: he was now convinced that it was not, and that, far from every thing like en­couragement or assistance, or what else is included in the idea of patronage, his lordship's approbation of his plan was to be the only recompence for the labour of drawing it out and reducing it to form. Besides de­claring, whenever occasion required it, his mistake in supposing that lord Chesterfield was either a judge of or a friend to literature, he expressed in a letter to his lordship himself his resentment of the affront he had received at his last visit, and concluded it with a formal renunciation for ever of his lordship's pa­tronage.

If Johnson had reflected a moment on the little effect likely to be produced by a letter in which he pro­fessed to reject that which he could not retain, he would never have wrote it. Those evils which cannot be reme­died must be borne with patience, and to resent injuries when we cannot enforce redress, is to give our adversaries an occasion of triumph: lord Chesterfield knew this, and made no reply: when the dictionary was com­pleted and about to be published, he wrote two essays in a periodical paper, intitled ‘'The World,'’ that contain some forced compliments of the author, which being mentioned to Johnson he rejected with scorn.

Further to appease him, his lordship sent two per­sons, the one a specious but empty man, Sir Thomas Robinson, more distinguished by the tallness of his [Page 190] [...] [Page 191] [...] [Page 192] person than for any estimable qualities ^*; the other an eminent painter now living. These were instructed to apologize for his lordship's treatment of him, and to make him tenders of his future friendship and patro­nage. Sir Thomas, whose talent was flattery, was profuse in his commendations of Johnson and his writings, and declared that were his circumstances other than they were, himself would settle five hun­dred pounds a year on him. ‘'And who are you,' asked Johnson, 'that talk thus liberally?' 'I am,' said the other, 'Sir Thomas Robinson, a Yorkshire baronet.' 'Sir,' replied Johnson, 'if the first peer of the realm were to make me such an offer, I would shew him the way down stairs.'’

No one will commend this manner of de­clining an intentional kindness, even where the sincerity of the intention might be doubtful, but the rejecting it with a menace was both un­necessary and insolent. The pride of independence [Page 193] was most strong in Johnson at those periods of his life when his wants were greatest, and though at other times he would subject himself to great obliga­tions, he was uniform, except only in one instance, in an opinion that an offer of pecuniary assistance was an insult, and not seldom rejected it with such indig­nation, that were I to characterise it more particularly, I should do it by an allusion to the following apologue: A gardener's dog had fallen into a well and was una­ble to get out: his master passing by, and seeing his distress, put down his arm to save him: the dog bit his hand, and the gardener left him to drown.

The uneasiness which Johnson felt, at the time when he wrote the above-mentioned letter, gave way to a call of his friend Garrick, who in the same year, 1747, was, by a series of occurrences, become mas­ter of Drury-lane theatre. I was never much con­versant with the history of the stage, and therefore can give but a slight account of an event, which, at that time, interested many, and was deemed a very impor­tant one. Mr. Fleetwood's extravagance had re­duced him to the necessity of seeking out for some one or more persons to whom, for an adequate considera­tion, he might relinquish his interest in the patent. At that time a man of the name of Lacy had attracted the notice of the town by a competition with orator Henley, which he began at the great room in York buildings, with a satirical discourse of great licence, which he advertised by the name of Peter's visitation. The liberties he had taken with the clergy and the principal officers of state in this ludicrous discourse gave great [Page 194] offence: he was seized, dealt with as a vagrant, and, in short, silenced. This man had lived among play­ers, and was supposed to understand stage-manage­ment, and had some friends. Mr. Garrick had many, and those opulent men: three of them, Mr. Draper the partner of Mr. Tonson the bookseller, Mr. Clut­terbuck a mercer, and Mr. Samuel Sharpe one of the surgeons of Guy's hospital, negociated a partnership between those two persons, and by purchasing of them and assisting them to dispose of what are called renters' shares, enabled them to buy out Fleetwood, and before the commencement of the acting season, they were be­come joint-patentees of the theatre above-mentioned.

Mr. Garrick's province in the management was to appoint the plays and to cast the parts; Lacy's was to superintend the workmen and servants, to order the scenery, and, with the assistance of artists, to adjust the ornaments and decorations. It was their reso­lution to banish from their stage, pantomimes and all grotesque representations, and to exhibit such only as a rational and judicious audience might be supposed inclined to approve.

To notify this their intention to the town, it seemed to them that a prologue was necessary: Johnson was easily prevailed upon by Mr. Garrick to write one, and at the opening of the theatre in 1747, it was spo­ken by the latter in a manner that did equal honour to the author and himself.

Prologues are addresses from the stage to the people, and either respect merely the drama that is to follow, or are of more general import setting forth to the audience the views and designs of managers, [Page 195] their anxiety to please, and the methods by which they hope to obtain the favour of the public: these latter are for the most part occasional, and adapted to such circumstances as the opening a new theatre, a change of management, or any other of those great theatrical revolutions in which the players affect to think all men as much interested as themselves. In the addresses of this kind the powers of wit seem to have been nearly exhausted: sometimes the audience has been cajoled, at others, betrayed into good humour; and by the help of allegory, the stage has been made to resemble every thing unlike it. One poet feigns that the town is a sea, the playhouse a ship, the manager the captain, the players sailors, and the orange-girls powder-monkies; and Mr. Garrick, in one of his prologues, would make his audience believe, that his theatre is a tavern, himself the master, the players waiters, and his entertainment wines suited to all palates: one of his liquors, in particular, he strongly recommends, and calls Shakespeare, which that he may be constantly able to supply, he says it is

And, to be more particular, that

Johnson's prologue is of a very different cast. It is a sober, rational, and manly appeal to the good [Page 196] sense and candour of the audience, and contains a brief history of theatric representations from the time of Shakespeare and Jonson to their decline, when, as he says, the writers of pantomime and song had confirmed the sway of folly. It states the hardships which those lye under, whose business it is to furnish entertainment for the public, in being obliged to watch the wild vicis­situdes of taste, and exhorts the hearers to patronize virtue and reviving sense.

To justify the above character of this nervous com­position I here insert it:

This masterly and spirited address failed in a great measure of its effect; the town, it is true, submitted to the revival of Shakespeare's plays, recommended as they were by the exquisite acting of Mr. Garrick; but in a few winters they discovered an impatience for pantomimes and ballad-farces, and were indulged with them. From that time Mr. Garrick gave up the hope of correcting the public taste, and at length be­came so indifferent about it, that he once told me, that if the town required him to exhibit the ‘'Pilgrim's Progress'’ in a drama, he would do it.

Two years after, the management of Drury-lane theatre being in the hands of his friends, Johnson be­thought himself of bringing his tragedy on the stage. It was not only a juvenile composition, but was written before he had become conversant with Shakespeare, indeed before he had ever read Othello, and having now, for more than ten years, lain by him, in which time his judgment had been growing to maturity, he [Page 199] set himself to revise and polish it, taking to his assis­tance Mr. Garrick, whose experience of stage decorum, and the mechanic operation of incidents and sentiments on the judgment and passions of an audience, was, by long attention, become very great. With these ad­vantages and all those others which Mr. Garrick's zeal prompted him to supply, such as magnificent scenery, splendid and well-chosen dresses, and a distri­bution of the principal parts, himself taking a very active one, to the best performers then living, namely, Barry, Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard; it was, in the winter of the year 1749, presented to a polite, a numerous, and an unprejudiced audience. Never was there such a display of eastern magnificence as this spectacle exhibited, nor ever were fine moral senti­ments more strongly enforced by correct and ener­getic utterance and just action, than in the representa­tion of this laboured tragedy; but the diction of the piece was cold and philosophical; it came from the head of the writer, and reached not the hearts of the hearers. The consequence whereof was, that it was received with cold applause, and having reached to a ninth night's performance, was laid by. During the representation Johnson was behind the scenes, and thinking his character of an author required upon the occasion some distinction of dress, he appeared in a gold-laced waistcoat.

The truth of the above assertion, as to the language of this tragedy, is to be judged of by the perusal of it; for, notwithstanding its ill success as a dramatic representation, Johnson found his account in giving it to the world as a poem. Of the fable, the cha­racters, [Page 200] and the sentiments, it is beside my purpose to speak; they are also now open to examination. It is nevertheless worthy of a remark, that the author has shewn great judgment in deviating from histo­rical verity, as will appear by a comparison of the drama with the story as related by Knolles, and abridged in a foregoing page; for whereas the histo­rian describes Irene as endowed with the perfections as well of the mind as of the body, and relates that she was an innocent victim to the ferocity of a tyrant, Johnson thought that such a catastrophe was too shock­ing for representation, and has varied the narrative by making the lady renounce her religion, and subjecting her to the suspicion of being a joint conspirator in a plot to assassinate the Sultan; but of which he is afterwards convinced she is innocent.

In thus altering the story, it must however be confessed, that much of its beauty is destroyed, and the character of Mahomet represented with none of those terrible graces that dignify the narrative: his public love and command over himself are anni­hilated, and he is exhibited as a tyrant and a vo­luptuary.

The world soon formed an opinion of the merit of Irene, which has never fluctuated: a representation during nine nights, was as much as a tragedy which excited no passion could claim; for, however excel­lent its precepts, and however correct its language, that it wants those indispensable qualities in the drama, interest and pathos, cannot be denied. We read it, admit every position it advances, commend it, lay it by, and forget it: our attention is not awakened by any eminent beauties, for its merit is uniform through­out: [Page 201] all the personages, good or bad, are philosophers: those who execute and those who issue the orders talk the same language: the characters cause no anxiety, for the virtuous are superior to all mortal calamity, and the vicious beneath our care: the fate of Irene, though deplorable, is just; notwithstanding she suffers by a false accusation, her apostacy and treachery to her friend deserve punishment: the morality, it is needless to say of Johnson's spontaneous productions, is excellent; but how were unimpassioned precepts to make their way alone, where variety, business and plot are always expected? where lively nonsense and pa­thetic imbecillity often succeed against the conviction of reason? Or how could it be hoped that frigid vir­tue could attract those who suffer their pity to be easily moved either by the hero or the villain, if he has the address first to engage their passions?

Of the expectations that Johnson had entertained of the success of his tragedy, no conjecture can now be formed. If they are to be judged of by his out­ward demeanour after the town had consigned it to ob­livion, they were not very sanguine; indeed the receipt of three nights must have afforded him some conso­lation; and we must suppose that he increased the emolument thence arising, by the sale of the copy. We are therefore not to impute it to the disappointment of a hope that the play would be better received than it was, that in the winter of the same year he published another imitation of Juvenal, viz. of his tenth satire, with the title of ‘'The vanity of human wishes;'’ the subject whereof, as it is an enumeration of the evils to which mankind are exposed, could not, at any period of his life, have been other than a [Page 202] tempting one. Pursuing the track of his author, he expatiates on the miseries that await empire, grandeur, wealth, and power, and the disappointments that frustrate the hopes of ambition, learning, eloquence, and beauty; in all which instances he has been able to point out examples the most striking and ap­posite.

The poem concludes with an answer to an enquiry that must necessarily result from the perusal of the foregoing part of it, viz. what are the consolations that human life affords? or, in other words, in whom or on what is a virtuous man to rest his hope? the resolution of this question is contained in the follow­ing lines, which for dignity of sentiment, for pious instruction, and purity of style, are hardly to be equalled by any in our language.

In the following year, it having been discovered, that a grand-daughter of Milton was living, Mr. Garrick was prevailed on to permit the representa­tion of the Masque of Comus at his theatre, for her benefit. Upon this occasion, Johnson, forgetting the enmity which he had always borne towards Milton, wrote a prologue, wherein he calls the attention of the audience to his memory, and without imputing to his descendant any other merit than industrious poverty and conjugal fidelity, implores them to crown desert beyond the grave.

Johnson's beneficence was of the most diffusive kind: Distress was the general motive, and merit, whether in the object or any to whom he claimed re­lation, the particular incentive to it. There was living at this time, a man of the name of De Groot, a painter by profession, and no contemptible artist, who, after having travelled over England, and at low prices painted as many persons as could be per­suaded to sit to him, settled in London, and became reduced to poverty: him Oldys, or some one other of his friends, introduced to Johnson, who found out [Page 204] by his conversation that he was a descendant of Grotius; and thereupon exerting his interest in his behalf, he procured for him an admission into the Charterhouse, in which comfortable retreat he died.

Johnson was all this while working at the dictio­nary, having to assist him a number of young persons whose employment it was to distribute the articles with sufficient spaces for the definitions, which it is easy to discern are of his own composition.

Of these his assistants, some were young men of parts, others mere drudges. Among the former was one of the name of Shiells, a Scotchman, the author of a poem in blank verse, intitled ‘'Beauty,'’ and also of a collec­tion of the lives of the poets, in four volumes, which, for a gratuity of ten guineas, Theophilus Cibber suffered to be printed with his name, a book of no authority other than what it derives from Win­stanley, Langbaine, and Jacob, and in other respects of little worth; but concerning which it is fit that the following fact should be made known: Cibber at the time of making this bargain, was under confine­ment for debt in the king's-bench prison, and with a view to deceive the public into a belief that the book was of his father's writing, it was concerted between the negotiators of it and himself to suppress his chris­tian name, and that it should be printed as a work of Mr. Cibber.

The intense application with which he was obliged to pursue his work, deprived Johnson of many of the pleasures he most delighted in, as namely, reading in his desultory manner, and the conversation of his friends. It also increased his constitutional melan­choly, and at times excited in him a loathing of that [Page 205] employment to which he could not but look upon himself as doomed by his necessities. The sum for which he had stipulated with the booksellers, was by the terms of the agreement, to be paid as the work went on, and was indeed his only support. Be­ing thus compelled to spend every day like the past, he looked on himself as in a state of mental bondage, and reflecting that while he was thus employed, his best faculties lay dormant, was unwillingly willing to work.

And here we cannot but reflect on that inertness and laxity of mind which the neglect of order and regularity in living, and the observance of stated hours, in short, the waste of time, is apt to lead men to: this was the source of Johnson's misery through­out his life; all he did was by fits and starts, and he had no genuine impulse to action, either corporal or mental. That the compilation of such a work as he was engaged in, was necessarily productive of that languor, which, in the prosecution of it he manifested, is by no means clear: all employments, all occupa­tions whatever, are intrinsically indifferent, and excite neither pain nor pleasure, but as the mind is dis­posed towards them. Fame, mere posthumous fame has engaged men to similar undertakings, and they have pursued them with zeal and even delight. Canne, the editor of a bible printed in 1664, spent many years in collecting parallel passages in the Old and New Testament, to such a number as to croud the margin of the book, and in the preface thereto he declares, that it was the most delightful employment of his life; and what but a real pleasure in that kind of labour, [Page 206] and the consideration of its benefit to mankind, could be the inducement with such a man as Hoff­man to compile a lexicon more than twice as volumi­nous as that of Johnson?

And, to speak more at large, viz. of men who have benefited the world by their literary labours, avowing as their motive the desire of gain, we find not all infected with that disease, which as it affected Johnson, may almost be said to have converted all his mental nutriment to poison: on the contrary, there have been many who mixed with the world, and by a good use of their time, were capable of great application and enjoying the benefits of so­ciety; and of these I shall mention three persons, his contemporaries, men of very different characters from each other; all authors by profession, and of great eminence in literature.

The first was the reverend Dr. Thomas Birch, a divine of the church of England, but originally a quaker. In his youth he was passionately fond of reading, and being indulged in it by his father, be­came successively usher to two schools in which the sons of quakers were educated. He married at the age of twenty-three; but in less than a year became a widower. Having had the happiness of a recom­mendation to Sir Philip Yorke, then attorney-general, and being honoured with his favour and patronage, he, in 1730, entered into holy orders, and was pre­sented to a rectory and also to a vicarage in Glouces­tershire. Soon after this, in conjunction with the reverend Mr. Bernard, the well-known Mr. John Lockman, and Mr. George Sale the translator of the [Page 207] Koran, he compiled a general biographical dictionary in ten volumes in folio, including therein a translation of that of Bayle, and collected and published Thur­loe's state papers, in seven folio volumes, and was the editor of lord Bacon's, Mr. Boyle's, and arch­bishop Tillotson's works, as also of the prose writings of Milton, and the miscellaneous pieces of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the works of Mrs. Elizabeth Cock­burn. He was first a fellow of and afterwards secre­tary to the royal society, and wrote a history thereof. In 1753, the Marischal college at Aberdeen confer­red on him the degree of doctor in divinity, and, the year after, he received the same honour from archbishop Herring. The above is but a partial enumeration of his publications, for he wrote the lives of Henry prince of Wales, of Bacon, Boyle, Milton, and Tillotson, and other persons, and many tracts not here noticed. In the midst of all this em­ployment, Dr. Birch was to be seen, at home, at the Royal and Antiquarian societies, at Sion college, at the academy of ancient music, which had long subsisted at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, at Tom's coffee-house in Devereux court; in short, in all places where a clergyman might with propriety ap­pear. Nor was this all; he found time for the exer­cise of walking, before many people were stirring. I have been with him at nine in a winter's morning, and have found him just returned from an excursion of some miles ^*. He held a conversation on Sunday even­ings [Page 208] with his friends, who were men of the first emi­nence for learning and intelligence, at his house in Norfolk street in the Strand ^†, in which all, particu­larly [Page 209] the library, was neat and elegant, without litter or disorder.

The mental endowments of Dr. Birch were singu­lar; he had a great eagerness after knowledge, and a memory very retentive of facts; but his learning, properly so called, bore no proportion to his reading; for he was in truth neither a mathematician, a natural philosopher, a classical scholar, nor a divine; but, in a small degree, all, and though lively in conversation, he was but a dullwriter. Johnson was used to speak of him in this manner: ‘'Tom is a lively rogue; he re­members a great deal, and can tell many pleasant stories; but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his hand and his brain: Tom can talk; but he is no writer.'—’And indeed who­ever peruses his writings will be much of the same opinion: his life of Tillotson is a mere detail of un­connected facts, without the intermixture of sentiment or disquisition; and of the style, let this citation serve as a specimen. Speaking of Wilkins, he makes a transition to Tillotson, whom he characterizes in these words, and meaner he could not have found: ‘'He went into all the very best things that were in that great man; but so as he improved every one of them.'’

In the midst of all his labours and pursuits, Dr. Birch preserved an even temper of mind, and a great chearfulness of spirits. Ever desirous to learn, and willing to communicate, he was uniformly affable, courteous, and disposed to conversation. His life was spent without reproach, but terminated by an unhappy accident, a fall from his horse on the Hamp­stead road, on the 9th day of January, 1766. His [Page 210] preferments in the church, though successively nume­rous, were small and never reached to dignities: the last of them were the rectories of St. Margaret Pattens, London, and of Depden in Essex.

Dr. John Campbell was an eminent writer, and a labourer in a voluminous work undertaken at the expence and risque of the booksellers, the Universal History. Besides many other books, he wrote the lives of the English admirals in four octavo volumes. He had a considerable hand in the Biographia Britan­nica, and was the author of a valuable work in two quarto volumes intitled, ‘'A political survey of Britain;'’ being a series of reflections on the situation, lands, inhabitants, revenues, colonies, and commerce of this island; intended to shew that they have not as yet approached to near the summit of improvement, but that it will afford employment for many ages, before they push to their utmost extent the natural advantages of Great Britain. The reputation of this work extended to the most remote parts of Europe, and induced the empress of Russia in the year 1774, to honour the author with a present of her picture. By the exercise of his pen alone, and a good use of his time, he was for many years enabled to support him­self, and enjoy the comforts of domestic life in the society of an excellent wife and a numerous offspring. In 1765, he was appointed his majesty's agent for the province of Georgia in North America, and was there­by raised to a state of comparative affluence. His re­sidence for some years before his death, was the large new-built house situate at the north-west corner of Queen square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the [Page 211] first eminence for science and literature were accus-Tomed to resort for the enjoyment of conversation. He died in 1775, having nearly completed the sixty­eighth year of his age, leaving behind him the charac­ter of a learned, an ingenious, and a pious man.

Dr. John Hill was originally an apothecary and a student in botany, in which he was encouraged by the late duke of Richmond, and lord Petre; but finding that an unprofitable pursuit, he made two or three attempts as a writer for the stage: a failure in them drove him back to his former study, in the course whereof he got introduced to Mr. Martin Folkes and Mr. Henry Baker, leading members of the royal society, who finding him a young man of parts and well skilled in natural history, recommended him among their friends. His first publication was a translation from the Greek of a small tract, Theo­phrastus on gems, which being printed by subscrip­tion, produced him some money, and such a reputa­tion as induced the booksellers to engage him in writ­ing a general natural history in two volumes in folio, and soon after, a supplement to Chambers's dictionary. He had received no academical education; but his ambition prompting him to be a graduate, he obtained, from one of those universities which would scarce re­fuse a degree to an apothecary's horse, a diploma for that of doctor of physic. After this, he engaged in a variety of works, the greater part whereof were mere compilations, which he sent forth with incredible ex­pedition; and though his character was never in such estimation with the booksellers as to entitle him to an extraordinary price for his writings, he has been [Page 210] [...] [Page 211] [...] [Page 212] known by such works as those above-mentioned, by novels, pamphlets, and a periodical paper called ‘'The Inspector,'’ the labour of his own head and hand, to have earned, in one year, the sum of 1500l. He was vain, conceited, and in his writings disposed to satire and licentious scurrility, which he indulged with­out any regard to truth, and thereby became engaged in frequent disputes and quarrels that always termi­nated in his own disgrace. For some abuse in his Inspec­tor, of a gentleman of the name of Brown, he had his head broke in the circus of Ranelagh gardens. He insulted Woodward the player in the face of an au­dience, and engaged with him in a pamphlet-war, in which he was foiled ^*. He attacked the royal society in a review of their transactions, and abused his old friends Mr. Folkes and Mr. Baker for opposing, on account of his infamous character, his admission among them as a member. In the midst of all this employ­ment, he found time and means to drive about the town in his chariot, and to appear abroad and at all public places, at Batson's coffee-house, at masque­rades, and at the opera and playhouses, splendidly dressed, and as often as he could, in the front row of [Page 213] the boxes. Towards the end of his life, his reputa­tion as an author was so sunk by the slovenliness of his compilations, and his disregard to truth in what he related, that he was forced to betake himself to the vending a few simple medicines, namely, essence of water-dock, tincture of Valerian, balsam of honey, and elixir of Bardana, and by pamphlets ascribing to them greater virtues than they had, imposed on the credulity of the public, and thereby got, though not an honest, a competent livelihood.

Two years before his death, he had, as he gave out, received from the king of Sweden, the investiture of knight of one of the orders of that kingdom, in return for a present to that monarch of his ‘'Vegetable system'’ in twenty-six folio volumes. With all his folly and malignity, he entertained a sense of religion, and wrote a vindication of God and nature against the shallow philosophy of lord Bolingbroke.

Besides these, there was another class of authors who lived by writing, that require to be noticed: the former were, in fact, pensioners of the book­sellers: these vended their compositions when completed, to those of that trade who would give most for them. They were mostly books of mere entertainment that were the subjects of this kind of commerce, and were and still are distinguished by the corrupt appellation of novels and roman­ces. Though fictitious, and the work of mere in­vention, they pretended to probability, to be found­ed in nature, and to delineate social manners. The first publication of the kind was the ‘'Pamela'’ of Mr. [Page 214] Richardson ^*, which being read with great eagerness by the young people of the time, and recommended from the pulpit, begat such a craving for more of the same stuff, as tempted some men whose necessi­ties and abilities were nearly commensurate, to try their success in this new kind of writing.

At the head of these we must, for many reasons, place Henry Fielding, one of the most motley of li­terary characters. This man was, in his early life, a writer of comedies and farces, very few of which are now remembered; after that, a practising barrister with scarce any business; then an anti-ministerial writer, and quickly after, a creature of the duke of Newcastle, who gave him a nominal qualification of 100l. a year, and set him up as a trading-justice, in which disreputable station he died. He was the au­thor of a romance, intitled ‘'The history of Joseph Andrews,'’ and of another, ‘'The Foundling, or the history of Tom Jones,'’ a book seemingly intended to sap the foundation of that morality which it is the duty of parents and all public instructors to incul­cate in the minds of young people, by teaching that virtue upon principle is imposture, that generous qua­lities alone constitute true worth, and that a young [Page 215] man may love and be loved, and at the same time associate with the loosest women. His morality, in respect that it resolves virtue into good affections, in contradiction to moral obligation and a sense of duty, is that of lord Shaftesbury vulgarised, and is a system of excellent use in palliating the vices most injurious to society. He was the inventor of that cant-phrase, good­ness of heart, which is every day used as a substitute for probity, and means little more than the virtue of a horse or a dog; in short, he has done more towards corrupting the rising generation than any writer we know of.

He afterwards wrote a book of the same kind, but of a less mischievous tendency, his ‘'Amelia.'’ For each of these he was well paid by Andrew Millar the bookseller, and for the last he got six hundred pounds.

Dr. Tobias Smollet, another writer of familiar romance, and a dealer with the booksellers, was originally a surgeon's mate, and served at the siege of Carthagena. His first publication of this kind was ‘'The adventures of Roderick Random,'’ and his next those of Peregrine Pickle, in which is introduced the history of a well-known woman of quality, written, as it is said, by herself, under the name of lady Frail. These, and other compositions of the like kind, Smol­let sold to the booksellers at such rates as enabled him to live without the exercise of his profession. He had a hand in ‘'The universal history,'’ and translated Gil Blas and also Telemachus. The success of the former of these tempted him to translate ‘'Don Quixote,'’ which, as he understood not the Spanish language, he could only do through the medium of the French and [Page 216] the former English versions, none of which do, as it is said, convey the humour of the original. It might seem that Jarvis's translation was one impediment to such an undertaking; but that, though it gives the sense of the author, was performed by persons whose skill in the language was not great. The fact is, that Jarvis laboured at it many years, but could make but little progress, for being a painter by profession, he had not been accustomed to write, and had no style. Mr. Tonson the bookseller seeing this, suggested the thought of employing Mr. Broughton, the reader at the Temple church, the author and editor of sundry publications, who, as I have been informed by a friend of Tonson, sat himself down to study the Spanish language, and, in a few months, acquired, as was pre­tended, sufficient knowledge thereof, to give to the world a translation of Don Quixote in the true spirit of the original, and to which is prefixed the name of Jarvis.

I might here speak of Richardson as a writer of fictitious history, but that he wrote for amusement, and that the profits of his writings, though very great, were accidental. He was a man of no learning nor reading, but had a vivid imagination, which he let loose in reflections on human life and manners, till it became so distended with sentiments, that for his own case, he was necessitated to vent them on paper. In the original plan of his ‘'Clarissa,'’ it was his design, as his bookseller once told me, to continue it to the extent of twenty-four volumes, but he was, with great difficulty, prevailed on to comprise it in six. The character of Richardson as a writer is to this day undecided, otherwise than by the avidity with which [Page 217] his publications are by some readers perused, and the sale of numerous editions. He has been celebrated as a writer similar in genius to Shakespeare, as being acquainted with the inmost recesses of the human heart, and having an absolute command of the passions, so as to be able to affect his readers as himself is affected, and to interest them in the successes and disappoint­ments, the joys and sorrows of his characters. Others there are who think that neither his ‘'Pamela,'’ his ‘'Cla­rissa,'’ nor his ‘'Sir Charles Grandison'’ are to be num­bered among the books of rational and instructive amusement, that they are not to be compared to the novels of Cervantes, or the more simple and chaste narrations of Le Sage, that they are not just repre­sentations of human manners, that in them the turpi­tude of vice is not strongly enough marked, and that the allurements to it are represented in the gayest colours; that the texture of all his writings is flirnsy and thin, and his style mean and feeble; that they have a general tendency to inflame the passions of young people, and to teach them that which they need not to be taught; and that though they pretend to a moral, it often turns out a bad one. The cant terms of him and his admirers are sentiment and senti­mentality.

Johnson was inclined, as being personally acquaint­ed with Richardson, to favour the former opinion of his writings, but he seemed not firm in it, and could at any time be talked into a disapprobation of all fictitious relations, of which he would frequently say they took no hold of the mind.

I am tired of adducing instances of men who lived by the profession of writing and thought it [Page 218] an eligible one, and should now proceed to relate the subsequent events of Dr. Johnson's life, and mark the state of his mind at different periods, but that I find myself detained by a character, which, as it were, obtrudes itself to view, and is of importance enough to claim notice.

Laurence Sterne, a clergyman and a dignitary of the cathedral church of York, was remarkable for a wild and eccentric genius, resembling in many re­spects that of Rabelais. The work that made him first known as a writer, was, ‘'The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy,'’ a whimsical rhapsody, but abounding in wit and humour of the licentious kind. He too was a sentimentalist, and wrote sentimental journies and sentimental letters in abundance, by which both he and the booksellers got considerably. Of the writers of this class or sect it may be observed, that being in general men of loose principles, bad oeconomists, living without foresight, it is their en­deavour to commute for their failings by professions of greater love to mankind, more tender affections and finer feelings than they will allow men of more regular lives, whom they deem formalists, to possess. Their generous notions supersede all obligation: they are a law to themselves, and having good hearts and abounding in the milk of human kind­ness, are above those considerations that bind men to that rule of conduct which is founded in a sense of duty. Of this new school of morality, Fielding, Rousseau, and Sterne are the principal teachers, and great is the mischief they have done by their documents.

[Page 219] To these I might add the names of sundry persons of the same occupation, the authors of the Univer­sal history in forty folio volumes, but that only a few of them are at this distance of time known: those are Psalmanaazar, George Sale, the above Dr. Campbell, and Mr. George Shelvocke, who, of a boy bred to the sea, became a man of learning, a travelling tutor, and at length attained to the lucra­tive employment of secretary of the post-office. Of these men it may be said that they were miners in literature, they worked, though not in darkness, under ground; their motive was gain; their labour silent and incessant.

From the above enumeration of characters and particulars it may be inferred, that Johnson's indo­lence and melancholy were diseases of his mind, and not the necessary consequence of the profession he had taken up, that he saw human life through a false medium, and that he voluntarily renounced many comforts, gratifications, and even pleasures, obviously in his power. One effort however he made to soothe his mind and palliate the fatigue of his labours, which I here relate.

The great delight of his life was conversation and mental intercourse. That he might be able to in­dulge himself in this, he had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club that met weekly at the King's head, a famous beef-steak house, in Ivy lane near St. Paul's, every Tuesday evening. Thither he constantly re­sorted, and, with a disposition to please and be pleased, would pass those hours in a free and unrestrained in­terchange of sentiments, which otherwise had been [Page 220] spent at home in painful reflection. The persons who composed this little society were nine in num­ber: I will mention their names, and, as well as I am able, give a slight sketch of the several characters of such of them as cannot now be affected by either praise or blame: they were, the reverend Dr. Salter, father of the late master of the Charterhouse,—Dr. Hawkes­worth,—Mr. Ryland a merchant, a relation of his,—Mr. John Payne then a bookseller, but now or very lately chief accountant of the bank,—Mr. Samuel Dyer a learned young man intended for the dissenting mi­nistry,—Dr. William M'Ghie a Scots physician,—Dr. Edmund Barker, a young physician,—Dr. Richard Bathurst also a young physician, and myself.

Dr. Samuel Salter was a Cambridge divine, whom some disagreement between him and his children had driven from his abode at Norwich, at the age of seventy, to settle in London. Being thus far ad­vanced in years, he could carry his recollection back to the time when Dr. Samuel Clarke was yet a mem­ber of that university, and would frequently entertain us with particulars respecting him. He was a digni­tary of the church, I think archdeacon of Norfolk, a man of general reading, but no deep scholar: he was well-bred, courteous, and affable, and enlivened conversation by the relation of a variety of curious facts, of which his memory was the only register.

Dr. Hawkesworth is a character well known in the literary world: I shall not attempt a delineation of it, as I find in the biographic dictionary an article for him in the words following:

‘'John Hawkesworth, an English writer of a very [Page 221] soft and pleasing cast, was born about the year 1719, though his epitaph, as we find it in the Gentleman's Magazine," for August 1781, makes him to have been born in 1715. He was brought up to a mechanical profession, that of a watch­maker, as is supposed ^*. He was of the sect of pres­byterians, and a member of the celebrated Tom Bradbury's meeting, from which he was expelled for some irregularities. He afterwards devoted himself to literature, and became an author of con­siderable eminence. In the early part of his life, his circumstances were rather confined. He resided some time at Bromley in Kent, where his wife kept a boarding-school. He afterwards became known to a lady, who had great property and interest in the East-India company; and, through her means, was chosen a director of that body. As an author, his ‘'Adventurer'’ is his capital work; the merits of which, if we mistake not, procured him the degree of L.L.D. from Herring, archbishop of Canter­bury. When the design of compiling a narrative of the discoveries in the South seas was on foot, he was recommended as a proper person to be em­ployed on the occasion; but, in truth, he was not a proper person, nor did the performance answer ex­pectation. Works of taste and elegance, where ima­gination and the passions were to be affected, were his province; not works of dry, cold, accurate nar­rative. However, he executed his task, and is said [Page 222] to have received for it the enormous sum of 60001. He died in 1773, some say of high living, others, of chagrin from the ill reception of his ‘'Narrative:'’ for he was a man of the keenest sensibility, and ob­noxious to all the evils of such irritable natures.'’

Mr. Samuel Dyer was the son of a jeweller of emi­nence in the city, who, by his ingenuity and industry had acquired a competent fortune. He, as also his wife, were dissenters, persons very religiously dispos­ed, members of Chandler's congregation in the Old Jewry, and this their youngest son was educated by pro­fessor Ward, at the time when he kept a private school in one of the alleys near Moorfields; and from thence, being intended by his father for the dissenting minis­try, was removed to Dr. Dodderidge's academy at Northampton. After having finished his studies in this seminary, he was removed to Glasgow, where, un­der Dr. Hutcheson, he was instructed in the writings of the Greek moralists, and went through several courses of ethics and metaphysics. To complete this plan of a learned education, the elder Mr. Dyer, by the advice of Dr. Chandler, sent his son to Leyden, with a view to his improvement in the Hebrew literature under Schultens, a celebrated professor in that university. After two years' stay abroad, Mr. Dyer returned, eminently qualified for the exercise of that profession to which his studies had been directed, and great were the hopes of his friends that he would become one of its ornaments. To speak of his attainments in knowledge, he was an excellent classical scholar, a great mathematician and natural philosopher, well versed in the Hebrew, and [Page 223] master of the Latin, French and Italian languages. Added to these endowments, he was of a temper so mild, and in his conversation and demeanour so mo­dest and unassuming, that he engaged the attention and affection of all around him. In all questions of science, Johnson looked up to him, and in his life of Watts, among the poets, has cited an observation of his, that Watts had ‘'confounded the idea of space with that of empty space, and did not consider that though space might be without matter, yet matter being extended, could not be without space.'’

It was now expected that Mr. Dyer would attach himself to the profession for which so liberal and ex­pensive an education was intended to qualify him, and that he would, under all the discouragements that at­tend non-conformity, appear as a public teacher, and by preaching give a specimen of his talents; and this was the more wished, as he was a constant attendant on divine worship, and the whole of his behaviour suited to such a character. But being pressed by myself and other of his friends, he discovered an averseness to the undertaking, which we conceived to arise from modesty, but some time after found to have sprung from another cause.

In this seeming state of suspence, being master of his time, his friend Dr. Chandler found out for him an employment exactly suitable to his talents. Dr. Da­niel Williams, a dissenting minister, who by marriage had become the owner of a very plentiful estate, and was the founder of the library for the use of those of his profession, in Redcross street, by his will had di­rected that certain controversial, and other religious [Page 224] tracts of his writing, should be translated into Latin, and printed the second year after his death, and five hundred of each given away, and this bequest to be re­peated when that number was disposed of.

This part of his will had remained unexecuted from about the year 1715, and Dr. Chandler being a trustee for the performance of it, and empowered to offer an equivalent to any one that he should think equal to the undertaking, proposed it to Mr. Dyer, and he accepted it; but small was his progress in it before it began to grow irksome, and the completing of the translation was referred to some one less averse to la­bour than himself.

Having thus got rid of an employment to which no persuasions of his friends nor prospects of future ad­vantage could reconcile him, he became, as it were, emancipated from the bondage of puritanical forms and modes of living. Mr. Dyer commenced a man of the world, and with a sober and temperate deliberation resolved on a participation of its pleasures and enjoy­ments. His company, though he was rather a silent than a talkative man, was courted by many, and he had frequent invitations to dinners, to suppers, and card-parties. By these means he became insensibly a votary of pleasure, and to justify this choice, had rea­soned himself into a persuasion that, not only in the moral government of the world but in human man­ners, through all the changes and fluctuations of fashion and caprice, whatever is, is right. With this and other opinions equally tending to corrupt his mind, it must be supposed that he began to grow indifferent to the strict practice of religion, and [Page 225] the event shewed itself in a gradual declination from the exercises of it, and his easy compliance with in­vitations to Sunday evening parties, in which mere conversation was not the chief amusement.

In his discourse he was exceedingly close and re­served: it was nevertheless to be remarked of him, that he looked upon the restraints on a life of pleasure with an unapproving eye. He had an exquisite palate, and had improved his relish for meats and drinks up to such a degree of resinement, that I once found him in a fit of melancholy occasioned by a discovery that he had lost his taste for olives!

He was a man of deep reflection, and very able in con­versation on most topics; and after he had determined on his course of life, which was, to be of no profession, but to become a gentleman at large, living much at the houses of his friends, he seemed to adopt the sen­timents of a man of fashion. In a visit that he made with a friend to France, he met with a book with the title of ‘'Les Moeurs'’ with which he was greatly delight­ed, and at length became so enamoured of it, and that free and liberal spirit which it manifests, that, after a conflict with his natural indolence, in which he came off the victor, he formed a resolution to translate it into English; but after a small progress in the work, the enemy rallied, and defeated him. Cave was his printer, and had worked off only a few sheets when Mr. Dyer's stock of copy was exhausted, and his bookseller found himself reduced to the necessity of getting the translation finished by another hand, which he did, employing for the purpose a Mr. Collyer, the [Page 226] author of ‘'Letters from Felicia to Charlotte,'’ and other innocent and some useful publications. The translation was completed, but upon its being sent abroad, met with a rival one that involved Cave, who was interested in the success of the book, in an adver­tisement-war, which he was left to conduct as he could.

Few who are acquainted with this book, will blame or wonder at Mr. Dyer's partiality for it. It is a work replete with good sense, setting forth the excellence and the reasonableness of moral virtue, in lan­guage so elegant and lively, and with such forci­ble persuasion, as cannot but win on a mind open to instruction.

The earl of Chesterfield's voluminous exhortations to his son have been, by some, esteemed a system of education, a system which sinks into nothing when compared, either in its foundation or tendency, to that contained in this concise code of ethics. His lordship teaches the baser arts as means to that im­portant end, success in the world; this writer, that the good opinion of mankind is never to be pur­chased by deviating from the rule of right, and that we seek in vain for happiness, if we do not exert ourselves in the discharge of our several duties. Principles such as these, the disciples of the Graces are not likely to relish; but it is nevertheless true, that the unassuming, the benevolent author of ‘'Les Moeurs'’ understood the art of forming the cha­racter of a really fine gentleman, much better than he who taught that infamy was the road to honour. In short, this is a work, in praise of which there is no danger of being too lavish, for those must be wise [Page 227] indeed who are not informed by it, and incorrigible whose tempers are not mended by it.

What then shall we say of Mr. Dyer who could read it, approve it, and so far shake off his natural phlegm as to declare himself fascinated by, and actually begin a translation of it, yet could abandon his work, and sink into the very character against which it was an antidote, but that sloth had ob­tained the dominion over him, that a paralysis had seized his mental faculties, and that rejecting the prudent counsels, the moral precepts, and the reli­gious instruction contained in this elegant tract, he had given himself up to criminal indolence and self-gratification, and defeated the hopes of his best friends?

In the translation into English, much of the spirit of the original has evaporated; but it has merit, as some particulars which the different manners of the two nations made it fit to alter, are properly adapted in it to the genius of our country, and indeed the transla­tion, even if it had had less claim to our regard, must have been acceptable, as it extended the benefits of this valuable tract.

Dyer's support, in the idle way of life which he had made choice of, was the produce of a patrimony in the funds, that could not be great; his father, from whom he derived it, having left, besides himself, a wi­dow, an elder son and a daughter. Johnson and myself, that he might be getting something, strongly pressed him to write the life of Erasmus; but he could not be induced to undertake it. A work of less labour, but less worthy of him, he was however prevailed on [Page 228] by Mr. Samuel Sharp, the surgeon, to engage in: this was a revision of the old translation of Plutarch's lives by several hands. He undertook, and, with heavy complaints of the labour of his task, completed it, and had for his reward from Mr. Draper the part­ner of Mr. Tonson, whom Mr. Sharp had solicited to find some employment for him, the sum of two hundred pounds.

While he was a member of the club, Johnson sus­pected that his religious principles, for which at first he honoured him, were giving way, and it was whispered to me by one who seemed pleased that he was in the secret, that Mr. Dyer's religion was that of Socrates. What farther advances he made in Theism I could not learn, nor will I venture to assert, that which some expressions that I have heard drop from him led me to fear, viz. that he denied, in the philo­sophical sense of the term, the freedom of the human will, and settled in materialism and its consequent tenets.

As all his determinations were slow and deliberate, and seemed to be the result of reason and reflection, the change in his principles and conduct here noted was gradual. Of this the first symptoms were an imbecillity to resist any temptation abroad on a Sun­day evening, that should ease him of the trouble of such exercises as he had been accustomed to perform in the family of his mother, and an eager curiosity in the perusal of books not merely of entertainment, but of such, as together with a knowledge of the world, furnished his mind with such palliatives of vice as made him half a convert to it.

[Page 229] While his mind was in this state of trepidation, a young gentleman who had been a fellow-student with him at Leyden, arrived in England, disordered in his health, of whom and whose conversation he became so enamoured, that to entertain him while he was seek­ing the recovery of it, Dyer was almost lost to all the rest of his friends. To those with whom he was most intimate, he would, notwithstanding the closeness of his nature, describe him and display his attractions, which as he represented them, were learning, wit, po­liteness, elegance, particularly in the article of dress; free and open manners, a genteel figure, and other personal charms that rendered him the delight of the female sex. It was a question that some of those with whom he was thus open would frequently ask him, ‘'What are the most of these qualifications to you, Mr. Dyer, who are a man of a different character? you who know the value of wisdom, and have a mind fraught with knowledge, which you are capable of applying to many beneficial purposes, can never be emulous of those distinctions which discriminate a man of pleasure from a philosopher:'’ his answers to which served only to shew that his judgment was corrupted: The habitation of his friend, whom he thus visited, was a brothel, and his disease such as those seldom escape who frequent houses of lewd resort. The solicitude which the females in that place shewed for the recovery of his friend, their close attendance on him, and assiduity in administering to him his medicines, and supplying all his wants, he attributed to genuine love; and seemed almost to envy in him that power which could interest so many [Page 230] young persons of the other sex in the restoration of his health.

What effect these visits, and the blandishments to which, as often as he made them, he was a witness, had upon Dyer, I know not, save that to defeat the enchantments of these syrens he practised none of the arts of Ulysses: on the contrary, they seemed to have wrought in him an opinion, that those mistook their interest, and shewed their ignorance of human life, who abstained from any pleasure that disturbed not the quiet of families or the order of society; that natural appetites required gratification, and were not to be dismissed without it; that the indulgence of the iras­cible passions alone was vice; and that to live in peace with all mankind, and in a temper to do good offices, was the most essential part of our duty.

Having admitted these principles into his mind, he settled into a sober sensualist; in a perfect consistency with which character, he was content to eat the bread of idleness, laying himself open to the invitations of those that kept the best tables, and contracting intimacies with men not only of opposite parties, but with some who seemed to have abandoned all prin­ciple, whether religious, political or moral. The houses of many such in succession were his home; and for the gratifications of a well-spread table, choice wines, variety of company, card-parties, and a par­ticipation in all domestic amusements and recreations, the owners thought themselves recompensed by his conversation and the readiness with which he accom­modated himself to all about him. Nor was he ever at a loss for reasons to justify this abuse of his parts or [Page 231] waste of his time: he looked upon the practice of the world as the rule of life, and thought it did not be­come an individual to resist it.

By the death of his mother, his brother and sister, all of whom he survived, he became possessed of about 8000l. in the funds, which, as he was an oeconomist and inclined to no extravagance, it seemed highly improbable he would ever be tempted to dissi­pate; but he had contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of desperate fortunes, who were dealers in India stock, at a time when the affairs of the com­pany were in a state of fluctuation; and though, from his indolent and abstracted temper of mind and ignorance of business, the last man to be suspected of yielding to such delusions, he first invested all he had in that precarious fund, and next became a candidate for the office of a director of the company, but failed in his attempt. After this, he entered into engage­ments for the purchase or sale of stock, and by violat­ing them, made shipwreck of his honour. Lastly, he made other contracts of the like kind, to the per­formance whereof he was strictly bound: these turned out against him, and swallowed the whole of his fortune. About the time of this event he was seized with a quinsey, which he was assured was mortal; but whether he resigned himself to the slow operation of that disease, or precipitated his end by an act of self-violence, was, and yet is, a question among his friends. He left not in money or effects sufficient to defray the expence of a decent funeral, and the last office of humanity towards him was performed by one of those who had been accessary to his ruin. A por­trait [Page 232] of him was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and from it a mezzotinto was scraped, the print whereof, as he was little known, sold only to his friends; a singular use however was made of it: Bell, the pub­lisher of the English poets, caused an engraving to be made from it, and prefixed it to the poems of Mr. John Dyer.

I have been thus particular in the history of this accomplished and hopeful young man, whom I once loved with the affection of a brother, with a view to shew the tendency of idleness, and to point out at what avenues vice may gain admittance in minds seemingly the most strongly fortified. The assailable part of his was laxity of principle: at this entered infidelity, which was followed by such temptations to pleasure as he could see no reason to resist: these led on desires after the means of gratification, and the pursuit of them was his destruction.

M ^cGhie was a Scotchman by birth, and educated, in one of the universities of that country, for the pro­fession of physic. In the rebellion in 1745, he, with a party of young men who, as volunteers, had associ­ated on the side of government, bore arms, and was engaged in the skirmish at Falkirk, which he ever spoke of as an ill-conducted business. When mat­ters were become pretty quiet in Scotland, he took a doctor's degree, and came to London, where, trusting to the friendship of his countrymen he hoped to succeed in practice, but the town was overstocked with Scotch physicians, and he met with small en­couragement, though, by the favour of Dr. Benja­min Avery, the treasurer of Guy's hospital, who had [Page 233] been a dissenting teacher, and at that time was at the head of that interest, he got to be elected one of the physicians of that charity. He was a learned, ingenious, and modest man; and one of those few of his country whom Johnson could endure. To say the truth, he treated him with great civility, and may almost be said to have loved him. He inherited a patrimony too small for his subsistence, and failing in his hope of getting forward in his profession, died of a broken heart, and was buried by a contribution of his friends.

Barker, being by education a dissenter, was sent to study physic at Leyden, from whence he returned about the time I am speaking of. He was introduced to us by Dyer, and had been a fellow-student with him and with Akenside, Askew, Munckley, Mr. Dyson of the house of commons, and others, few of whom are now living. From the conversation of these persons, he learned the principles of lord Shaftes­bury's philosophy, and became, as most of them were, a favourer of his notions, and an acute reasoner on the subject of ethics. He was an excellent classical scho­lar, a deep metaphysician, and had enriched his fancy by reading the Italian poets; but he was a thoughtless young man, and in all his habits of dress and ap­pearance so slovenly as made him the jest of all his companions. Physicians in his time were used to be full dressed; and in his garb of a full suit, a brown tye-wig with a knot over one shoulder, and a long yellow-hilted sword, and his hat under his arm, he was a caricature. In his religious principles he pro­fessed himself an unitarian, for which Johnson so often [Page 234] snubbed him, that his visits to us became less and less frequent. After such a description as that above, it is needless to add that Barker succeeded ill in his profession. Upon his leaving us, he went to practise at Trowbridge in Wiltshire, but at the end of two years returned to London, and became librarian to the col­lege of physicians, in the room of Edwards the orni­thologist; but for some misbehaviour was displaced, and died in obscurity.

Dr. Richard Bathurst was a native of Jamaica, and the son of an eminent planter in that island, who coming to settle in England, placed his son in London, in order to qualify him for the practice of physic. In the course of his studies he became acquainted with Johnson, and was greatly beloved by him for the preg­nancy of his parts and the elegance of his manners. Be­sides these he possessed the qualities that were most like­ly to recommend him in his profession; but, want­ing friends, could make no way in it. He had just interest enough to be chosen physician to an hospital that was supported by precarious donations, and which yielded him little or no recompence for his attendance, which, as it was only a few hours on cer­tain days in the week, left him, in a great measure, master of his time. Of this he was a good manager, employing it in the studies relative to his profession, and the improvement of himself in polite literature. In conjunction with Johnson, Hawkesworth, and others, he wrote ‘'the Adventurer,'’ a periodical paper that will hereafter be spoken of, pursuing at the same time the most prudent and probable methods for ac­quiring reputation and advancing himself in his pro­fession; but missing of success, he embraced the [Page 235] offer of an appointment of physician to the army that was sent on the expedition against the Havannah, where, soon after his arrival, he was seized with a fever that then raged among the troops, and which, before he could be a witness of the reduction of the place, put a period to an innocent and useful life.

The Spaniards have a proverb, that he who intends to be pope must think of nothing else. Bathurst thought of becoming an eminent London physician, and omitted no means to attain that character: he studied hard, dressed well, and associated with those who were likely to bring him forward, but he failed in his endea­vours, and shortly before his leaving England confessed to Johnson, that in the course of ten years' exercise of his faculty, he had never opened his hand to more than one guinea.

The failure of three such persons as those above­mentioned, in a profession in which very many igno­rant men have been known to succeed ^*, was matter of wonder to Johnson and all that knew them. He obeyed that precept of Scripture, which exhorts us to honour the physician, and would frequently say of those of this country, that they did more good to mankind, without a prospect of reward, than any pro­fession of men whatever. Bathurst's want of encourage­ment affected him much: he often expressed to me his surprize, that a young man of his endowments and engaging manners, should succeed no better, and his disappointment drew from him a reflection, which he has inserted in his life of Akenside, that by an acute observer who had looked on the transactions of the [Page 236] medical world for half a century, a very curious book might be written on the fortune of physicians. Such a book I should be glad to see; and if any person hereafter shall be induced to pursue Johnson's hint, he may possibly think the following remarks which have occurred to me in the course of a long intimacy with some of the most eminent of the profession, not altogether beneath his notice.

Of the professors of medicine, in cities remote from London and in country rowns, I know but little; but in the metropolis I am able to say, that in my time not only the track of a young physician was pretty plainly pointed out, and it is curious to follow it, but that the conduct of such an one was reducible to a system. Mead was the son of a non-conforming minister the teacher of a numerous congregation, who trusting to his influence over them ^*, bred his son a physician, with what success is well known ^†. He raised the medical character to such a height of dignity as was never seen in this or any other country. His example was an inducement with others of the dissenting ministers to make phy­sicians [Page 237] of their sons. Oldfield, Clark, Nesbit, Lobb, and Munckley were the sons of dissenting teachers, and they generally succeeded. The hospital of St. Thomas, and that of Guy, in Southwark, were both under the government of dissenters and whigs; and as soon as any one became physician of either, his fortune was looked upon as made. The mention of this circumstance brings to my remembrance a contest, that, to a degree, proves the truth of my assertion. Dr. asterwards Sir Edward, Hulse had been some years physician to St. Thomas's hospital, and being minded to resign, had set his eye upon Dr. Joseph Letherland, a man of profound erudition, for his successor. Hoadly, bishop of Winchester, had about that time a son, who having finished his studies in physic at Cambridge, had taken his doctor's de­gree, and was about to settle in London. Hoadly was ever the idol of the whigs: he encouraged his son to offer himself, and the interest was divided. Every nerve was strained, and Hoadly missed his elec­tion by fewer than ten votes ^*.

[Page 238] The same advantage attended the election of a physician to the hospitals of Bethlehem and St. Bartholomew, which are of royal foundation, and have been under tory government. By cultivat­ing an interest with either of the two parties, the succession of a young physician was almost insured. The frequenting Batson's or Child's was a declaration of the side he took, and his business was to be in­discriminately courteous and obsequious to all men, to appear much abroad and in public places, to in­crease his acquaintance and form good connexions, in the doing whereof, a wife, if he were married, that could visit, play at cards, and tattle, was oftentimes very serviceable ^†. A candidate for practice, pur­suing these methods and exercising the patience of a [Page 239] setting-dog for half a score years in the expectation of deaths, resignations, or other accidents that occasion vacancies, at the end thereof either found himself an hospital physician ^*, and if of Bethlehem a monopolist of one, and that a very lucrative branch of practice; or doomed to struggle with difficulties for the remain­der of his life.

Jurin, Shaw, James, and some few others, recom­mended themselves to practice by their writings, but in general the methods of acquiring it; I speak of the city, were such as are above described. One and only one of the profession I am able to name who pursued a different conduct, and under the greatest disadvan­tages succeeded.

This person was Dr. Meyer Schomberg, a native of Cologne, who being a jew, and as I have heard related of him, librarian to some person of distinction abroad, [Page 240] left that occupation, and came and settled in London. Being of no profession, and having the means of a livelihood to seek, he was at a pause, but at length determined on one, and took it up in a manner that will be best described by his own words to a friend of mine. ‘'I said I was a physician.'’ Having thus assum­ed a profession, he cultivated an intimacy with the jews in Duke's place, and by their means got intro­duced to the acquaintance of some of the leading men, merchants and others of that religion, who employed him, and by their interest recommended him to a practice that, in a few years amounted, as he once told me himself, to a thousand pounds a year. He was a man of an insinuating address, and as he under­stood mankind very well, having renounced the ritual distinctions of his religion, he soon found out a me­thod of acquiring popularity, which had never been practised by any of his profession; he took a large house in the city, and kept a public table, to which, on a certain day in the week, all the young surgeons and apothecaries were welcome, and at which all that were present were treated with an indiscriminate civility, that had very much the appearance of friend­ship, but meant nothing more than that they should recommend him to practice. The scheme succeeded; in the year 1740, Schomberg had outstripped all the city-physicians, and was in the annual receipt of four thousand pounds.

To enable him to practice, he had, at his setting out, procured to be admitted a licentiate of the college, but that permission had been granted him with so ill a grace, or was followed by some circumstances that [Page 241] provoked his resentment so highly, that he seemed re­solved on a perpetual enmity against the members of that body; who, on their part, looking on him as little better than a foreign mountebank, declined, as much as possible, meeting him in consultation, and thereby, for some time, checked his practice.

He had a son whom he brought up to his own pro­fession, who took it into his head, that having been admitted a licentiate, he was virtually a fellow, and claimed to be admitted as such: his father encou­raged him, and instituted a process in his behalf, of which there had been no precedent since the time that Jefferies was chancellor. It was no less than a petition to the king, requesting him, in the person of the lord-chancellor, to exercise his visitatorial power over the college, and restore the licentiates to their rights, which, by their arbitrary proceedings, the president and fellows had, for a succession of ages, deprived them of. This petition came on to be heard at Lincoln's-inn hall, before the lord chief justice Willes, the lord chief-baron Smythe, and Sir John Eardley Wilmot, lords commissioners of the great seal, but the allegations therein contained not being sufficiently supported, the same was dismissed; it was nevertheless looked on as the most sormidable attack on the college it had ever sustained, and may be said to have shaken its constitution to the very centre.

Political associations and religious sects are excel­lent nurses to young men of professions, especially of that of which I am speaking; Ratcliffe and Freind owed their fortunes to the support of the tories and jacobites; Mead and Hulse to the whigs, and Schom­berg to the jews. The quakers also, no contemptible [Page 242] body of men, had power and interest sufficient to introduce into great practice one of their own deno­mination; this was John Fothergill, a young man of parts and industry, who being bred an apothecary, and having obtained a Scotch degree, settled in London, and attached himself to Schomberg, taking him, in many parts of his conduct, for his exemplar: so that, upon Schomberg's decease, he slid into his practice, and became one of the most popular of the city physicians. These two persons, first one, and then the other, for full thirty years, carried all before them; and within that space of time, not fewer than twenty of the profession, whom I could name, lived in great straits, some of them leaving, at their decease, scarce sufficient to bury them.

From these, and many other instances that might be produced, it is evident, that neither learning, parts, nor skill, nor even all these united, are sufficient to ensure success in the profession I am speaking of; and that, without the concurrence of adventitious circumstances, which no one can pretend to define, a physician of the greatest merit may be lost to the world; and further it may be said, that the fairest hopes may be frustrated by the want of that qua­lity, which Swift somewhere calls an aldermanly virtue, discretion, but is in truth, of greater effi­cacy in our intercourse with mankind, than all science put together. Had Akenside been possessed of this gift, he had probably become the first in his faculty; but that he was able to acquire no other kind of celebrity than that of a scholar and a poet, is to be accounted for by some particulars in his life and conduct, with which few but myself, who [Page 243] knew him well, are acquainted, and which I here in­sert as suppletory to those which Johnson has recorded of him. Mr. Dyson and he were fellow students, the one of law and the other of physic, at Leyden; where, being of congenial tempers, a friendship com­menced between them that lasted through their lives. They left the university at the same time, and both settled in London: Mr. Dyson took to the bar, and being possessed of a handsome fortune supported his friend while he was endeavouring to make him­self known as a physician; but in a short time, hav­ing purchased of Mr. Hardinge, his place of clerk of the house of commons, he quitted Westminster hall, and for the purpose of introducing Akenside to acquaintance in an opulent neighbourhood near the town, bought a house at North-End, Hampstead; where they dwelt together during the summer season: frequenting the long room, and all clubs, and assem­blies of the inhabitants.

At these meetings, which as they were not select, must be supposed to have consisted of such persons as usually meet for the purpose of gossiping, men of wealth, but of ordinary endowments, and able to talk of little else than news, and the occurrences of the day, Akenside was for displaying those talents which had acquired him the reputation he enjoyed in other companies; but here they were of little use to him, on the contrary, they tended to engage him in disputes that betrayed him into a contempt of those that differed in opinion from him. It was found out that he was a man of low birth, and a dependant on Mr. Dyson; circumstances that fur­nished those whom he offended with a ground of re­proach, [Page 244] that reduced him to the necessity of assert­ing in terms that he was a gentleman.

Little could be done at Hampstead after matters had proceeded to this extremity; Mr. Dyson parted with his villa at North-End, and settled his friend in a small house in Bloomsbury square; assigning for his support such a part of his income as enabled him to keep a chariot.

In this new situation Akenside used every endea­vour to become popular, but defeated them all by the high opinion he every where manifested of himself, and the little condescension he shewed to men of inferior endowments; by his love of political controversy, his authoritative censure of the public councils, and his bigotted notions respecting government, subjects so­reign to his profession, and with which some of the wisest of it have thought it prudent not to concern themselves. In the winter evenings he frequented Tom's coffee-house in Devereux court, then the resort of some of the most eminent men for learning and ingenuity of the time, with some of whom he be­came entangled in disputes and altercations, chiefly on subjects of literature and politics, that fixed on his character the stamp of haughtiness and self-conceit, and drew him into disagreeable situations.

There was at that time a man of the name of Ballow, who used to pass his evenings in the society above­mentioned, a lawyer by profession ^*, but of no practice; he having, by the interest of some of the Townshends, to whom he had been a kind of law tutor, obtained a place in the exchequer, which yielded him a handsome [Page 245] income, and exempted him from the necessity of attending Westminster-hall. He was a man of deep and extensive learning, but of vulgar manners; and being of a splenetic temper, envied Akenside for that eloquence which he displayed in his conversation, and set his own phraseology very low. Moreover he hated him for his republican principles; and finally, being himself a man of solid learning, affected to treat him as a pretender to literature, and made it his study to provoke him.

One evening at the coffee-house a dispute between these two persons rose so high, that for some ex­pression uttered by Ballow, Akenside thought him­self obliged to demand an apology, which not being able to obtain, he sent his adversary a challenge in writing. Ballow, a little deformed man, well known as a saunterer in the park, about Westminster, and in the streets between Charing cross and the houses of parliament, though remarkable for a sword of an unusual length, which he constantly wore when he went abroad, had no inclination for fighting, and declined an answer. The demand of satisfaction was followed by several attempts on the part of Akenside to see Ballow at his lodgings, but he kept close, till by the interposition of friends the difference could be adjusted ^*. By his conduct in this business, [Page 246] Akenside acquired but little reputation for courage, for the accommodation was not brought about by any concessions of his adversary, but by a resolution from which neither of them would depart, for one would not fight in the morning, nor the other in the after­noon: all that he got by it was, the character of an irascible man; and many who admired him for his genius and parts were shy of becoming his inti­mates. Yet where there was no competition for applause or literary reputation, he was an easy compa­nion, and would bear with such rudeness as would have angered almost any one. Saxby, of the custom­house, who was every evening at Tom's, and by the bluntness of his behaviour, and the many shrewd sayings he was used to utter, had acquired the privi­lege of Thersites, of saying whatever he would, was once in my hearing, inveighing against the profession of physic, which Akenside took upon him to de­fend. This railer, after labouring to prove that it was all imposture, concluded his discourse with this sentiment: ‘'Doctor,' said he, 'after all you have said, my opinion of the profession of physic is this, The ancients endeavoured to make it a science and failed; and the moderns to make it a trade and have suc­ceeded.'’ [Page 247] Akenside took this sarcasm in good part, and joined in the laugh which it occasioned.

The value of that precept which exhorts us to live peaceably with all men, or in other words to avoid creating enemies, can only be estimated by the reflec­tion on those many amiable qualities against which the neglect of it will preponderate. Akenside was a man of religion and strict virtue, a philosopher, a scholar, and a fine poet. His conversation was of the most delightful kind, learned, instructive, and without any affectation of wit, chearful and entertaining. One of the pleasantest days of my life I passed with him, Mr. Dyson, and another friend, at Putney bowling-green house, where a neat and elegant dinner, the enlivening sunshine of a summer's day, and the view of an un­clouded sky, were the least of our gratifications. In perfect good humour with himself and all around him, he seemed to feel a joy that he lived, and poured out his gratulations to the great dispenser of all felicity in expressions that Plato himself might have uttered on such an occasion. In conversations with select friends, and those whose course of study had been nearly the same with his own, it was an usual thing with him in libations to the memory of eminent men among the ancients, to bring their characters into view, and there­by give occasion to expatiate on those particulars of their lives that had rendered them famous: his method was to arrange them into three classes, philosophers, poets, and legislators.

That a character thus formed should fail of recom­mending itself to general esteem, and procure to the possessor of it those benefits which it is in the power of [Page 248] mankind to bestow, may seem a wonder, but it is often seen, that negative qualities are more conducive to this end than positive; and that, with no higher a character than is attainable by any one who with a studious taciturnity will keep his opinions to himself, conform to the practice of others, and entertain neither friendship for nor enmity against any one, a competitor for the good opinion of the world, nay for emoluments, and even dignities, stands a better chance of success, than one of the most estab­lished reputation for learning and ingenuity. The truth of this observation Akenside himself lived to experience, who in a competition for the place of phy­sician to the Charterhouse, was unable to prevail against an obscure man, devoid of every quality that might serve to recommend him, and whose sole merit was that of being distantly related to the late lord Holland.

To those persons who have been disappointed in their hopes of success in the medical profession, may be added one, to whom his failure was so far from being a misfortune, that it was the means of placing him in a station where only his worth could be known, and of exalting him to dignities in which he rendered more service to mankind, than he could have done in any other capacity whatever. This was Dr. Secker, the late archbishop of Canterbury; of whom I shall relate a few particulars not generally known.

We are told by the reverend authors of his life, prefixed to his sermons published by them, that he had been destined by his father for orders among the dissenters; but that not being able to decide on [Page 249] some abstruse speculative doctrines, nor to determine absolutely what communion he should embrace, he ap­plied himself to the study of physic. To this fact I add, that he was also a candidate for practice, and that in or­der to obtain it, he put on the garb of a physician; and for a year or somewhat more frequented Batson's coffee-house in the city, but had never any calls from thence ^*. His biographers abovementioned further say, that being recommended by Mr. afterwards bishop Butler, to Mr. Edward Talbot, a son of bi­shop Talbot; that gentleman promised in case he chose to take orders in the church, to engage his fa­ther to provide for him, and that foreseeing many obstacles in his pursuit of this profession, Mr. Secker, for he had not then obtained the degree of doctor in his faculty, embraced the offer. They add, that in the summer of 1720, he was introduced to Mr. Talbot, and that with him he cultivated a close acquaint­ance. This I conceive was not till after he had made the experiment abovementioned, and determined on the change of his profession. Mr. Talbot's recom­mendation of his friend to his father succeeded, but he lived not to see the fruit of it; for in a few months after, he was seized with the small-pox and died; which last particular agrees with the following, communicated to me by a person of unquestionable veracity; viz. that upon the first appearance of the disorder, the symptoms were very unfavourable, and it seemed necessary in order to assist the eruption, that some person should sleep in the same bed with the patient. Mr. Secker [Page 250] voluntarily undertook this office, and though it failed of success, gave a convincing proof of his gratitude to one whose friendship was likely to prove, as it af­terwards did, the making of his fortunes.

To return from this digression, the club in Ivy lane, composed of the persons above described, was a great re­lief to Johnson after the fatigue of study, and he gene­rally came to it with both a corporal and mental appe­tite; for our conversations seldom began till after a sup­per, so very solid and substantial, as led us to think, that with him it was a dinner. By the help of this refec­tion, and no other incentive to hilarity than lemonade, Johnson was, in a short time after our assembling, trans­formed into a new creature: his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened; his mind was made to expand, and his wit to sparkle: he told excellent stories; and in his didactic stile of conversation, both instructed and de­lighted us.

It required, however, on the part of us, who con­sidered ourselves as his disciples, some degree of compliance with his political prejudices: the greater number of our company were whigs, and I was not a tory, and we all saw the prudence of avoiding to call the then late adventurer in Scotland, or his adhe­rents, by those names which others hesitated not to give them, or to bring to remembrance what had passed, a few years before, on Tower-hill. But the greatest of all our difficulties was, to keep alive in Johnson's mind a sense of the decorum due to the age, character, and profession of Dr. Salter, whom he took delight in contradicting, and bringing his learn­ing, [Page 251] his judgment, and sometimes his veracity to the test. And here I must observe, that Johnson, though a high-churchman, and by consequence a friend to the clergy as a body of men, was, with respect to in­dividuals, frequently, not to say wanting in civility, but to a very great degree splenetic and pertinacious. For this behaviour we could but one way account: He had been bred in an university, and must there have had in prospect those advantages, those stations in life, or perhaps those dignities, which an academic educa­tion leads to. Missing these by his adverse fortunes, he looked on every dignitary under a bishop, for to those of that order he was more than sufficiently re­spectful, and, to descend lower, on every one that possessed the emoluments of his profession, as occu­pying a station to which himself had a better title, and, if his inferior in learning or mental endowments, treat­ed him as little better than an usurper.

Dr. Salter was too much a man of the world to re­sent this behaviour: ‘'Study to be quiet'’ seemed to be his rule; and he might possibly think, that a victory over Johnson in any matter of dispute, could it have been obtained, would have been dearly purchased at the price of peace. It was nevertheless a temerarious act in him to venture into a society, of which such a man was the head. Dean Swift in his character of Corusodes ^*, has so developed the arts by which mere men of the world attain to ecclesiastical dignities and preferments, as should make such for ever cautious how they risque detection; and accordingly we see that [Page 252] many among them are in general backward in form­ing connections and associating with scholars and the learned of the laity, at least with men of Johnson's temper, who, where he had reason to expect learning, never shewed mercy to ignorance.

Hawkesworth was a man of fine parts, but no learn­ing: his reading had been irregular and desultory: the knowledge he had acquired, he, by the help of a good memory retained, so that it was ready at every call, but on no subject had he ever formed any system. All of ethics that he knew, he had got from Pope's ‘'Essay on Man,'’ and Epistles; he had read the modern French writers, and more particularly the poets, and with the aid of Keill's Introduction, Chambers's Dic­tionary, and other such common books, had attained such an insight into physics, as enabled him to talk on the subject. In the more valuable branches of learn­ing, he was deficient. His office of curator of the Magazine gave him great opportunities of improve­ment, by an extensive correspondence with men of all professions: it increased his little stock of literature, and furnished him with more than a competent share of that intelligence which is necessary to qualify a man for conversation. He had a good share of wit, and a vein of humour. With all these talents, Hawkes­worth could be no other than an instructive and enter­taining companion.

Of a far more valuable kind were the endowments of Dyer; keen penetration and deep erudition were the qualities that so distinguished his character, that, in some instances, Johnson might almost be said to have looked up to him. As the purpose of our meetings [Page 253] was the free communication of sentiments, and the enjoyment of social intercourse, our conversations were unrestrained, and the subjects thereof multifarious. Dyer was a divine, a linguist, a mathematician, a me­taphysician, a natural philosopher, a classical scholar, and a critic; this Johnson saw and felt, and never, but in defence of some fundamental and important truth, would he contradict him. The deference thus shewn by Johnson to Dyer, may be said to have been involuntary, or respect extorted; for in their religious and political sentiments their disagreement was so great, that less of it would, in some minds, have engendered hatred. Of the fundamental and impor­tant truths above-mentioned, there was one, namely the nature of moral obligation, of which Johnson was uniformly tenacious. Every one, versed in studies of this kind, knows, that there are, among the moderns, three sects or classes of writers on morality, who, though perhaps deriving their respective tenets from the Socratic, the Academic and other ancient schools, are, in these times, considered, at least, as the guides of sects; these are the characteristic lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Samuel Clarke, and Mr. Wollaston: the first of these makes virtue to consist in a course of action con­formable to what is called the moral sense; Wollaston says it is acting, in all cases, according to truth, and treating things as they are; Dr. Clarke supposes all rational agents as under an obligation to act agreeably to the relations that subsist between such, or according to what he calls the fitness of things. Johnson was ever an admirer of Clarke, and agreed with him in this and most other of his opinions, excepting in that of the [Page 254] Trinity, in which he said, as Dr. Bentley, though no very sound believer, had done before, that Dr. Water­land had foiled him. He therefore fell in with the scheme of fitness, and thereby professed himself an ad­versary, in the mildest sense of the word, and an oppo­nent of Dyer, who, having been a pupil of Hutcheson, favoured, notwithstanding his suspected infidelity, this and many other notions and opinions of lord Shaftes­bury.

To say of lord Shaftesbury that he was but a suspected infidel, is surely treating him mildly, and I forbear to tax him with unbelief, only because in his ‘'Letters to a student at the University ^*,'’ he has af­fected to speak of the Christian religion, as if half persuaded of its truth. Nevertheless, throughout his works it may be discerned, that he omits no oppor­tunity of branding it with superstition and enthusiasm, and of representing the primitive professors of it as provoking, by their factious and turbulent behaviour, those persecutions from whence they derive the glory of martyrs. For these sentiments, as also for the in­vidious comparisons he is ever drawing between the [Page 255] philosophers Plato, Epictetus, Seneca and others, and the fathers, and his many contemptuous sneers at the writers on the side of christianity, Johnson bore him no good will, neither did he seem at all to relish the cant of the Shaftesburian school, nor inclin­ed to admit the pretensions of those who professed to be of it, to tastes and perceptions which are not common to all men; a taste in morals, in poetry, and prose-writing, in painting, in sculpture, in mu­sic, in architecture, and in government! a taste that censured every production, and induced them to re­probate every effort of genius that fell short of their own capricious standard ^*.

Little as Johnson liked the notions of lord Shaftes­bury, he still less approved those of some later writers, who have pursued the same train of thinking and reasoning, namely, Hutcheson, Dr. Nettleton, and Mr. Harris of Salisbury, of which latter, for the many singularities of sentiment and style in his ‘'Hermes,'’ he scrupled not to speak very lightly. There is a book extant, intitled, ‘'Letters concern­ing Mind,'’ written by a person of the same school, named Petvin, which, with an arrow taken from the quiver of their great master, a stroke of ridicule [Page 256] shot from one of the Idlers, Johnson may be fairly said to have transfixed. The passage is in a high degree ludicrous, and will, I am persuaded, justify the inser­tion of it here at length.

That Dyer should be a friend to the doctrine of the moral sense, and to the other tenets of this school, is [Page 257] not to be wondered at, seeing that he was a pupil of Hutcheson, and that his were the opinions that prevailed at Glasgow, where he taught, and also at Leyden, whither Dyer and many of his fellow-students in that university, removed. Akenside and Dyson, who were of the number, were deep in this scheme, and also abettors of that fanciful notion, that ridicule is the test of truth.

The topics above-mentioned were, not unfrequent­ly, the subjects of altercation between Johnson and Dyer, in which it might be observed, as Johnson once did of two disputants, that the one had ball without powder, and the other powder without ball; for Dyer, though best skilled in the controversy, was in­ferior to his adversary in the power of reasoning, and Johnson, who was not always master of the question, was seldom at a loss for such sophistical arguments as the other was unable to answer.

In these disputations I had opportunities of observ­ing what others have taken occasion to remark, viz. not only that in conversation Johnson made it a rule to talk his best, but that on many subjects he was not uniform in his opinions, contending as often for vic­tory as for truth: at one time good, at another evil was predominant in the moral constitution of the world. Upon one occasion, he would deplore the non-observance of Good-Friday, and on another deny, that among us of the present age there is any decline of public worship. He would sometimes contradict self-evident propositions, such as, that the luxury of this country has increased with its riches; and that the practice of card-playing is more general than here­tofore. [Page 258] At this versatility of temper, none, however, took offence; as Alexander and Caesar were born for conquest, so was Johnson for the office of a symposi­arch, to preside in all conversations; and I never yet saw the man who would venture to contest his right.

Let it not, however, be imagined, that the mem­bers of this our club met together, with the temper of gladiators, or that there was wanting among us a dis­position to yield to each other in all diversities of opi­nion; and indeed, disputation was not, as in many associations of this kind, the purpose of our meeting: nor were our conversations, like those of the Rota club, restrained to particular topics. On the con­trary, it may be said, that with our gravest discourses was intermingled

for not only in Johnson's melancholy there were lucid intervals, but he was a great contributor to the mirth of conversation, by the many witty sayings he uttered, and the many excellent stories which his memory had treasured up, and he would on occasion relate; so that those are greatly mistaken who infer, either from the general tendency of his writings, or that appearance of hebetude which marked his counte­nance when living, and is discernible in the pictures and prints of him, that he could only reason and dis­cuss, dictate and controul.

In the talent of humour there hardly ever was his equal, except perhaps among the old comedians, [Page 259] such as Tarleton, and a few others mentioned by Cibber. By means of this he was enabled to give to any relation that required it, the graces and aids of expression, and to discriminate with the nicest ex­actness the characters of those whom it concerned. In aping this faculty I have seen Warburton disconcerted, and when he would fain have been thought a man of pleasantry, not a little out of coun­tenance.

I have already mentioned, that Johnson's motive for the institution of this society was, his love of con­versation, and the necessity he found himself under of seeking relief from the fatigue of compiling his dicti­onary: the same necessity operated still farther, and induced him to undertake, what most other men would have thought an additional fatigue, the pub­lishing a periodical paper. The truth is, that not having now for a considerable space committed to writing aught but words and their significations, his mind was become tumid, and laboured to be delivered of those many and great conceptions, which for years it had been forming. The study of human life and manners, had been the chief employment of his thoughts, and to a knowledge of these, all his read­ing, all his conversation, and all his meditations tended. By these exercises, and the aid of an ima­gination that was ever teeming with new ideas, he accumulated a fund of moral science, that was more than sufficient for such an undertaking, and became in a very eminent degree qualified for the office of an instructor of mankind in their greatest and most important concerns.

[Page 260] I am sensible of the contempt and ridicule with which those authors are treated by lord Shaftesbury, who, differing from his favourites the ancients, have preferred to their method of writing in soliloquy and dialogue, the more authoritative and didactic form of essays; but who knows not that the ways by which intelligence and wisdom may be communicated are many and various, and that Johnson has followed the best exemplars? What are the sapiential books in the Scriptures, and all collections of precepts and counsels, but moral essays, lessons of oeconomical prudence, and rules for the conduct of human life?

In a full persuasion of the utility of this mode of instruction, it undoubtedly was, that Montaigne, lord Bacon, Osborne, Cowley, Sir William Temple, and others, in those excellent discourses, which they have not scrupled to term essays, have laid out their minds, and communicated to mankind that skill in worldly, and I will add, in heavenly prudence, which is scarcely attainable but by long experience, and an exercise both of the active and contemplative life; and to disseminate and recommend the princi­ples and practice of religion and virtue; as also, to correct the lesser foibles in behaviour, and to render human intercourse easy and delightful, was the avow­ed design of those periodical essays, which, in the be­ginning of this century, contributed to form the man­ners of the then rising generation.

A long space had intervened since the publication of the Tatlers, Guardians, and Spectators: it is true it had been filled up by The Lover, and The Reader, The Theatre, The Lay-monastery, The Plain-dealer, [Page 261] The Free-thinker, The Speculatist, The Censor, and other productions of the like kind; but of some of these it may be said, that they were nearly still-born, and of others, that they enjoyed a duration little more extended than that of the ephemeron: so that Johnson had no competitors for applause; his way was open, and he had the choice of many paths. Add to this, that a period of near forty years, in a country where commerce and its concomitant luxury had been in­creasing, had given rise to new modes of living, and even to characters that had searcely before been known to exist. The clergyman was now become an amphibious being, that is to say, both an ecclesiastic and a laic; the stately stalking fop, whose gait, as Cibber describes it, resembled that of a peacock, was succeeded by a coxcomb of another species, a fidget­ting, tripping animal, that for agility might be com­pared to a grasshopper; the shopkeeper was transform­ed into a merchant, and the parsimonious stock-broker into a man of gallantry; the apron, the badge of mechanic occupations, in all its varieties of stuff and colour, was laid aside; physicians and lawyers were no longer distinguishable by their garb; the former had laid aside the great wig, and the latter ceased to wear black, except in the actual exercise of their profes­sions: in short, a few years of public tranquillity had transformed a whole nation into gentlemen.

In female life the refinements were also to be noted. In consequence of a better education than it had been usual to bestow on them, women were become profi­cients in literature, and a man might read a lady's letter without blushing at the spelling. The convenience [Page 262] of turnpike-roads had destroyed the distinction between town and country manners, and the maid of honour and the farmer's wife put on a cap of the latest form, almost at the same instant. I mention this, because it may have escaped the observation of many, that a new fashion pervades the whole of this our island almost as instantaneously as a spark of fire illuminates a mass of gunpowder. ^*

These, it may be said, were but foibles in the man­ners of the times; but there were certain notions and opinions, which having been disseminated subsequent [Page 263] to the publication of the last of the collections of essays above-mentioned, escaped their censure, and were now become principles that had mis-led many, and were likely to affect the moral conduct of the young and unthinking: these had for their authors and propaga­tors such men as Collins, Mandeville ^†, Morgan and Tindal; the first pair deists, and the latter infidels. And to these I might add, though I would not brand [Page 264] them with so harsh an appellation as the last, Toland, Gordon, Trenchard, and others of that class of writers, men who having drank the lees of the Bangorian controversy, were become so intoxicated in their notions of civil and religious liberty, as to talk of the majesty of the people! and shewed themselves anxious that their zeal for religion might be estimated by their jealousy of all establishments for the support of it.

The flimsy arguments contained in Collins's dis­course on Free-thinking, had been refuted with great learning and pleasantry by Bentley, before which time, as I have been informed, a clergyman in his habit, walking the streets of London, was in danger of being affronted; but the poison of Mandeville had affected many. His favourite principle is, the title to the most noted of all his books, ‘'Private vices, public benefits,'’ throughout which he labours to in­culcate, as a subordinate position, this other, that man is a selfish being, and that all that we call human beneficence is to be accounted for upon principles that exclude the love of any but ourselves ^*.

Johnson has remarked, that malevolence to the clergy is seldom at a great distance from irreverence for religion. He saw the features of that malevolence [Page 265] in the writings of these men, and the point at which free-thinking was likely to terminate; and taking up the defence of religion where Mr. Addison left it, he made it a part of his design as well to adduce new arguments for its support, and to enforce the practice of virtue, as to correct those errors in the smaller concerns and occupations of life, the ridiculing which rendered his paper an amusement.

In this situation and state of public manners John­son formed the plan of his Rambler, and with what spirit he entered upon it may be inserred from the following solemn address, which he composed and offered up to the divine Being for a blessing on the undertaking:

‘'Almighty God, the giver of all good things, with­out whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly; grant, I beseech Thee, that in this undertaking thy holy spirit may not be with-held from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others: grant this, O Lord, for the sake of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.'’

The work was undertaken without the commu­nication of his design to any of his friends, and consequently without any desire of assistance from them; it was from the stores of his own mind alone that he hoped to be able to furnish that variety of matter which it would require; which, that it might at no time fail him, he kept up by noting in a common­place book that he carried about him, such incidents, sentiments, and remarks on familiar life and manners as were for his purpose. This method of accumulat­ing [Page 266] intelligence had been practised by Mr. Addison, and is humourously described in one of the Spectators, wherein he feigns to have dropped his paper of No­tanda, consisting of a diverting medley of broken sen­tences and loose hints, which he tells us he had col­lected, and had meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is Johnson's Adversaria, as will appear by the following specimens:

In the above article we discern the rudiments of two most excellent papers, in the Rambler, number 197, and 198, the design whereof is to describe and ridicule the folly of legacy-hunting.

Here follows another, in which is contained the hints from which he formed that humorous relation of a Journey in a Stage Coach, given in the Adven­turer, Number 84.

[Page 269] Being thus stored with matter, Johnson proceeded to publish his paper; and the first number came abroad on Tuesday the twentieth day of March, 1750.

It was the office of a censor of manners to curb the irregularities into which, in these new modes of living, the youthful of both sexes were apt to fall, and this he endeavoured to effect by gentle exhortation, by sober reproof, and, not seldom, by the powers of wit and ridicule; but with what success, others are as well able to tell as myself; however, if that is to be judged of by the sale of the paper, it was doubtless great, for though its reception was at first cool, and its progress slow, the world were too wise to suffer it to sink into oblivion: it was collected into volumes, and it would be too much for any one to say, that ten impressions of twelve hundred and fifty each, of a book fraught with the soundest precepts of oecono­mical wisdom, have been disseminated in vain.

On the first publication of the Rambler it met with a few readers who objected to it for certain particula­rities in the style, which they had not been used to in papers of the like kind, new and original combina­tions of words, sentences of an unusual form, and words derived from other languages, though accom­modated to the genius of our own; but for these such reasons are assigned in the close of the last paper, as not only are a defence of them, but shew them to be improvements of our language.

Of singularity it may be observed, that, in general, it is originality, and therefore not a defect, and that all is not tumidity which men of little and con­fined reading please to call so. It is from a servile [Page 270] imitation of others, and the use of whole phrases and sentences, and customary combinations of words, that the variety of styles is not nearly as great as that of faces. The vulgar opinion is, that the style of this century is the perfection of our language, and that we owe its ultimate and final improvement to Mr. Addison, and when we make his cold and languid periods the test, it is no wonder if we mistake strength and animation for tumidity.

And here I cannot but remark the error and mis­fortune of those who are blind to the excellencies of style that occur in the works of many English prose writers of the last century, which are rejected for no better a reason, than that in them we sometimes meet with words not now in common use. A reader ignorant of the state of our language at different periods, and not conversant with the writings of ages long past, is an incompetent judge of the subject, and his opinion of styles of no weight or value. Such a one we may suppose hardly restrained from censuring the style of our liturgy, compiled for the most part so long ago as the reign of Edward the sixth, and the an­tiquated phrase of the state-papers in the Cabala, the Burleigh, Sidney and Strafforde collections, notwith­standing they severally contain the most perfect models of precatory eloquence and civil negociation.

I find an opinion gaining ground not much to the advantage of Mr. Addison's style, the characteristics whereof are feebleness and inanity. I speak of that alone, for his sentiments are excellent and his humour exquisite. In some instances he adopts vulgar phrase, as when he calls an indiscreet action a piece of folly, and too often uses the expletive adverb along, thus, [Page 271] Come along with me. Yet I am not willing to deprive him of the honour implied in Johnson's testimony, ‘'that his prose is the model of the middle style;'’ but if he be but a mediocrist, he is surely not a subject of imitation; it being a rule, that of examples the best are always to be selected.

That Johnson owed his excellence as a writer to the divines and others of the last century, myself can attest, who have been the witness of his course of reading, and heard him declare his sentiments of their works. Hooker he admired for his logical precision, Sanderson for his accuteness, and Taylor for his amazing erudition; Sir Thomas Browne for his pe­netration, and Cowley for the ease and unaffected structure of his periods. The tinsel of Sprat dis­gusted him, and he could but just endure the smooth verbosity of Tillotson. Hammond and Barrow he thought involved, and of the latter that he was unne­cessarily prolix.

It may perhaps be thought, as his literary acquain­tance was extensive, and the toil of compiling his dictionary very great, that Johnson was helped in the publication of the Rambler by the communications of others; but this was not the fact, he forbore to solicit assistance, and few presumed to offer it, so that in the whole series of those papers, we know with cer­tainty of only four that were not of his own writing. Of these, No. 30, was sent him by Mrs. Catherine Talbot, daughter of Mr. Edward Talbot herein before spoken of; No. 97, by Mr. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, and numbers 44 and 100, by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter of Deal, a lady to whose reputation for learning, [Page 272] and the most estimable qualities of her sex, no praise of mine can make any addition. Hence arises that uni­formity of subject and sentiment which distinguishes the Rambler from other papers of the like kind; but how great must its merit be, when wanting the charm of variety and that diversity of characters, which, by the writers of them, was thought necessary to keep attention awake, it could support itself to the end, and make instruction a substitute for amusement! Nor can this defect, if it be any, be deemed a devia­tion from Johnson's original purpose, which was not so much to instruct young persons of both sexes in the manners of the town, as in that more important science, the conduct of human life; it being certain, that he had it in his power as well to delight as to in­struct his readers; and this he has in some instances done, not only by the introduction of fictitious characters and fancied portraits, but by ironical sarcasms and original strokes of wit and humour, that have, per­haps, excited more smiles than the writings of many, whose chief purpose it was, like that of L'Estrange and others, to make their readers merry.

And hence we may take occasion to observe, the error of those who distinguish so widely between men of study and reflection, and such as are hackneyed in the ways of the world, as to suppose the latter only qualified to instruct us in the offices of life. Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, takes every oc­casion to express his hatred of an university educa­tion, to brand it with pedantry, and to declare that it unfits a man for social intercourse. Some have asserted, that travelling is the only means to attain a [Page 273] knowledge of mankind; and the captain in Swift, in a less extensive view of human life, swears that

To say the truth, there are numbers of men who contemn all knowledge derived from books, and pre­fer to it what they call turning over the great volume of the world. I had once a gardener that could not endure the mention of Miller's dictionary, and would contend with me, that ‘'practice was every thing;'’ and innumerable are the instances of men who oppose mother-wit to acquired intelligence, and had rather grope their way through the world, than be indebted for instruction to the researches of others. Such men as these, in situations they have not been accustomed to, are ever aukward and diffident; and it is for a reason nearly a-kin to this, that few rakes are able to look a modest woman in the face. On the contrary, the attainments of Johnson were such as, notwithstanding his home-breeding, gave him confidence, and quali­fied him for the conversation of persons of all ranks, conditions, characters, and professions, so that no sooner had the Rambler recommended itself to the favour of the public, and the author was known to be of easy access, than his acquaintance was sought, and even courted, by persons, of whom many, with all the improvement of travel, and the refinements of court-manners, thought that somewhat worth know­ing was to be learned from the conversation of a man, whose fortunes and course of life had precluded him from the like advantages.

[Page 274] Johnson's talent for criticism, both preceptive and corrective, is now known and justly celebrated; and had he not displayed it in its utmost lustre in his Lives of the Poets, we should have lamented that he was so sparing of it in the Rambler, which seemed to be a vehicle, of all others the most proper, for that kind of communication. An eulogium on Knolles's His­tory of the Turks, and a severe censure of the ‘'Samson Agonistes'’ of Milton are the only critical essays there to be found; to the latter he seems to have been prompted by no better a motive, than that hatred of the author for his political principles which he is known to have entertained, and was ever ready to avow. What he has remarked of Milton in his Lives of the Poets is undoubtedly true: he was a political enthusiast, and, as is evident from his panegyric on Cromwell, a base and abject flatterer. His style in controversy was sarcastic and bitter, and not consistent with christian charity; and though his apologists endeavour to defend him by the practice of the times, there were in his time better examplars than he chose to follow, the writings of Jewel, Mede, Hooker, Dr. Jackson, and others, his predecessors in religious and political controversy; nor does he seem in his private character to have possessed many of those qualities that most endear men to each other. His friends were few, Andrew Marvel, Marchmont Needham, and the younger Vane; and Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Henry Nevil, John Aubrey, and others, members of that crack-brained assembly the Rota-club, all repub­licans; and there is reason to suspect, from the stern­ness of his temper, and the rigid discipline of his [Page 275] family, that his domestic manners were far from amiable, and that he was neither a kind husband nor an indulgent parent. But neither these nor those other qualities that rendered him both a bitter enemy and a railing disputant, could justify the severity of Johnson's criticism on the above-mentioned poem, nor apologize for that harsh and groundless censure which closes the first of his discourses on it, that it is ‘'a tragedy which ignorance has admired, and bigotry applauded.'’

The reflection on that enmity of Johnson towards Milton, which I have above remarked, leads me to mention another instance of it, which about this time fell under my observation. A man of the name of Lauder, a native of Scotland, and educated in the university of Edinburgh, had, for reasons that will hereafter be given, conceived a hatred against the memory of Milton, and formed a scheme to con­vict him of plagiarism, by shewing that he had inserted in the Paradise Lost whole passages taken from the writings of sundry modern Latin poets, namely, Masenius the jesuit, Taubman a German professor, the editor of Virgil, and joint editor with Gruter of Plautus, Staphorstius a Dutch divine, and other writers less known; and of this crime he attempted to prove him guilty, by publishing instances in forged quotations, inserted from time to time in the ‘'Gentleman's Magazine,'’ which not being detected, he made additions to, and again published in a volume intitled ‘'An Essay on Milton's use of and imitation of the moderns in his Paradise Lost, dedicated to the Universities of Oxford and Cam­bridge, 8vo. 1750.'’ While the book was in the [Page 276] press, the proof sheets were submitted to the in­spection of our club, by a member of it who had an interest in its publication, and I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve, not only of the design but of the argument, and seemed to exult in a persuasion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the imposture I am well persuaded, but that he wished well to the argument must be inferred from the preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson.

The charges of plagiarism contained in this produc­tion, Lauder has attempted to make out by citations to a very great number, from a Latin poem of Jacobus Masenius a jesuit, intitled, ‘'Palaestra ligatae eloquen­tiae,'’ from the ‘'Adamus exul'’ of Grotius, the ‘'Trium­phus Pacis'’ of Caspar Staphorstius a Dutchman, from the Latin poems of Caspar Barlaeus, and the works of many other writers. For a time the world gave credit to them, and Milton's reputation was sinking under them, till a clergyman of great worth, learn­ing and industry, Mr. now Dr. John Douglas, prompted at first by mere curiosity, set himself to find out and compare the parallel passages, in the doing whereof he discovered, that in a quotation from Staphorstius, Lauder had interpolated eight lines taken from a Latin translation of the Paradise Lost, by a man named Hogaeus or Hog, and opposed them to the passage in the original, as evidence of Milton's plagiarism. Proofs of the like fraud in passages cited from Taubman and many others are produced by Dr. Douglas; but a single instance of the kind would have been sufficient to blast the credit of his adversary.

[Page 277] Having made these discoveries, Dr. Douglas com­municated them to the world in a pamphlet intitled, ‘'Milton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism, brought against him by Mr. Lauder, &c. 8vo. 1750.'’ Upon the publication thereof his booksel­lers called on Lauder for a justification of themselves, and a confirmation of the charge; but he, with a degree of impudence not to be exceeded, acknow­ledged the interpolation of the books by him cited, and seemed to wonder at ‘'the folly of mankind in making such a rout about eighteen or twenty lines.'’ However, being a short time after convinced by John­son and others, that it would be more for his interest to make an ample confession of his guilt, than to set mankind at defiance, and stigmatize them with folly; he did so in a letter addressed to Mr. Douglas, pub­lished in quarto, 1751, beginning thus:

[Page 279] Then follow the citations, some of which appear to be gratuitous, that is to say, such as had escaped the detection of the author's adversary.

He then proceeds to assign the motive for his attempt to subvert the reputation of Milton, in these words:

The concluding paragraph of this confession carries in it such an appearance of contrition, that few who red it at the time could withhold that forgiveness which it implores; these are the words of it:

‘'For the violation of truth, I offer no excuse, be­cause I well know, that nothing can excuse it. Nor will I aggravate my crime, by disingenuous pallia­tions. I confess it, I repent it, and resolve, that my first offence shall be my last. More I cannot per­form, and more therefore cannot be required. I intreat the pardon of all men, whom I have by any means induced to support, to countenance, or pa­tronize any frauds, of which I think myself obliged to declare, that not one of my friends was conscious. I hope to deserve by better conduct and more useful undertakings, that patronage which I have obtained from the most illustrious and venerable names by misrepresentation and delusion, and to appear hereafter in such a character, as shall give [Page 281] you no reason to regret, that your name is frequently mentioned with that of, Reverend Sir, Your most humble servant, WILLIAM LAUDER.'’

Notwithstanding this humiliating and abject con­session, which, though it was penned by Johnson ^*, was subscribed by himself, Lauder had the impu­dence, in a postscript thereto, in effect to retract it, by pretending that the design of his essay was only to try how deeply the prepossession in favour of Milton was rooted in the minds of his admirers; and that the stratagem, as he calls it, was intended to impose only on a few obstinate persons; and, whether that was so criminal as it has been represented, he leaves the impartial mind to determine.

After the publication of this letter, the perusers of it rested in a conviction of the villainy of its author, strengthened by the inconsistency between the reasons assigned in that and those in the postscript. Never­theless, in the year 1754, resolving to attack Milton in another quarter, Lauder published a pamphlet inti­tled, ‘'King Charles I. vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted of forgery and a gross imposition on the public.'’ The design of this pamphlet was, to ingratiate himself with the friends to the memory of Charles by shewing, that the prayer of Pamela, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, was, by an artifice os Milton, inserted in an edition of the Eikon Basilike, with a view to fix on the king a charge of impiety.

[Page 282] With this question I meddle not; I have only to observe upon Lauder's pamphlet, that the argument is introduced by a defence of his essay, and an assertion, that his letter, which he says was written by Johnson, in many respects contained not his sentiments, and was, more properly than an apology, an enormous ag­gravation of his offence; and is pursued with a declaration of the author, in the sincerity of his heart, that had not Milton with such unparalleled malignity blasted the king, he would not upon any consideration have either offered a violence to truth, put an impo­sition on the public, though but for a moment, or attempted to blast Milton's reputation by a fal­shood.

Behold here a reason far differing from each of the two former; the first was a provocation given him by a distich of Mr. Pope's, the second was a desire by a stratagem, as he calls it, to try how far the partiality of Milton's admirers would lead them, and this last is, his resentment of an injury done to the memory of king Charles the first. If we ask, which of these is the true one? the answer must be, neither; for it ap­pears that Lauder had projected an edition of Mase­nius and other of the Latin poets referred to in his essay, and that in order to obtain subscriptions for the same, he had been guilty of the wickedness imputed to and proved upon him.

The concluding paragraph of this last pamphlet of Lauder, as it is for its impudence matchless, I here give, and in the doing thereof consign his memory to that insamy, which, by his complicated wickedness he has incurred.

[Page 283] ‘'As for his [Milton's] plagiarisms, I intend shortly, God willing, to extract such genuine proofs from those authors who held forth the lighted torch to Milton, I mean, who illustrated the subject of the Paradise Lost, long before that prince of plagiaries entered upon it, as may be deemed sufficient, not only to replace the few interpolations, (for which I have been so hideously exclaimed against) but even to reinforce the charge of plagiarism against the English poet, and fix it upon him by irrefragable conviction in the face of the whole world, and by the suffrage of all candid and impartial judges, while sun and moon shall endure, to the everlasting shame and confusion of the whole idolatrous rabble of his numerous partizans, particularly, my vain-glorious adversary, who will reap only the goodly harvest of disappointment and disgrace, where he expected to gather laurels.'’

In 1756, Dr. Douglas published a new edition of his pamphlet, with the title of ‘'Milton no plagiary, or a detection of the forgeries contained in Lauder's essay on the imitations of the moderns in the Paradise Lost:'’ to this is an appendix, containing part of an apology of Lauder's booksellers, for having been the publishers of his essay, in which they give an account of their conduct, after the first discovery of his villainy, in the following words: ‘'An immediate application to Lauder was necessary, as well to justify ourselves, as to remove or confirm the charge. Accordingly, we acquainted him, that if he did not instantly put into our hands the books from which he had taken the principal passages, we would publicly disclaim [Page 284] all connexion with him, and expose his declining the only step left for his defence. This declaration brought him to us the following day, when, with great confidence, he acknowledged the interpolation of all the books; and seemed to wonder at mankind in making such a rout about eighteen or twenty lines. As this man then has been guilty of such a wicked imposition upon us, our friends, and the public, and is capable of so daring an avowal of it, we declare, that we will have no farther intercourse with him, and that we now sell his book only as a curiosity of fraud and interpolation, which all the ages of literature cannot parallel!'’

With a character thus blasted, it was next to im­possible for this man to continue in England; he therefore left it, and went to settle at Barbadoes, pro­posing to set up a school there; but, upon his arrival on the island, he met with small encouragement, and is said to have died about the year 1771.

As Johnson, though not in the least an accessary to the imposture above related, had a considerable share in the controversy that it gave rise to, it seemed to me necessary to be thus particular in giving such an account thereof as would concentrate into one point all that was written on the subject, and convey to posterity the history of a transaction, the like whereof is not to be found among the records of literature. It is too sad a truth, that learning and rectitude of mind are qualities independent of each other, and that the world has in all ages abounded with examples of men of great erudition who have been wanting in common honesty. We read of men who have cor­rupted [Page 285] the Holy Scriptures with a view to favour a particular heresy; and of monks who have forged charters to promote the secular interests of their fra­ternity: these, though wicked actions, must be sup­posed to have sprung from a principle, which, having for its object a common benefit, had somewhat of generosity in it: but the motives of this impostor were all of the selfish kind, revenge for a supposed injury done to himself, and an impatience to be re­lieved from his own peculiar and personal wants and distresses; and though it was for some time thought that his confession had atoned for his offence, we find it was in fact an aggravation of it: In as much as it was not sincere, it was a repentance to be re­pented of; and indeed in one sense he seems to have thought so, for, in his last publication, he retracts it, and that nothing might be wanting to fill up the measure of his iniquity, he defies his detector, whose endeavours were to beget in him that sense of shame which, as it is ever the forerunner of penitence, has ever been deemed salutary.

Great thanks are due to this learned divine and eminent scholar for the zeal and industry manifested by him in the course of this singular controversy, and every judicious reader must rejoice, that through his means our great poet has been rescued from an infamous charge, and that we may yet read the ‘'Paradise Lost'’ without a suspicion of its ori­ginality.

To return to Johnson, I have already said that he paid no regard to time or the stated hours of refection, or even rest; and of this his inattention I will here relate a notable instance. Mrs. Lenox, a lady now well known [Page 286] in the literary world, had written a novel intitled, ‘'The life of Harriot Stuart,'’ which in the spring of 1751, was ready for publication. One evening at the club, Johnson proposed to us the celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lenox's first literary child, as he called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. Upon his men­tioning it to me, I told him I had never sat up a whole night in my life; but he continuing to press me, and saying, that I should find great delight in it, I, as did all the rest of our company, consented. The place appointed was the Devil tavern, and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs. Lenox and her husband, and a lady of her acquaintance, now living, as also the club, and friends to the number of near twenty, assembled. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pye should make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lenox was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepar­ed for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. The night passed, as must be imagined, in pleasant conver­sation, and harmless mirth, intermingled at different periods with the refreshments of coffee and tea. About five, Johnson's face shone with meridian splen­dour, though his drink had been only lemonade; but the far greater part of us had deserted the colours of Bacchus, and were with difficulty rallied to partake of a second refreshment of coffee, which was scarcely ended when the day began to dawn. This pheno­menon began to put us in mind of our reckoning; [Page 287] but the waiters were all so overcome with sleep, that it was two hours before we could get a bill, and it was not till near eight that the creaking of the street-door gave the signal for our departure.

My mirth had been considerably abated by a severe fit of the tooth-ach, which had troubled me the greater part of the night, and which Bathurst endeavoured to alleviate by all the topical remedies and palliatives he could think of; and I well remember, at the instant of my going out of the tavern-door, the sensation of shame that affected me, occasioned not by reflection on any thing evil that had passed in the course of the night's entertainment, but on the resemblance it bore to a debauch. However, a few turns in the Temple, and a breakfast at a neighbouring coffee-house, enabled me to overcome it.

In the foregoing pages I have assigned the motives that induced Johnson to the institution of the club, and the writing of the Rambler; and here I may add, that his view in both was so far answered, as that the amusements they afforded him contributed, not only to relieve him from the fatigue of his great work the dictionary, but that they served to divert that me­lancholy, which the public now too well knows was the disease of his mind. For this morbid affection, as he was used to call it, no cause can be assigned; nor will it gratify curiosity to say, it was constituional, or that it discovered itself in his early youth, and haunted him in his hours of recreation; and it is but a surmise that it might be a latent concomitant of that disease, which, in his infancy, had induced his mother to seek relief from the royal touch. His [Page 288] own conjecture was, that he derived it from his father, of whom he was used to speak as of a man in whose temper and character melancholy was predominant. Under this persuasion, he at the age of about twenty, drew up a state of his case for the opinion of an eminent physician in Staffordshire, and from him received an answer, ‘'that from the symptoms therein described, he could think nothing better of his disorder, than that it had a tendency to in­sanity; and without great care might possibly ter­minate in the deprivation of his rational faculties.'’ The dread of so great a calamity was one inducement with him to abstain from wine at certain periods of his life, when his fears in this respect were greatest; but it was not without some reluctance that he did it, for he has often been heard to declare, that wine was to him so great a cordial, that it required all his resolution to resist the temptations to ebriety.

It was fortunate for the public, that during a period of two years, the depression of his mind was at no time so great as to incapacitate him for sending forth a number of the Rambler on the days on which it became due; nor did any of the essays or discourses therein contained, either in the choice of subjects or the manner of treating them, indicate the least symptom of drooping faculties or lassitude of spirit. Nevertheless, whether the constant meditation on such topics as most frequently occur therein, had not produced in his mind a train of ideas that were now become uneasy to him, or whether, that intense­ness of thought which he must have exerted, first, in the conception, and next, in the delivery of such [Page 289] original and noble sentiments as these papers abound with, had not made the relaxation of his mind ne­cessary, he thought proper to discontinue the Rambler at a time when its reputation was but in its dawn.

The paper in which this his resolution is an­nounced, is that of March 14, 1752, which concludes the work. As he had given his readers no warning of his intention, they were unprepared for the shock, and had the mortification to receive the tid­ings and the blow at the same instant, with the ag­gravation of a sympathetic melancholy, excited by the mournful expressions with which he takes his leave. And though he affects to think the reasons for discontinuing the publication a secret to his rea­ders, it is but too apparent that it was written in the hours of dejection, and that the want of assistance and encouragement was not the weakest of his mo­tives. Of the former of these two he had surely no right to complain, for he was so far from being ever known to wish for assistance, that his most intimate friends seemed to think it would have been presump­tion to offer it. The want of encouragement indeed might be a justifiable cause of discontent, for I have reason to think that the number of papers taken off hardly amounted to five hundred on any of the days of publication. Nevertheless, the slow circulation of the paper was to be accounted for by other reasons than that the author was never a favourite with the public, a reflection that would have been but excus­able, had his imitations of Juvenal become waste paper, or his Irene, instead of being suffered to run nine nights, been consigned to oblivion on the first; [Page 290] for it must be considered, that the merits of the Rambler were of a kind not likely to recommend it to those who read chiefly for amusement, and of readers, this class will ever be by much the most numerous: the subjects therein discussed are chiefly the weightiest and most important, respecting more our eternal than temporal happiness; and that these were the obstacles to the progress of his paper, himself has unawares confessed in his apology for the conduct of it. ‘'I have never,' says he, 'complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day. I have rarely exemplified my assertions by living characters; in my papers no man could look for censures of his enemies or praises of himself; and they only were expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.'’

Towards the close of this last paper, he seems to refer to ‘'the final sentence of mankind,'’ with a sort of presage, that one more deliberate than that to which he was submitting might be more favour­able to his labours. He little thought at this time to what length the justice of mankind would go; that he should be a witness to the publication of the tenth edition of the Rambler, or that his heart would ever be dilated, as his friends can testify it was, with the news of its being translated into the Russian lan­guage.

Much might be said in commendation of this ex­cellent work; but such suffrages as those here men­tioned set it almost above praise. In the author's own [Page 291] opinion it was less estimable than in that of his judges: some merit indeed he claims for having enriched his native language, but in terms so very elegant and modest, that they at once hold forth an exemplar, and convey an apology. ‘'I have laboured,' says he, 'to refine our language to grammar and purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something perhaps I have added to the elegance of its con­struction, and something to the harmony of its cadence. When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy by apply­ing them to popular ideas, but have rarely admitted any word not authorized by former writers.'—’With what success these endeavours of his have been attend­ed is best known to those who have made eloquence their study; and it may go far towards the stamping a lasting character of purity, elegance, and strength on the style of Johnson, to say, that some of the most popular orators of this country now living, have not only proposed it to themselves as a model for speak­ing, but for the purpose of acquiring the cadence and flow of his periods, have actually gotten whole essays from the Rambler by heart.

The concluding paragraph of his farewel paper is so very awful, that I cannot resist the temptation to insert it, and the rather for that it seems to have been written under a persuasion, that Almighty God had been propitious to his labour, and that the solemn address to him which he had composed and offered up, on occasion of his engaging in it, had been heard, and was likely to be accepted.

[Page 292] ‘'The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found ex­actly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no praise of man shall diminish or augment. I shall never envy the honours which wit and learn­ing obtain in any other cause, if I can be num­bered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth: Celestial pow'rs! that piety regard, From you my labours wait their last reward.’

The Rambler, thus published in numbers, was not suffered to be lost to the world, or to sink into obli­vion. As soon as, by the conclusion of it, it became a complete work, it was collected into volumes, and printed in Scotland ^*, and, soon after, also here, and obtained such favour with the public, as was an in­ducement with Dr. Hawkesworth to an undertaking of the same kind, the publication of a periodical paper called ‘'The Adventurer.'’ For the carrying on such a work as this, Hawkesworth, though he possessed but a small stock of learning, was more than meanly qualified. He had excellent natural parts, and, by reading the modern English and French au­thors, had acquired a style, which, by his acquaintance with Johnson he had improved into a very good one. He wrote verses, that is to say in English, with ease [Page 293] and fluency, and was better acquainted with the world than most men are who have been bred to no profession.

The subjects of these papers, like those of the Rambler, are human life and manners, with a mixture of humour and instructive pleasantry, criticism, and moral and religious exhortation, too various, it must be supposed, for the powers of a single person: they are therefore the produce of different pens, and may owe their merit, in a great measure, to that diversity. The curiosity of the reader is, to a small degree, gra­tified by the last paper, which assigns to their author, Dr. Joseph Warton, such as have a certain signature, and leaves to Dr. Hawkesworth himself the praise of such as are without any. To the information there given, I add, that the papers marked A. which are said to have come from a source that soon failed, were supplied by Dr. Bathurst, an original associate in the work, and those distinguished by the letter T. by Johnson ^*.

The first number of the Adventurer made its ap­pearance on Tuesday, November 7, 1752, and on that week-day, and also on Saturdays, it continued to be published, till the ninth of March 1754. To point out the many excellent essays contained in it is needless, as they are now collected into volumes, and together with the Rambler form a system of moral and oeconomical institution; two of them are to be looked on as curiosities in different ways, Dr. Warton's re­marks on ‘'King Lear'’ and ‘'the Tempest,'’ the most [Page 294] learned and judicious critiques in the English lan­guage, and the account of a native of Scotland, called Admirable Crichton, dictated from memory by John­son to Hawkesworth.

As Johnson expected to be believed whenever he either spoke or wrote, he has not vouchsafed to cite any authority for the incredible relation, which the Adventurer contains, of the personal and mental en­dowments of a man who is described as a monster both of erudition and prowess, and in every other view of his character is represented as having passed the limits of humanity. That he had no authority for what he has related of him, would be too much to say, after he has asserted, that he had such as was incontestible, yet having that, he has kept within the bounds of it, and cast a veil over that blaze of glory, which, to gaze on in its naked splendour, would not dazzle but blind the beholder.

Johnson's account, for his I must call it for a reason above given, is in these words:

The above account is so defective in the evidences of historical verity, that it has been by some suspected to be fabulous. It is true, that in essays of such a kind as that which contains this eulogium, it is not usual, for that would be to incur the charge of pedan­try, to cite authorities; nevertheless, the circumstan­ces of time and place seem so necessary in the relation of every uncommon event, and in the description of every extraordinary person, that the omission of both in this instance, as also the christian name of the person celebrated, can hardly be excused.

To supply these defects I might refer the reader to authorities, that fix the place of his birth at Clunie in the shire of Perth in Scotland, the year thereof at 1551, and that of his death 1583; and that tell us also, that Crichton's name of baptism was James; and as to the facts enumerated in the Adventurer, they seem to be sufficiently authenticated to all the purposes of historical information, in a book written in 1652, by Sir Thomas Urquhart ^*, bearing this [Page 300] strange title, ‘'ΕΚΣΚΥΒΑΛΑΥΡΟΝ, or the discovery of a most exquisite jewel more precious than dia­monds inchased in gold, the like whereof was never seen in any age; found in the kennel of Worcester­streets, the day after the fight, and six before the autumnal equinox 1651.'’

In this book is contained a memorial of sundry illustrious persons of Scotland, serving to vindicate the honour of that nation, but written in such a style of learned tumidity and bombast, as is not to be paralleled in any book now extant. I here cite from it two passages respecting Crichton as specimens thereof, and as proofs of Johnson's discretion in veiling the effulgence of a character too bright to be viewed in its genuine lustre.

Speaking of the manner of Crichton's death, and that it followed from a thrust with his own sword by the hand of the prince, son of the duke of Mantua, the author says;

‘'The whole court wore mourning for him full three quarters of a yeer together: his funeral was very stately, and on his hearse were stuck more Epi­taphs, Elegies, Threnodies, and Epicediums, then, if digested into one book, would have out-bulk't all Homers works; some of them being couched in such exquisite and fine Latin, that you would have thought great Virgil, and Baptista Mantuanus, for the love of their mother-city, had quit the Ely­sian fields to grace his obsequies: and other of them (besides what was done in other languages) composed in so neat Italian, and so purely fancied, as if Ariosto, Dante, Petrark, and Bembo had been purposely resuscitated, to stretch even to the utmost, their poetick vein, to the honour of this brave man; whose picture till this hour is to be seen in the bed­chambers or galleries of the most of the great men of that nation, representing him on horseback, with a lance in one hand, and a book in the other: and [Page 308] most of the young ladies likewise, that were any thing handsome, in a memorial of his worth, had his effigies in a little oval tablet of gold, hanging 'twixt their breasts; and held (for many yeers toge­ther) that Metamazion, or intermammilary ornament, an as necessary outward pendicle, for the better setting forth of their accoutrements, as either Fan, Watch, or Stomacher.'’

The several exploits of Crichton, above-related, as they appear upon the face of Sir Thomas Urquhart's book, are, it must be confessed, unsupported by any cita­tions from history, or the writings of contemporary bio­graphers, or other narrators of remarkable transactions, and may, therefore, in the judgment of those who re­flect on the hyperbolical style of the author, and the extravagancies to which such an enthusiastic spirit as his will lead men, stand in need of still farther proof. Happily, since the publication of the Adventurer, such evidence has been laid before the public, as must remove all doubt of the existence of such a person as Crichton, and of the truth of the facts above-related of him.

For this information we are indebted to Mr. Pen­nant, who, in his tour to Scotland, vol. I. page 295, confirms the account of Sir Thomas Urquhart in all its particulars, vouching, as his authority, Aldus Ma­nutius, Joannes Imperialis, a physician of Vicenza, and a writer whom I take to be Estienne Pasquier, two of whom were personally acquainted with him, and eye-witnesses to the triumphs by them severally recorded. From Aldus Manutius we learn, that Crichton was a scholar of Buchanan.

[Page 309] Mr. Pennant has further obliged the public with some Latin verses of Crichton's writing, and an en­graving of him from an original portrait.

From all which testimonies, it is but a necessary conclusion, that whatever may be suppressed, as passing credibility, of the person here celebrated, enough is, upon incontestable authority, related, to induce us to rank him among prodigies.

That Johnson dictated this number of the Adven­turer, I have already said: that he did not himself write it may be thus accounted for; he had doubt­less red the history of Crichton in Sir Thomas Ur­quhart's book, and retained it with that firmness of memory, which held fast almost every thing that he met with in books. Supposing him, as we may, too indolent to recur to one that he had formerly red through, and, in the hearing of Hawkesworth, to have related the transactions of so wonderful a man, the latter might catch at it as a fit subject for an essay, and give it to the world, as he has done in the Ad­venturer. To which we may add, that Johnson was seldom a narrator of events: his talent was original thinking; in conversation he told stories, and related historical facts with great precision, but rarely sent them abroad in writing.

We are not to suppose, that that soreness of mind, which Johnson seems to have felt at the time of his discontinuing the Rambler, was, in the short interval of six months, so completely healed, as to render him a disinterested candidate for praise in this new publi­cation; or that he who had declared, that he could not compose a sermon, gratis, would write an Adven­turer, without being hired to it: on the contrary, it [Page 310] is certain, that he retained his old maxim, that gain was the only genuine stimulative to literary exertion, and that the assistance he gave to this publication was purchased at two guineas, for every number that he had finished; a rate of payment which he had before adjusted in his stipulation for the Rambler, and was probably the measure of a reward to his fellow-labourers.

The avowed end of the Adventurer, being the same with that of the Rambler, and the plan and conduct thereof so little different from it, the latter may be considered as a continuation of the former: never­theless, it may be observed, that in the Adventurer, the number of entertaining papers, of portraits, singular characters, and essays of wit, humour, and pleasantry, is greater, in proportion, than in the Rambler; and to that diversity it was doubtless owing, that the circulation of it was more diffuse. On the part of the writers it was carried on with great vigour, and, together with the Rambler, is likely to remain a last­ing evidence of the spirit that dictated, and the public good sense that encouraged, such a series, as they both contain, of religious instruction, oeconomical wisdom, and innocent delight.

Hawkesworth has, almost in terms, declared him­self the editor of the Adventurer, and that the other contributors thereto were merely auxiliaries; and his zeal for its success may be inferred from the number of papers written by himself, which, upon a compa­rison, will be found nearly equal to that of all the rest. This zeal was excited by a motive far more strong than any which actuated his co-adjutors, a desire of advantage in his then profession, which ostensibly was [Page 311] that of a governor of a school for the education of young females, by making himself known as a judge of life and manners, and capable of qualifying those of riper years for the important relations of domestic society.

But while he was indulging a well-grounded hope to reap this fruit of his studies, a reward of a very different kind courted his acceptance. The arch­bishop of Canterbury, Dr. Herring, his diocesan and neighbour, having perused his essays, and informed himself of his general character, made him an offer of a faculty that should raise him above the level of vulgar literati, and, almost without his being con­scious of any such exaltation, create him a doctor of both laws, and the honour was accepted.

Among men of real learning, there is but one opi­nion concerning what are called Lambeth degrees. The right of conferring them is a relic of the power anciently exercised in this country by the legates of the pope, and is, by statute, transferred to the arch­bishop of Canterbury. It received a legal sanction in the determination, about the year 1720, of the case of the warden of Manchester college. Degrees of this kind are often convenient for clergymen, as they are quali­fications for a plurality of livings, but, as they imply nothing more than favour, convey little or no honour.

But Hawkesworth was so far mistaken in his notion of this act of kindness of the archbishop, that though he had never red Justinian, nor perhaps ever seen the Corpus Juris Civilis, or Corpus Juris Canonici, he conceived himself transmuted by it into a civilian and a canonist, and qualified for an advocate in either of those judicatures where the above laws are severally recognised.

[Page 312] In consequence of this persuasion, he made an effort to be admitted a pleader in the courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but met with such an opposition as ob­liged him to desist. Upon this, he bent his course another way, and, recurring to his first design of con­verting his school into a kind of female academy, suc­ceeded, not more to his own emolument, than the improvement of those who participated in the benefits of his tuition.

In this train of events, and others that are well enough known, it may be discerned, that Hawkes­worth was a greater gainer by the Adventurer than any of those concerned in it. His success, however, wrought no good effects upon his mind and conduct; it elated him too much, and betrayed him into a for­getfulness of his origin, and a neglect of his early ac­quaintance; and on this I have heard Johnson re­mark, in terms that sufficiently expressed a knowledge of his character, and a resentment of his behaviour. It is probable that he might use the same language to Hawkesworth himself, and also reproach him with the acceptance of an academical honour to which he could have no pretensions, and, which Johnson, conceiving to be irregular, as many yet do, held in great con­tempt; thus much is certain, that soon after the at­tainment of it, the intimacy between them ceased.

The expedients above-mentioned, and the visits of a variety of friends, which his writings had procured him, afforded Johnson great relief, and enabled him to keep at a bay those terrors, which were almost inces­santly assailing him, till the beginning of the year 1752, O.S. when it pleased God to try him by a ca­lamity, which was very near realizing all those evils [Page 313] which, for a series of years, he had dreaded: this was the loss of his wife, who, on the 28th day of March, and after seventeen years cohabitation, left him a childless widower, abandoned to sorrow, and incapable of consolation.

Those who were best acquainted with them both, wondered that Johnson could derive no comfort from the usual resources, reflections on the conditions of mortality, the instability of human happiness, resig­nation to the divine will, and other topics; and the more, when they considered, that their marriage was not one of those which inconsiderate young people call love-matches, and that she was more than old enough to be his mother; that, as their union had not been productive of children, the medium of a new relation between them was wanting; that her inat­tention to some, at least, of the duties of a wife, were evident in the person of her husband, whose negli­gence of dress seemed never to have received the least correction from her, and who, in the sordidness of his apparel, and the complexion of his linen, even shamed her. For these reasons I have often been inclined to think, that if this fondness of Johnson for his wife was not dissembled, it was a lesson that he had learned by rote, and that, when he practised it, he knew not where to stop till he became ridicu­lous. It is true, he has celebrated her person in the word formosae, which he caused to be inscribed on her grave-stone; but could he, with that imperfection in his sight which made him say, in the words of Milton, he never saw the human face divine, have been a witness of her beauty? which we may suppose [Page 314] had sustained some loss before he married; her daughter by her former husband being but little younger than Johnson himself. As, during her life­time, he invited but few of his friends to his house, I never saw her, but I have been told by Mr. Garrick, Dr. Hawkesworth, and others, that there was somewhat crazy in the behaviour of them both; profound respect on his part, and the airs of an antiquated beauty on her's. Johnson had not then been used to the company of women, and nothing but his conversation rendered him tolerable among them: it was, therefore, neces­sary that he should practice his best manners to one whom, as she was descended from an ancient family, and had brought him a fortune, he thought his su­perior. This, after all, must be said, that he la­boured to raise his opinion of her to the highest, by inserting in many of her books of devotion that I have seen, such endearing memorials as these: ‘'This was dear Tetty's book.'—'This was a prayer which dear Tetty was accustomed to say,'’ not to mention his frequent recollection of her in his meditations, and the singularity of his prayers respect­ing her.

To so high a pitch had he worked his remembrance of her, that he requested a divine, of his acquaintance, to preach a sermon at her interment, which, probably, he would have written himself, but was dissuaded from so ostentatious a display of the virtues of a woman, who, though she was his wife, was but little known. He intended also to have deposited her remains in the chapel in Tothill fields, Westminster, but, altering his mind, he committed the disposal of them to his friend [Page 315] Hawkesworth, who buried her in his own parish­church of Bromley in Kent, under a black marble stone, on which Johnson himself, a few months be­fore his death, caused the following memorial to be inscribed: ‘Hic conduntur reliquiae
ELIZABETHAE
Antiqua Jarvisiorum gente,
Peatlingae, apud Leicestrienses, ortae;
Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae;
Uxoris, primis nuptiis, HENRICI PORTER,
Secundis, SAMUELIS JOHNSON;
Qui multum amatam, diuque defletam
Hoc lapide contexit.
Obiit Londini, mense Mart.
A.D. MDCCLIII.’

I have been informed that, in his early youth, he entertained a romantic passion, excited possibly by reading the poets, for a young woman of a family and in circumstances far above him; but proofs are wanting that Johnson was, at any period of his life, susceptible of amorous emotions. In his inter­course with the world, he had become known to many of the female sex, who sought his conversa­tion ^*, but it was never heard that he entertain­ed a passion for any one, or was in any other sense a lover, than as he was the author of amo­rous [Page 316] verses. If ever he was in danger of becom­ing one in reality, it was of a young woman whom he used to call Molly Aston, of whose wit, and of the delight he enjoyed in conversing with her, he would speak with rapture ^*, but this was in the life-time of Mrs. Johnson, and he was a man too strict in his morals to give any reasonable cause of jealousy to a wife.

The melancholy, which seized Johnson on the death of his wife, was not, in degree, such as usually follows the deprivation of near relations and friends: it was of the blackest and deepest kind. That affection, which could excite in the mind of Milton the pleas­ing images described in his sonnet on his deceased wife,

wrought no such effect on that of Johnson: the appa­rition of his departed wife was altogether of the terrific kind, and hardly afforded him a hope that she was in a state of happiness.

[Page 317] That these gloomy conceptions were in part owing to the books he had been accustomed to read, I have little doubt. Sundry passages occur in his writings, which induce a suspicion, that his notions of the state of departed spirits were such as are now deemed super­stitious; and I will not attempt to vindicate him from the charge of believing some of the many rela­tions extant, that go to prove an intercourse between them and the inhabitants of this earth. These, as they were fystematical, and such as he was able to defend by arguments the most specious, I can no better ac­count for, than by a supposition, that in the course of his studies he had been a dabbler in demonology, by which I mean, not the writings of those vulgar authors who relate the intrigues and midnight banquets of witches with infernal spirits, or that teach the difference between black and white witches, and assert the power of them and their agents to harm us, but from those more authentic writers, namely, Mede, and others, whose proofs, that the doctrine of demons made a part of the gentile theology, have induced an opinion that in these later times departed spirits have such an existence as the intercourse above-mentioned, seems to imply.

Not to dwell longer on so painful a subject, I will dismiss these reflections with an observation, that by the unhappiness of his bodily constitution, and the defect of his organs of sense, he was rendered unsus­ceptible of almost all those delights which we term pleasures of the imagination, and which help to soothe the mind under affliction; and this melancholy truth I shall attempt to illustrate by the following obser­vations:

[Page 318] With respect to sight, it must be noted, that he was of that class of men, who, from a defect in the visual organs, are termed myops, or near-sighted persons; and farther, that disease had deprived him of the use of one eye, the consequence whereof was, that in lieu of those various delightful prospects which the face of nature affords, the beautiful and the grand, that multiply ideas and administer delight, as well in the reflection as the immediate enjoyment of them, his mind was presented with an universal blank. Nor was his misfortune less, with respect to those objects wherein beauty, symmetry, and harmony of parts and proportions are resident: to him a statue was an unshapen mass, and a sumptuous edifice a quarry of stone. Of the beauties of painting, notwithstand­ing the many eulogiums on that art which, after the commencement of his friendship with Sir Joshua Reynolds, he inserted in his writings, he had not the least conception; and this leads me to mention a fact to the purpose, which I well remember. One evening, at the club, I came in with a small roll of prints, which, in the afternoon, I had picked up: I think they were landscapes of Perelle, and laying it down with my hat, Johnson's curiosity prompted him to take it up and unroll it: he viewed the prints severally with great attention, and asked me what sort of plea­sure such things could afford me; I told him, that as representations of nature, containing an assemblage of such particulars as render rural scenes delightful, they presented to my mind the objects themselves, and that my imagination realised the prospect before me; he said, that was more than his would do, for that [Page 319] in his whole life he was never capable of discerning the least resemblance of any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to represent.

To the delights of music, he was equally insensible: neither voice nor instrument, nor the harmony of con­cordant sounds, had power over his affections, or even to engage his attention. Of music in general, he has been heard to say, ‘'it excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own;'’ and of a fine singer, or instrumental performer, that ‘'he had the merit of a Canary-bird ^*.'’ Not that his hearing was so defective as to account for this insensibility, but he laboured under the misfortune which he has noted in his life of Barretier, and is common to more persons than in this musical age are willing to confess it, of wanting that additional sense or faculty, which renders music grateful to the human ear.

From this state of his mental and bodily constitution, it must necessarily be inferred, that his comforts were very few, and that his mind had no counterpoise against those evils of sickness, sorrow, and want, which, at different periods of his life he laboured under, and in some of his writings pathetically laments. Of this misfortune himself was sensible, [Page 320] and the frequent reflection thereon wrought in him a persuasion, that the evils of human life preponde­rated against the enjoyments of it; and this opinion he would frequently enforce by an observation on the general use of narcotics in all parts of the world, as, in the east, and southern countries, opium; in the west, and northern, spirituous liquors and tobacco ^*; and into this principle he resolved most of the temp­tations to ebriety. To the use of the former of these, himself had a strong propensity, which increased as he advanced in years: his first inducement to it was, relief against watchfulness, but when it became habi­tual, it was the means of positive pleasure, and as such, was resorted to by him whenever any depression of spirits made it necessary. His practice was, to take it in substance, that is to say, half a grain levigated with a spoon against the side of a cup half full of some liquid, which, as a vehicle, carried it down.

With so few resources of delight, it is not to be wondered at, if after the loss of his wife, his melan­choly was hardly supportable. Company and conver­sation were the only reliefs to it, and when these failed him he was miserable. At the club in Ivy lane, our usual hour of departure was eleven, and when that approached he was frequently tempted to wander the streets, and join in the conversation of those miser­able females who were there to be met with. Of these he was very inquisitive as to their course of life, the history of their seduction, and the chances of re­claiming them. The first question he generally [Page 321] asked was, if they could read. Of one who was very handsome, he asked, for what she thought God had given her so much beauty: she answered— ‘'To please gentlemen ^*.'’

In the midst of the distresses which, at this period of his life, surrounded him, he found both inclination and the means to be helpful to others. His wife, a short time before her death, had consigned to his care a friend of her own sex, a person of very extraor­dinary endowments, whom, for a benevolent purpose that will be shortly mentioned, Johnson had invited to a residence in his house: This was Mrs. Anna Williams, whose history is as follows:

Her father, Zachariah Williams, was a surgeon and physician in South Wales, a man of parts and great ingenuity: he had addicted himself to mathematical studies, and having, by a kind of intuitive penetra­tion, discovered, that the variations of the magnetic needle were equal at equal distances east and west; he entertained a sanguine hope, that he had attained the means of ascertaining the longitude. As London was the place where he thought he should best avail himself of his discovery, and also turn it to the im­provement of his fortunes, he, in the year 1730, with an apparatus of mathematical and nautical instru­ments of his own invention, left his habitation and business, and, together with his daughter, settled in the metropolis. His first business was, to lay before the commissioners of the longitude the fruits of his [Page 322] studies; but, upon a due examination, they all proved abortive: no proportion whatever of the reward could be assigned him as his due; but, as a kind of recom­pence for his disappointment, means were found to procure him a maintenance in the Charterhouse, and accordingly he was admitted into that asylum of age and poverty. With all his ingenuity and scien­tific wisdom, which I have heard his daughter, with an excusable partiality, magnify beyond credibility, he must have been defective in worldly prudence; for, either by the infraction of oeconomical regulations, or some other misconduct respecting the endowment from which he derived his support, he rendered him­self at first obnoxious to censure from the governors, and in the end was obliged to forego all the benefits of it, to become an outcast, and, at the age of seventy­five, to suffer shipwreck in the wide ocean of the world. In a narrative, published in 1749, he com­plains of his expulsion as an act of injustice.

What became of him afterwards I could never learn, save that in the year 1755, he published in Italian and English a book intitled, ‘'An account of an attempt to ascertain the longitude at sea, by an exact theory of the magnetical needle,'’ written, as it is supposed, by Johnson, and translated by Mr. Baretti. Of his daughter, I am able to say more, having known her a long time. About ten years after her arrival with her father in London, she was alarmed by the appearance of a cataract on both her eyes, which continued to increase till it totally de­prived her of her sight. Before this calamity befel her, she, with the assistance of her father, had ac­quired a knowledge of the French and Italian [Page 323] languages, and had made great improvements in literature, which, together with the exercise of her needle, at which she was very dextrous, as well after the loss of her sight as before, contributed to support her under her affliction, till a time when it was thought by her friends, that relief might be obtained from the hand of an operating surgeon. At the request of Dr. Johnson, I went with her to a friend of mine, Mr. Samuel Sharp, senior surgeon of Guy's hospital, who before had given me to understand, that he would couch her gratis if the cataract was ripe, but upon making the experiment it was found otherwise, and that the crystalline humour was not sufficiently in­spissated for the needle to take effect. She had been almost a constant companion of Mrs. Johnson for some time before her decease, but had never resided in the house: afterwards, for the convenience of performing the intended operation, Johnson took her home, and upon the failure of that, kept her as the partner of his dwelling till he removed into chambers, first in Gray's inn, and next in the Temple. Afterward, in 1766, upon his taking a house in Johnson's court in Fleet street, he invited her thither, and in that, and his last house in Bolt court, she successively dwelt for the remainder of her life.

The loss of her sight made but a small abatement of her chearfulness, and was scarce any interruption of her studies. With the assistance of two female friends, she translated from the French of Pere La Bletrie, the life of the emperer Julian ^*. In 1755, Mr. Garrick, ever disposed to help the afflicted, in­dulged [Page 324] her with a benefit-play that produced her two hundred pounds; and in 1766, she published by subscription a quarto volume of miscellanies in prose and verse, and thereby increased her little fund to three hundred pounds, which, being prudently invest­ed, yielded an income, that under such protection as she experienced from Dr. Johnson, was sufficient for her support.

She was a woman of an enlightened understanding; plain, as the women call it, in her person, and easily provoked to anger, but possessing, nevertheless, some excellent moral qualities, among which no one was more conspicuous, than her desire to promote the welfare and happiness of others, and of this she gave a signal proof, by her solicitude in favour of an institution for the maintenance and education of poor deserted females in the parish of St. Sepulchre, London, supported by the voluntary contributions of ladies, and, as the foundation-stone of a fund for its future subsistence, she bequeathed to it the whole of that little, which, by the means above-mentioned, she had been able to accumulate. To the endow­ments and qualities here ascribed to her, may be added, a larger share of experimental prudence than is the lot of most of her sex. Johnson, in many exi­gences, found her an able counsellor, and seldom shewed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice. In return, she received from his conver­sation the advantages of religious and moral improve­ment, which she cultivated so, as in a great measure to smooth the constitutional asperity of her temper. When these particulars are known, this intimacy, which began with compassion, and terminated in a [Page 325] friendship that subsisted till death dissolved it, will be easily accounted for.

Johnson had but for a short time enjoyed the relief from solitude and melancholy reflection which this friendly attachment afforded him, before he expe­rienced that affliction, which, in the course of nature, is the concomitant of longevity, in the loss of his friend Cave, who finished a useful and well-spent life in the month of January, 1754. It might seem that between men so different in their endowments and tempers as Johnson and Cave were, little of true friendship could subsist, but the contrary was the case: Cave, though a man of a saturnine disposition, had a sagacity which had long been exercised in the discrimination of men, in searching into the recesses of their minds, and finding out what they were fit for; and a liberality of sentiment and action, which, under proper restrictions, inclined him not only to encourage genius and merit, but to esteem and even to venerate the possessors of those qualities as often as he met with them: it cannot, therefore, be supposed, but that he entertained a high regard for such a man as Johnson, and, having had a long experience of his abilities and integrity, that he had improved this dis­position into friendship. Johnson, on his part, sought for other qualities in those with whom he meant to form connections: had he determined to make only those his friends whose endowments were equal to his own, his life would have been that of a Carthusian; he was therefore more solicitous to contract friend­ships with men of probity and integrity, and endued with good moral qualities, than with those whose in­tellectual powers, or literary attainments, were the [Page 326] most conspicuous part of their character; and of the former, Cave had a share, sufficient to justify his choice.

On this mutual regard for each other, as on a solid basis, rested the friendship between Johnson and Cave. It was therefore with a degree of sorrow, proportioned to his feelings towards his friends, which were ever tender, that Johnson reflected on the loss he had to sustain, and became the narrator of the most important incidents of his life. In the account which he has given of his death, it will be readily believed, that what he has related respecting the constancy of his friendship, is true, and that when, as the last act of reason, he fondly pressed the hand that was afterwards employed in recording his memory, his affection was sincere.

By some papers now in my hands it seems that, not­withstanding Johnson was paid for writing the Ramb­ler, he had a remaining interest in the copy-right of that paper, which about this time he sold. The pro­duce thereof, the pay he was receiving for his papers in the Adventurer, and the fruits of his other literary labours, had now exalted him to such a state of com­parative affluence, as, in his judgment, made a man­servant necessary. Soon after the decease of Mrs. Johnson, the father of Dr. Bathurst arrived in England from Jamaica, and brought with him a negro-servant, a native of that island, whom he caused to be baptized and named Francis Barber, and sent for instruction to Burton upon Tees in Yorkshire: upon the decease of captain Bathurst, for so he was called, Francis went to live with his son, who willingly parted with him to Johnson. The uses for which he was intended [Page 327] to serve this his last master were not very apparent, for Diogenes himself never wanted a servant less than he seemed to do: the great bushy wig, which through­out his life he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture which it had contracted and been suffered to retain, was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge; and little of the dust that had once settled on his outer garments was ever known to have been disturbed by the brush. In short, his garb and the whole of his external appearance was, not to say negligent, but slovenly, and even squalid; to all which, and the necessary consequences of it, he appeared as insensible as if he had been nurtured at the cape of Good Hope: he saw that, notwithstand­ing these offensive peculiarities in his manners, his conversation had great attractions, and perhaps he might estimate the strength of the one by the degree of the other, and thence derive that apathy, which, after all, might have its foundation in pride, and afforded him occasion for a triumph over all the solicitudes respecting dress ^*.

[Page 328] Of this negro-servant much has been said, by those who knew little or nothing of him, in justification of that partiality which Johnson shewed for him, and his neglect of his own necessitous relations. The follow­ing particulars are all that are worth relating of him: He stayed with Johnson about five years, that is to say, till 1758, and then left him, but at the end of two years returned, and was taken again into his service. His first master had, in great humanity, made him a Christian; and his last, for no assignable reason, nav, rather in despight of nature, and to unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, deter­mined to make him a scholar.

He placed him at a school at Bishop-Stortford, and kept him there five years; and, as Mrs. Williams was used to say, who would frequently reproach him with his indiscretion in this instance, expended three hun­dred pounds in an endeavour to have him taught Latin and Greek ^*.

The proposal for the dictionary, and other of his writings, had exhibited Johnson to view in the cha­racter of a poet and a philologist: to his moral quali­ties, and his concern for the interests of religion and virtue, the world were for some time strangers; but no sooner were these manifested by the publication of the Rambler and the Adventurer, than he was looked up to as a master of human life, a practical Christian, [Page 329] and a divine; his acquaintance was sought by per­sons of the first eminence in literature, and his house, in respect of the conversations there, became an aca­demy. One person, in particular, who seems, for a great part of his life, to have affected the character of a patron of learned and ingenious men, in a letter which I have seen, made him a tender of his friendship in terms to this effect:— ‘'That having perused many of his writings, and thence conceived a high opinion of his learning, his genius, and moral qualities, if Mr. Johnson was inclined to enlarge the circle of his ac­quaintance, he [the letter-writer] should be glad to be admitted into the number of his friends, and to receive a visit from him.'—’This person was Mr. Dodington, afterwards lord Melcombe, the value and honour of whose patronage, to speak the truth, may in some degree be estimated by his diary lately pub­lished, but better by the account which I mean here to give of his favourites and dependents, with some of whom I was personally acquainted. How Johnson received this invitation I know not: as it was con­veyed in very handsome expressions, it required some apology for declining it, and I cannot but think he framed one.

One of the earliest of lord Melcombe's clients was Dr. Edward Young, the author of the Satires, of the Night-thoughts, and of the Revenge, a tragedy; a man who, by a strange fatality, could never attain to any of those distinctions in his profession, which are generally understood to be the rewards of learning and piety, and must be supposed to have failed by the ardour with which he solicited, and the servile adulation which he practised to come at them, of which latter disposition [Page 330] he has given such instances in the dedications of his fatires to the several persons of high rank, to whom they are addressed, as also, in the exordium to each of the Night-thoughts at their first coming abroad, for in the later edition they are omitted, as are a dis­grace to manhood, and must have put the vainest of his patrons to the blush.

Mr. James Ralph was another of his dependents, of whom, as a pretender to genius, much may be learned from the Dunciad. He was the tool of that party, of which his lordship laboured in vain to become the leader; and, to serve its purposes, by inflaming the minds of the people, wrote a weekly paper called the Remembrancer ^*. For this and other good deeds of the like kind, he is, in the diary above-mentioned, held forth as an exemplar to all writers of his profession, and dignified with the character of an honest man.

Another of these men of genius, who enjoyed the favour of Mr. Dodington, was Mr. Paul Whitehead, whose love for his country, and knowledge of its in­terests, became first known by a satire of his writing entitled, ‘'The State Dunces,'’ which, as he was a patriot, and, as all patriots pretend to be, a firm friend to what they call the constitution, bears this candid motto:

He also wrote ‘'Manners,'’ a satire; a libel of a more general tendency, as including in it many invectives against some of the nobility, and most eminent of the dignified clergy.

Of this man, who many years was my neighbour in the country, I know much to blame and somewhat to commend: he may be supposed, in his younger days, to have imbibed that malevolence against the Hanover succession, which was the sentiment of many at the beginning of this century, and by an easy transition, to which the perusal of such papers as the Craftsman, Common-sense, and other publications of the time, and, most of all, the conversation of such persons as he chose for his associates, might probably lead him, to have engendered in his mind a hatred of all whose offices in the state had made the support of govern­ment their duty, and a resolution to acquiesce in that fallacious discrimination of two classes of men, the one whereof was in, and the other out of power, into the court and country parties.

It is not much to the credit of the latter of these two, that some of the writers on the fide of it were such avowed enemies to religion, as might beget, in those acquainted with their characters, a suspicion that, as in the language of politics, there is an alliance between church and state, a similar relation subsists between infidelity and patriotism, proofs whereof have not been wanting in these our late times; for it is evi­dent, that as the injunctions to obedience imply reli­gion, the want thereof, quoad the person who is to pay it, vacates the obligation, and leaves him at liberty to form an alliance with the other side.

[Page 332] And that some of the writers on the side of the country party, as it was called, particularly in the Craftsman, were men of this character, is certain. Amhurst, the ostensible author of the paper, was expelled his university, and was, moreover, a friend and associate of Strutt, an attorney of the temple, who wrote several letters or essays in his paper, and a treatise with some such title as, ‘'A philosophical enquiry into the nature of human liberty,'’ wherein the freedom of the human will is denied, and the actions of men are made to result from an irresistible necessity. This tract I have heard Whitehead commend and assert that it contained a full refutation of all that Dr. Clarke, in his controversy with Leibnitz, has advanced in favour of the contrary opinion, and at the same time speak of the author as one whom the greatness of his parts, had he lived, would have raised to the dignity of lord­chancellor; but of whose moral and religious prin­ciples a judgment may be formed, by means of the following letter, which, for the atheistical expressions contained therein, was the ground for the expulsion of the writer of it from the university of Cambridge. I forbear remarking on this blasphemous epistle, farther than, that the regret I have often felt in the perusal of it has been not a little increased by the figure that my friend Paul makes in it, and the intimacy between him and Strutt which it discloses.

The political principles of Whitehead recom­mended him to Mr. Dodington, whose ostentation was gratified, and his ambitious views in a way to be advanced, by a connection with a man who had abilities to write, and the boldness to publish whatever might serve the purposes of a party, and whose zeal for its interests was subject to any direction. [Page 335] Dodington admired the keenness of Whitehead's wit, and the spirit of his satires, and his commendations were repaid by the latter, with encomiums on his patron's political wisdom and qualifications for state employments, which, as they seemed to have no foun­dation in principle, Paul was as little able to investi­gate as to delineate the path of a comet. In his con­versation there was little to praise: it was desultory, vociferous, and profane. He had contracted a habit of swearing in his younger years, which he retained to his latest. At Twickenham he never frequented divine service; and when pressed by one of his friends there to shew himself at church, excused himself by saying he was not settled. He was visited by very few of the inhabitants of the village; but his house was open to all his London friends, among whom were Mr. Hogarth, Isaac Ware the architect, George Lambert, and Hayman the painters, and Mr. Havard the player, men who had spent all their lives in and about Covent-garden, and looked upon it as the school of manners, and an epitome of the world.

Paul was endowed with a great portion of wit, but it was altogether of the satyrical kind, and served to little purpose, other than to expose to ridicule or contempt the objects to which it was directed. In concert with one Carey a surgeon, he planned and exhibited a procession along the Strand, of persons on foot and on horseback, dressed for the occasion, car­rying mock ensigns, and the symbols of free-masonry ^*; the design of which was, to expose to laughter the insignia and ceremonies of that mysterious institution, [Page 336] and it was not till thirty years after, that the fraternity recovered the disgrace which so ludicrous a represen­tation had brought on it.

After enumerating these his exceptionable qualities, it is but justice to say of Whitehead, that he was by nature a friendly and kind-hearted man, well acquaint­ed with vulgar manners and the town, but little skilled in the knowledge of the world, and, by consequence, little able to resist the arts of designing men; and of this defect he gave a melancholy proof in submitting to be engaged for Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury­lane theatre, in a bond for 3000l; for failure in the payment whereof he sustained imprisonment in the Fleet for some of the best years of his life. He had married a woman of a good family and fortune, whom, though homely in her person, and little better than an idiot, he treated not only with humanity, but with tenderness, hiding, as well as he was able, those defects in her understanding, which are oftener the subjects of ridicule than of compassion. After his enlargement, some money fell to him, with which, and the profits of the place of deputy-treasurer of the chamber, which he held for some time under lord Le Despenser, he pur­chased a cottage on Twickenham common, and from a design and under the inspection of his friend Isaac Ware, at a small expence improved it into an elegant dwelling. Here he manifested the goodness of his nature in the exercise of kind offices, in heal­ing breaches, and composing differences between his poor neighbours; and living to see, as he did at the commencement of his present majesty's reign, power lodged in the hands of such as he thought friends of their country, and above all temptations to abuse it, [Page 337] he abandoned his factious principles, and became a loyal subject. In a grateful sense of his obligations to lord Le Despenser, he directed, that after his decease, his heart, inclosed in a vessel for the purpose, should be presented to him, which being done, his lordship caused it to be deposited in his church of West Wycomb.

Dr. Thompson was one of the many physicians who, in this country, have enjoyed a short-lived repu­tation, acquired by methods unknown to any but themselves. The earliest of his practice was among men of eminence, Mr. Pope and others, who, de­ceived by his confidence and a certain contempt with which he ever spoke of the rest of his profession as being bigotted to theories and systems, looked upon him as a man of an inventive genius, who had reduced the art of healing to an epitome. The fact was, that, affecting to be a free-thinker in his faculty, he set at nought the discoveries and improve­ments of others, and treated with ridicule that practice which he did not understand. He was an everlasting prater on politics and criticism, and saw so deep into the councils of the king of Prussia, that he could assign the motives of all his actions, during the last war in which he was engaged. At taverns, in coffee-houses, at the cyder-cellar in Maiden lane, he was frequently to be found holding forth on these subjects without interruption, in a tone of voice which Mr. Garrick would say was like the buz of an humble­bee in a hall-window. This man enjoyed the favour of lord Melcombe, and, what was of greater benefit to him, an apartment in his house, with a protection from arrests, founded on the privilege which the law grants, [Page 338] not only to peers, but to the lowest of their menial servants.

Quin once told me a story of this man, which I will relate in as few words as I am able.—Quin walking up and down, one Sunday evening, in the Bedford coffee-house, observed a man in a dark corner lean­ing his forehead on the table, and every now and then sending forth a sigh, that seemed to come from his heart. Moved with compassion, he went up to him, and enquiring the cause of his grief, was told by him, that his name was Thompson, that he was a physician rising into practice, but that, for want of fifty pounds, his chariot could not go abroad the next day, and his patients must remain unvisited. Quin bid him be comforted, and, stepping to his lodgings in Bedford street, returned with a bank-note for that sum, which he told Thompson he would not expect till he was able to repay it: the other answered, that a month was as long as he wished to retain it; but Quin told him that he could spare it for three, or even six months, and took his leave. Six months elapsed, and no apology made for non-payment of the money. Quin, in a civil letter, reminded Thompson of the terms on which it was lent, but receiving no answer to that and others that he wrote, he was obliged to send him one by his attorney, which produced a noti­fication from the duke of Newcastle's office, that the name of Dr. Thompson was there entered as of a per­son privileged from arrests, and that it would be at Mr. Quin's peril if he proceeded to violate that pro­tection which he claimed, and the law granted him. Being thus prohibited from the restraint of his person, Quin was obliged to wait the re-payment of his money, [Page 339] which, at the expiration of some months, he received, but without the least acknowledgment of his kindness in lending it.

This was a man whom Whitehead, in the simplicity of his heart, held in such estimation, that I have seen him, for hours together, listening, with his lips unclos­ed, to the torrents of nonsense he was pouring forth: he addressed an epistle to him, wherein he celebrates his medical abilities and moral qualities, and makes the number of persons daily restored by him to health, equal to those who were sent to their long­homes by Wilmot and the other eminent physicians his rivals and contemporaries.

Notwithstanding the advantages with which he set out, and the extravagant encomiums of Fielding and others, of him and his practice, Thompson sunk into contempt and obscurity. Like Paracelsus, he per­formed a few cures, that neither himself nor any others were ever able to account for; and in a case of surgery he was once known, by dint of mere ob­stinacy, to have saved a limb. A son of a friend of mine, an officer, being in the service in Ger­many, and at the head of a skirmishing-party on horseback, received a wound with a sabre that sepa­rated the tendons and ligaments which connect the foot with the leg: at a consultation on his case of two of the most eminent surgeons, Thompson, as being the family physician, was called to assist, who, in opposition to their opinion that an amputation was inevitable, swore that his friend should not undergo it: the operation was deferred, and by the help of the Mal­vern waters, the patient recovered such an use of the whole limb as enabled him to walk with scarce any variation of his accustomed gait.

[Page 340] Had Johnson accepted of Mr. Dodington's invita­tion, it cannot be supposed that he would have been much pleased with the company of these and such other persons as it was likely to introduce him to. His declining it seems, therefore, an act of great prudence, and indeed he was exempted from the necessity of seeking connections; for many persons were of Dod­ington's mind, and were desirous of adding him to the number of their friends. Invitations to dine with such of those as he liked, he so seldom declined, that, to a friend of his, he said, ‘'I never but once, upon a resolution to employ myself in study, balked an in­vitation out to dinner, and then I stayed at home and did nothing.'’ Little, however, did that laxity of temper, which this confession seems to imply, retard the progress of the great work in which he was em­ployed: the conclusion, and also the perfection of his dictionary, were objects from which his attention was not to be diverted: the avocations he gave way to were such only as, when complied with, served to invigorate his mind to the performance of his engage­ments to his employers and the public, and hasten the approach of the day that was to reward his labour with applause.

That day it was his happiness to see; for, by the end of the year 1754, he had completed his copy, not more to his own ease and satisfaction, than to the joy of Millar the bookseller, the principal proprietor of the work, and the guardian or treasurer of the fund out of which the payments were from time to time issued. To say the truth, his joy on the occasion was so great, that he could not refrain from expressing it somewhat intemperately, as appears by the following [Page 341] acknowledgment of the receipt of the last sheet of the manuscript:

‘'Andrew Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel Johnson, with the money for the last sheet of copy of the Dictionary, and thanks God he has done with him.'’

To which Johnson returned this good-humoured and brief answer:

‘'Samuel Johnson returns his compliments to Mr. Andrew Millar, and is very glad to find, as he does by his note, that Andrew Millar has the grace to thank God for any thing.'’

The publication of this great work soon followed, as may be imagined, the interchange of these two very laconic epistles; and the month of May 1755, put the world in possession of a treasure, the va­lue whereof it will require the experience of years to find out. To recommend it to the notice of foreigners, he was desirous it should appear to come from one who had attained academical honours: he therefore applied, by his friend Mr. Thomas Warton, to the university of Oxford for a master's degree, and obtained it by a diploma, dated the tenth day of February 1755, the tenour whereof is, that the most learned Samuel Johnson, of Pembroke college, hav­ing distinguished himself in the literary world by his writings, tending to form the popular manners; and having, for the adorning and settling his native lan­guage, compiled, and being about to publish an English dictionary, the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the said University, in solemn convocation assembled, do therefore constitute and appoint the said Samuel [Page 342] Johnson, Master of Arts, and command, that he enjoy and exercise all the rights, privileges, and honours to that degree appertaining.

Upon the receipt of this instrument, Johnson testi­fied his gratitude for the honour done him, in a letter to the vice-chancellor, which, as a specimen of a fine Latin style, I here insert:

So near perfection had the author brought his dictionary, that, upon a review of it previous to his drawing up the preface, he declares, he is unable to detect the casual omission of more than one article, [Page 343] the appellative OCEAN. Nor has he, as I know, been charged with any other defect, or with any misinterpretation of a word, save in an instance or two, where, being moved by party-prejudice, he has imposed significations on a few words that are in­defensible. Let these be imputed to a mind agoniz­ed, at various periods during the prosecution of this laborious work, with indigence, with sorrow, and pain; and let the piteous description of his circumstances and feelings, which the preface contains, induce us to bury our resentment of a few petulant expressions, in the reflection, that this stupendous compilation was undertaken and completed by the care and industry of a single person.

Upon occasion of publishing the dictionary, Mr. Garrick celebrated the author in the following lines:

It has already been mentioned, that Johnson's in­ducement to this undertaking was the offer of a libe­ral reward. The term liberal is indefinite, and, after the lapse of twenty years, during which such sums as from three to eight thousand pounds have been paid for copies, would hardly be allowed to fifteen hun­dred and seventy-five ^†, which was the sum stipulated for the dictionary. Of this, Johnson, who was no very accurate accountant, thought a great part would be coming to him on the conclusion of the work; but upon producing, at a tavern-meeting for the pur­pose of settling, receipts for sums advanced to him, which were indeed the chief means of his subsistence, it was found, not only that he had eaten his cake, but that the balance of the account was greatly against him. His debtors were now become his creditors; but they, in a perfect consistency with that liberal spirit, which, in sundry instances, the great book­sellers are known to have exercised towards authors, remitted the difference, and consoled him for his dis­appointment by making his entertainment at the tavern a treat ^§.

[Page 345] The pointing out the utility of such a work as a vernacular lexicon is needless, and the displaying the merits of that of which I am speaking, is a labour which the suffrage of the public has saved me. The learned world had long wished for its appearance, and the circulation of the book was proportionate to the impatience which the promise of it had ex­cited. Lord Corke, being at Florence at the time when it was published, presented it, in the author's name, to the academy della Crusca, and that learned body transmitted to him a fine copy of their Vocabu­lario. The French academy also signified their ap­probation of his labours, by a present of their Diction­naire, of which Mr. Langton was the bearer. To these testimonies of public respect, it is a small but Judi­crous addition to say, that Dr. Robertson, the Scots historian, told Johnson, that he had fairly perused his dictionary twice over, and that Johnson was pleased at the hearing it. The dictionary was a library-book, and not adapted to common use: the booksellers knowing this, and being encouraged by its success, easily prevailed on the author to abridge it in two octavo volumes, and made him a liberal recompence.

It was doubtless a great satisfaction to Johnson to have completed this great work; and though we may [Page 346] believe him in the declaration at the end of the pre­face thereto, that he dismissed it with frigid tranquility, we cannot but suppose that he was pleased with the reception it met with. One and only one writer, ex­cited by that envy and malice which had been long rankling in his breast, attempted to disturb the quiet which possessed him, by animadverting on this and other of his writings: this was a Dr. Kenrick, the author of many scurrilous publications now deservedly forgotten, who, in a small volume intitled ‘'Lexipha­nes,'’ endeavoured to turn many passages in the Rambler, and interpretations in the dictionary, into ridicule; gratifying his spleen also with a number of malevolent censures of Dr. Akenside's ‘'Pleasures of Imagination.'’ It was the purpose of this libel to provoke both or one of the persons who were the subjects of it, to a controversy, from which, whatever should be the event, he hoped, as it is said Ulysses did in his contest with Ajax, to derive honour.

But in this he was disappointed. Akenside was too proud to dispute with an inferior, and Johnson's silence proceeded not more from his contempt of such an adversary, than from a settled resolution he had formed, of declining all controversy in defence either of himself or his writings. Against personal [Page 347] abuse he was ever armed, by a reflection, that I have heard him utter: ‘'Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it;'—’and he defied all attacks on his writings, by an answer of Dr. Bentley to one who threatened to write him down,—that ‘'no author was ever written down but by himself.'’

His steady perseverance in this resolution afforded him great satisfaction whenever he reflected on it; and he would often selicitate himself, that, throughout his life, he had had firmness enough to treat with con­tempt the calumny and abuse as well of open as concealed enemies, and the malevolence of those ano­nymous scriblers, whose trade is slander, and wages infamy.

Had Pope pursued the same conduct, and forborne his revenge on Theobald, Cibber, and others who had provoked him, he had enjoyed his muse and that philosophical tranquility which he did but affect, and lived and died with dignity. The younger Richardson once told me, that, upon the publication of Cibber's second letter, he came to his father's house in Lincoln's-inn fields, and, upon en­tering the room where he was painting, with a coun­tenance that spoke the anguish of his soul, exclaimed, ‘'So, I find another letter is come out:' but, continued he, 'such things are sport to me:'’ in which assertion we may suppose him to be as sincere as that poet of whom a story goes, that, talking with a friend, of the critics, he said, he had a way of dealing with them; for, whenever they condemned his verses, he laughed at it. ‘'Do you so?' says his friend, 'then, let me tell [Page 348] you, you live the merriest life of any man in Eng­land.'’

That Bentley's observation is founded in truth and a knowledge of mankind, is proved by the rank which Sir Richard Blackmore now holds among the English poets. At the time when he lived, the wits were in confederacy against him; and so many are the lampoons, epigrams, and other satirical compositions extant, tending to blast his reputation as a poet ^*, that the reader of them would incline to think, that in all his works there is scarce a good line or senti­ment. All this, as Johnson relates, Blackmore fore­saw, and, with a dignity of mind that merits praise, despised: the consequence is, that his poem, intitled ‘'Creation,'’ is not written down, but yet lives in the es­teem of every judicious reader, and in that most elegant encomium, which Mr. Addison has bestowed on it in the Spectator ^†; and Dennis, one of the severest of critics, has given it greater praise than he ever vouch­safed to any modern composition, saying, that it is ‘'a philosophical poem, which has equalled that of Lu­cretius in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed it in the solidity and strength of its rea­soning.'’

To be insensible of, and undisturbed by, the envy and malice of others, is one of the strongest proofs of a great mind, and, as it is the most justifiable, so is it the severest revenge we can take; for what sight can be more ridiculous, than that of a crea­ture [Page 349] venting its rage on a subject that cannot feel? To live in the dread of slander, and to regu­late our conduct by the opinions, the whispers, the surmises, or threats of either foolish or wicked men, is the worst of all slavery: of him who cannot defy every attempt of this kind to disturb his peace, but must be whining and complaining of that enmity which, perhaps, does him honour, and scribbling to refute those calumnies which no one will believe, it may be said, as we say of a man labouring under a mortal disease: ‘'He is no man for this world.'’ If he chooses a contrary course to that above-re­commended, he does the work of those that hate him, and will be sure to feel the pangs of resentment, and forego the enjoyment of a tranquil mind, and a conscience void of offence, so feelingly described in this sentence of lord Bacon: ‘'Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in Charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of Truth.'’

If Johnson could ever be said to be idle, now was the time. He had, for nine years, been employed in his great work, and had finished it: he had closed the Rambler; and the Adventurer was closed on him. He had it now in his choice to reassume some one or other of those various literary projects, which he had formed in the early part of his life, and are enumerated in a foregoing page of these memoirs; but the powers of his mind, distended by long and severe exercise, became relaxed, and required rest to bring them to their tone, and it was some time be­fore he could resolve on any employment, suited to his abilities, that carried with it any prospect of pleasure, [Page 350] or hope of reward. This remission of his labour, which seemed to be no more than nature herself called for, Johnson, in those severe audits to which it was his practice to summon himself, would fre­quently condemn, styling it a waste of his time, and a misapplication of the talents with which he was gratefully conscious that God had endowed him. Yet herein was he greatly mistaken; for though Milton says of the servants of God,

he adds, that

Johnson's intellectual faculties could never be un­employed: when he was not writing he was thinking, and his thoughts had ever a tendency to the good of mankind; and that indolence, which, in his hours of contrition, he censured as criminal, needed little ex­piation.

This recess from literary occupation continued, however, no longer than was absolutely necessary. It has already been shewn, that he was not only a friend to such vehicles of literary intelli­gence as Magazines and other epitomes of large works, but that he was a frequent contributor to them. He had occasionally, for Cave's Magazine, written the lives of Father Paul Sarpi, Boerhaave, the admirals Drake and Blake, Barretier, and divers other eminent persons; and also, sundry philological [Page 351] essays, particularly a state of the controversy between Crousaz and Warburton respecting the ‘'Essay on Man,'’ and a vision intitled ‘'the Apotheosis of Milton.'’ Cave being now dead, he ceased to furnish articles for that publication, and either voluntarily offered, or suffered himself to be retained as a writer in others of a like kind: accordingly, in 1756, he wrote for ‘'the Uni­versal Visitor, or Monthly Memorialist,'’ printed for Gardner ^*, two of three letters therein inserted, on the subject of agriculture; and in the same and subsequent year, he assumed or submitted to the office of a re­viewer, as it is called, for the publisher of a monthly collection, intitled, ‘'The Literary Magazine,'’ of which one Faden, a printer, was the editor. In this he wrote the address to the public; also, reviews of the following books, viz. Soame Jenyns's free enquiry into the nature and origin of evil; Dr. Blackwell's Memoirs of the court of Augustus; he wrote also therein, Observations on the state of affairs in 1756, and the Life of the present king of Prussia; and, Han­way's journal coming in his way, which contained in it a severe censure of the practice of tea-drinking, he officially, as I may say, and with a degree of alacrity proportioned to his avowed love of that liquor, under­took to criticise the book, and refute the arguments of the author.

To render this controversy intelligible, it is necessary I should state the grounds on which it proceeded.—Mr. Jonas Hanway had, in the year 1755, undertaken and [Page 352] performed a journey from Portsmouth to Kingston upon Thames, through Southampton, Wiltshire, &c. which, though completed in the space of eight days, and attended with no extraordinary circumstances, was, it seems, in his judgment, worthy of being recorded, and, by means of the press, transmitted to posterity; and accordingly he gave a relation of it to the public, in two octavo volumes. It may be needless to say, that this work abounds with miscellaneous thoughts, moral and religious, and also political reflec­tions; for of which of all his numerous productions cannot the same be said? Connected with it is ‘'An Essay on Tea, considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry, and impoverishing the nation, with an account of its growth, and great consump­tion in these kingdoms ^*.'’.

[Page 353] As I do not mean to follow this author in the course of an argument conducted in no method, in­terrupted by a redundancy of foreign matter, and which violates every rule in logic, I shall content myself with remarking, that though every one of his three assertions may be true, he has succeeded in the proof of no one of them. That tea is a luxury, and not a fit aliment for the poor, is implied in a sarcasm of Swift to this purpose, that the world must be en­compassed, that is to say, by a voyage to the East Indies for tea, and another to the West for sugar, [Page 354] before a washerwoman can sit down to breakfast. That it is pernicious to health is disputed by phy­sicians: Quincy commends it, as an elegant and wholesome beverage; Cheyne condemns it, as preju­dicial to the nervous system. Bishop Burnet, for many years, drank sixteen large cups of it every morning, and never complained that it did him the least injury. The two last objections, that tea is an obstruction to industry, and that it impoverishes the nation, are poli­tical questions which I am not able to decide upon.

Epictetus somewhere advises us to consider the gratification of the calls of hunger and thirst, as acts of necessity; to be performed as it were by the bye, but by no means to be estimated among the enjoy­ments of life; and by a precept no less than divine, we are exhorted to take no thought what we shall eat or what we shall drink. Johnson looked upon the former as a very serious business, and enjoyed the pleasures of a splendid table equally with most men. It was, at no time of his life, pleasing to see him at a meal; the greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence in the hour of refection, were circumstances that at the instant degraded him, and shewed him to be more a sensualist than a philosopher. Moreover, he was a lover of tea to an excess hardly credible; whenever it appeared, he was almost raving, and by his impatience to be served, his incessant calls for those ingredients which make that liquor palatable, and the haste with which he swallowed it down, he seldom failed to make that a fatigue to every one else, which was intended as a general refreshment. Such [Page 355] signs of effeminacy as these, suited but ill with the appearance of a man, who, for his bodily strength and stature, has been compared to Polyphemus.

This foible in Johnson's character being known, it will excite no wonder in the reader to be told, that he readily embraced the opportunity of defend­ing his own practice, by an examen of Hanway's book. Accordingly, he began his remarks on it in the Literary Magazine, Number VII ^*, but receiving from this author an injunction to forbear proceeding in his censure till a second edition should appear, he submitted, though it was a prohibition that could neither be reasonably imposed, nor by any means inforced; yet, such was its effect, that Mr. Hanway's journal was not remarked on, till he had been allowed every advantage that could protect it from censure.

Such candour on the part of him, on whose opinion perhaps many were waiting to form theirs, might have relieved the author from any dread of unfair treat­ment; but Johnson, who paid all proper deference to good intentions, did not think this tacit indication of the temper in which he sat down to review Mr. Han­way's journal, sufficient: he, therefore, in resuming the dispute, promises him, that he shall find no ma­lignity of censure, and draws a very handsome infer­ence from the contents of his thirty-two letters, that he is a man whose failings may well be pardoned for his virtues.

The criticism on this second edition appeared in the Literary Magazine, Number XIII ^†, and extends [Page 356] chiefly to Mr. Hanway's arguments against tea and gin: subjects which seem to have inspired him with such enthusiastic eloquence as disdained all the rules of logic, and dictated observations and conclusions, so incoherent and incongruous, as would have stimu­lated even those, who, in the main, thought with him, to an endeavour at correcting his judgment.

But, in Johnson, when writing on the qualities of tea, he met with an opponent on principle; for its antagonist's hatred, however radical or zealous, could not exceed the love its champion bore it: he describes himself as ‘'a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for many years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who, with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the mid­nights, and with tea welcomes the morning.'’

That Mr. Hanway was right in asserting, that the practice of drinking tea is productive of harm among the lower classes of people, must certainly be admitted; and that Johnson was right in denying that it has all the poisonous qualities the Journal attributes to it, experience shews. From what has been said on both sides, little can be inferred, but that to some it is noxious, and to others neutral; that those do wrong who persist in the use of it when they find it injurious to their health, and that such as cannot afford the necessaries of life, ought not to in­dulge in its luxuries.

At Johnson's candid examen, which should not have offended Mr. Hanway, as, by submitting his work to public inspection, he recognized the right of public criticism, the latter was extremely irritated, and [Page 357] very unadvisedly drew his reviewer forth to a second exertion of his argumentative powers, printed in the same Magazine, vol. ii. 253, under the title of ‘'A reply to a paper in the Gazetteer of May 26, 1757,'’ in which, with seeming contrition and mock penitence he requests to know how he has offended, and depre­cates the wrath he had excited.—

His justification of what he said of the author, he concludes thus:— ‘'As the journalist, though en­thusiastically zealous for his country, has, with regard to smaller things, the placid happiness of philoso­phical indifference, I can give him no disturbance by advising him to restrain even the love of his country within due limits, lest it should sometimes [Page 358] swell too high, fill the whole capacity of his soul, and leave less room for the love of truth.'’

Unluckily for Mr. Hanway it happened, that while he was labouring for the general good, by reprobating the practice of drinking tea, an institution from which he derived much of his importance, was suffering from want of care. Johnson, in a visit to the Foundling hospital, observed, that the objects of the charity, however well provided for in other respects, were, in the essential point of religious knowledge, lamentably deficient. To him, who considered wisely that there was no evil from which the governors of the Foundling hospital could rescue deserted infants, so much to be dreaded as ignorance of this kind, the answers given to his enquiries touching their im­provement were very unsatisfactory. Without knowing that Mr. Hanway was concerned in the charge, he, in his former letter had stated this fact, and followed it by saying, that ‘'to breed up children in this manner, is to rescue them from an early grave, that they may find employment for the gibbet, from dying in in­nocence, that they may perish by their crimes.'’

The laudable motive which induced Johnson to point out this neglect, and the justice of his remark, did not shield him from unmerited resentment. He was called on to support what he had advanced: his asser­tion was branded with the epithet of incredible, but his observation had produced its effect: he had found means to have it represented to one of the highest names of the society, and a catechist was soon after appointed.

On a review of the eloquence he had been forced to encounter, he says of his adversary,—

Whoever peruses this controversy, will be forced to confess that, on the part of Johnson, it is conducted, not only with candour, but with great good humour, a circumstance to be remarked in all his polemical writings, and to be wondered at, seeing that in oral disputation his behaviour was so different, as to ex­pose him to the severest censures. His exertions against his adversary were play, not hostility;

[Page 360] By the virtues of Mr. Hanway, which Johnson is so ready to acknowledge, we are to understand, that active and unwearied benevolence, which, for a series of years, he has been exercising for the benefit of society, and by his failings, or rather failing, for I know of but one he has, a propensity to writing and publishing books, which, for the triteness and inanity of the sentiments contained in them, no one can read.

About the year 1756, time had produced a change in the situation of many of Johnson's friends, who were used to meet him in lvy lane. Death had ta­ken from us M ^cGhie; Barker went to settle as a practising physician at Trowbridge; Dyer went abroad; Hawkesworth was busied in forming new connections; and I had lately made one that re­moved from me all temptations to pass my even­ings from home. The consequence was, that our symposium at the King's head broke up, and he who had first formed us into a society was left with sewer around him than were able to support it.

All this while, the booksellers, who by his own confession were his best friends, had their eyes upon Johnson, and reflected with some concern on what seemed to them a misapplication of his talents. The furnishing magazines, reviews, and even news­papers, with literary intelligence, and the authors of books, who could not write them for themselves, with dedications and prefaces, they looked on as employ­ments beneath him, who had attained to such emi­nence as a writer; they, therefore, in the year 1756, found out for him such a one as seemed to afford a prospect both of amusement and profit: this was an edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works, [Page 361] which, by a concurrence of circumstances, was now become necessary, to answer the increasing demand of the public for the writings of that author.

Mr. Garrick, who, as every one knows, was in all that related to Shakespeare an enthusiast, had, by the study of his principal characters, and his own exqui­site action, so recommended Shakespeare to the town, that the admiration of him became general even to affectation; many professing to be delighted with the performance and perusal of his plays, who, from their want of literature, and their ignorance of the phraseology of the age in which they were written, could not be supposed capable of construing them. Others there were, in whom a literary curiosity had been excited, by the publication of such editions of this author as tended to settle his text, and by a description of ancient manners and customs of living, to render him intelligible. The first essay of this kind, worth noting, was the edition of Theobald, the defects where­of, in the single opinion of Warburton, were so many and great, as to render that necessary which bears his name.

The two classes of readers, here discriminated, amounted to such a number as encouraged the booksellers to an edition on the plan of the two former, and Johnson was the person, whom, of all others, they thought the fittest to undertake it: the terms settled between them were, that Johnson should receive for his own use the profits arising from a subscription to the first impression, and that the copy-right should remain with the then possessors. The first notification of this design was, a proposal [Page 362] drawn up by Johnson, setting forth the incorrect­ness of the early editions, the original obscurity and subsequent corruptions of the text, the necessity of notes, and the failures of former editors.

A stranger to Johnson's character and temper would have thought, that the study of an author, whose skill in the science of human life was so deep, and whose perfections were so many and various as to be above the reach of all praise, must have been the most pleasing employment that his imagination could suggest, but it was not so: in a visit that he one morning made to me, I congratulated him on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius, and that, requiring none of that severe application which his dictionary had condemned him to, I doubted not would be exe­cuted con amore.—His answer was, ‘'I look upon this as I did upon the dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.'—’And the event was evidence to me, that in this speech he declared his genuine sentiments; for neither in the first place did he set himself to collect early editions of his author, old plays, translations of histories, and of the classics, and other materials necessary for his purpose, nor could he be prevailed on to enter into that course of reading, without which it seemed impossible to come at the sense of his author. It was provoking to all his friends to see him waste his days, his weeks, and his months so long, that they feared a mental lethargy had seized him, out of which he would never recover. In this, however, they were happily deceived, for, after [Page 363] two years inactivity, they find him roused to action, and engaged—not in the prosecution of the work, for the completion whereof he stood doubly bound, but in a new one, the furnishing a series of periodical essays, intitled, and it may be thought not improperly, ‘'The Idler,'’ as his motive to the employment was aversion to a labour he had undertaken, though in the execution, it must be owned, it merited a better name.

As Johnson was diverted from his work of Shake­speare, so am I from my purpose of tracing the progress of it, being to relate the occurrences of nine years of his life before I can congratulate the reader on its appearance.

The engagement for the Idler was with Newbery the bookseller, a man of a projecting head, a good understanding, and great integrity; and who, by a fortunate connection with Dr. James the physician, and the honest exertions of his own industry, be­came the founder of a family. Taking advantage of that rage for intelligence, which the successes of the war had excited, in even the lowest order of the people, he planned a weekly paper, which he called ‘'The Universal Chronicle,'’ and, as the size of it ren­dered it susceptible of more matter than the occur­rences, during the intervals of its publication, would supply, it was part of his scheme, that it should con­tain an essay or short discourse on such subjects of morality, or of wit and humour, as, in former instances, had been sound to engage the attention of the public. A share in the profits of this paper was Johnson's in­ducement to the furnishing such a discourse, and, ac­cordingly, it appeared, on Saturday the fifteenth day [Page 364] of April 1758, and continued to be published on the same day in every week for near two years thence fol­lowing.

The profits accruing from the sale of this paper, and the subscriptions which, from the year 1756, he was receiving for the edition of Shakespeare by him pro­posed, were the only known means of his subsistence for a period of near four years, and we may suppose them hardly adequate to his wants, for, upon finding the balance of the account for the dictionary against him, he quitted his house in Gough square, and took chambers in Gray's inn; and Mrs. Williams, upon this removal, fixed herself in lodgings at a boarding-school in the neighbourhood of their for­mer dwelling.

About this time he had, from a friend who highly esteemed him ^*, the offer of a living, of which he might have rendered himself capable by entering into holy orders: it was a rectory, in a pleasant country, and of such a yearly value as might have tempted one in better circumstances than himself to accept it; but he had scruples about the duties of the ministerial function, that he could not, after deliberation, over­come. ‘'I have not,' said he, 'the requisites for the office, and I cannot, in my conscience, shear that flock which I am unable to feed.'—’Upon conversing with him on that inability which was his reason for declining the offer, it was found to be a suspicion of his patience to undergo the fatigue of catechising and instructing a great number of poor ignorant persons, [Page 365] who, in religious matters, had, perhaps, every thing to learn.

Thus scrupulously did he think of the nature of the ministerial office, and thus did he testify the sincerity of those censures, which he would sometimes pass on the conduct of the generality of the clergy of his time; for though, as a body of men, he held them in great veneration, and was ever ready to defend them against the encroachments of some, and the re­proaches of others of the ignorant laity, he exacted from all who had the cure of souls a punctilious dis­charge of their duty, and held in utter detestation those who, renouncing their garb and clerical cha­racter, affected to appear men of the world.

He thought of Dr. Clarke, whose sermons he valued above all other, that he complied too frequently with invitations to dine with persons of high rank, his pa­rishioners, and spent too much of his time in cere­monious visits: differing in this respect from his con­temporary Smalridge, the elegant Favonius of the Tatler, who, in the height of his reputation as a preacher, was ever ready to visit a sick person in the most obscure alley of Westminster.

In the beginning of the year 1759, and while the Idler continued to be published, an event happened, for which it might be imagined he was well prepared, the death of his mother, who had then attained the age of ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock as he would have been had this loss befallen him in his nonage. It is conjectured that, for many years before her decease, she derived almost the whole of her support from this [Page 366] her dutiful son, whose filial piety was ever one of the most distinguishable features in his character ^*. Report says, but rather vaguely, that, to supply her necessities in her last illness, he wrote and made money of his ‘'Rasselas,'’ a tale of his invention, numbered among the best of his writings, and pub­lished in the spring of 1759, a crisis that gives credit to such a supposition. No. 41 of the Idler, though it pretends to be a letter to the author, was written by Johnson himself, on occasion of his mother's death, and may be supposed to describe, as truly as patheti­cally, his sentiments on the separation of friends and relations. The fact, respecting the writing and publishing the story of Rasselas is, that finding the Eastern Tales written by himself in the Rambler, and by Hawkesworth in the Adventurer, had been well received, he had been for some time meditating a fictitious history, of a greater extent than any that had appeared in either of those papers, which might serve as a vehicle to convey to the world his senti­ments of human life and the dispensations of Provi­dence, and having digested his thoughts on the sub­ject, he obeyed the spur of that necessity which now pressed him, and sat down to compose the tale above­mentioned, laying the scene of it in a country that he had before occasion to contemplate, in his translation of Padre Lobo's voyage.

As it was written to raise money, he did not long delay disposing of it; he gave it, as I have been told, to Mr. Baretti, to sell to that bookseller who would [Page 367] give most for it, but the sum he got for it is va­riously reported. As none of his compositions have been more applauded than this, an examen of it in this place may not be improper, and the following may serve till a better shall appear.

Considered as a specimen of our language, it is scarcely to be paralleled: it is written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and dis­plays the whole force of turgid eloquence.

But it was composed at a time when no spring like that in the mind of Rasselas urged his narrator; when the heavy hand of affliction almost bore him down, and the dread of future want haunted him. That he should have produced a tale fraught with lively ima­gery, or that he should have painted human life in gay colours, could not have been expected: he pour­ed out his sorrow in gloomy reflection, and being destitute of comfort himself, described the world as nearly without it.

In a work of such latitude as this, where nothing could be impertinent, he had an opportunity of divulg­ing his opinion on any point that he had thought on: he has therefore formed many conversations on topics that are known to have been subjects of his medita­tion, and has atoned for the paucity of his incidents by such discussions as are seldom attempted by the fabricators of romantic fiction.

Admitting that Johnson speaks in the person of the victor-disputant, we may, while he is unveiling the hearts of others, gain some knowledge of his own. He has in this Abyssinian tale given us what he calls a dissertation on poetry, and in it that which appears to [Page 368] me a recipe for making a poet, from which may be in­ferred what he thought the necessary ingredients, and a reference to the passage will tend to corroborate an observation of Mr. Garrick's, that Johnson's poetical faculty was mechanical, and that what he wrote came not from his heart but from his head. Imlac, the guide of the prince, relates to him the events of his life, which are—That his father was a wealthy merchant, but a man of uncultivated intellects, who left the choice of a profession, with very little biass, to his son. The young man was disgusted with trade, and inclined to general learning; but finding, as he says, that poetry was considered as the highest learning, and regarded with veneration, he determined to be­come a poet. Ambition has seldom effected so stu­pendous a work as that of implanting poetic genius; but Imlac was resolved, and, if we may trust the ac­count of his success, his design was not absurd: his industry was very commendable: he red all the poets of Arabia and Persia, and was able to repeat by me­mory the volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca: he then ranged mountains and desarts for images and resemblances, and pictured on his mind every tree of the forest and flower of the val­ley: an ample collection drawn from rocks, palaces, rivulets, clouds, &c. stored his mind, and with the help of ethics, languages, and sciences, the resolute Imlac, who, till the age of twenty, had lived in igno­rance, was by dint of mere industry transformed into a distinguished poet.

In the course of Imlac's narrative, Johnson ani­madverts on the supposed efficacy of pilgrimages: [Page 369] his argument decides nothing, but is conceived in such language, that none, how well acquainted soever with the book, will blame the insertion of it here.

‘'Pilgrimages, like many other acts of piety, may be reasonable or superstitious, according to the prin­ciples upon which they are performed. Long journeys in search of truth are not commanded. Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought. Change of place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every day to view the fields where great actions have been performed, and return with stronger impressions of the event, curio­sity of the same kind may naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion had its beginning; and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another, is the dream of idle superstition; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner, is an opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine, will, perhaps, find himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without folly: he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and religion.'’

In a following chapter the danger of insanity is the subject of debate; and it cannot but excite the pity [Page 370] of all those who gratefully accept and enjoy Johnson's endeavours to reform and instruct, to reflect that the peril he describes he believed impending over him. That he was conscious of superior talents will surely not be imputed to vanity: how deeply then must he have been depressed by the constant fear that in one moment he might and probably would be, not only deprived of his distinguished endowments, but re­duced to a state little preferable, in as much as respects this world, to that of brutes! He has traced the mi­sery of insanity from its cause to its effect, and seems to ascribe it to indulgence of imagination: he styles it one of the dangers of solitude, and perhaps to this dread and this opinion was his uncommon love of so­ciety to be attributed.

His superstitious ideas of the state of departed souls, and belief in supernatural agency, were produced by a mental disease, as impossible to be shaken off as cor­poral pain. What it has pleased Omnipotence to in­flict, we need never seek to excuse; but he has pro­vided against the cavils of those who cannot compre­hend how a wise can ever appear a weak man, by re­marking, that there is a natural affinity between me­lancholy and superstition.

In characterising this performance, it cannot be said, that it vindicates the ways of God to man. It is a general satire, representing mankind as eagerly pursu­ing what experience should have taught them they can never obtain: it exposes the weaknesses even of their laudable affections and propensities, and it re­solves the mightiest as well as the most trivial of their labours, into folly.

[Page 371] I wish I were not warranted in saying, that this elegant work is rendered, by its most obvious moral, of little be­nefit to the reader. We would not indeed wish to see the rising generation so unprofitably employed as the prince of Abyssinia; but it is equally impolitic to repress all hope, and he who should quit his father's house in search of a profession, and return unprovided, because he could not find any man pleased with his own, would need a better justification than that Johnson, after speculatively surveying various modes of life, had judged happiness unattainable, and choice useless.

But let those, who, reading Rasselas in the spring of life, are captivated by its author's eloquence, and convinced by his perspicacious wisdom that human life and hopes are such as he has depicted them, re­member that he saw through the medium of adver­sity. The concurrent testimony of ages has, it is too true, proved, that there is no such thing as worldly felicity; but it has never been proved, that, there­fore we are miserable. Those who look only here for happiness, have ever been and ever will be disap­pointed: it is not change of place, nor even the un­bounded gratification of their wishes that can relieve them; but if they bend their attention towards the attainment of that felicity we are graciously promised, they will find no such vacuum as distressed Rasselas: the discharge of religious and social duties will afford their faculties the occupation he wanted, and the well­founded expectation of future reward will at once stimulate and support them.

The tale of Rasselas was written to answer a press­ing necessity, and was so concluded as to admit of a [Page 372] continuation; and, in fact, Johnson had meditated a second part, in which he meant to marry his hero, and place him in a state of permanent felicity, but it fared with this resolution as it did with that of Dr. Young, who, in his estimate of human life, promised, as he had given the dark, so in a future publication he would display the bright side of his subject; he never did it, for he had found out that it had no bright side, and Johnson had made much the fame discovery, and that in this state of our existence all our enjoyments are fugacious, and permanent felicity unattainable.

Soon after the publication of Rasselas, and while he continued to write the Idler, Johnson was tempted to engage in a controversy on a subject with which, in the course of his studies, he had acquired but little knowledge, namely, the comparative strength of arches of different forms; the occasion of it was, that after the passing of the act of parliament for building Black-Friars bridge, a variety of designs for it were tendered to the commissioners, who, after due consideration, reduced them to three. In two of these designs, the construction of the arches was se­micircular; in the third, exhibited by Mr. Mylne a Scotsman, it was elliptical.

Whether Johnson thought that the author of this last proposal, as being a native of North Britain, me­rited to be treated as an intruder, or that he was in­duced by better motives to oppose his scheme, can­not be determined: this, at least, is certain, that he took up the resolution before he was qualified to debate the question, for I have it from undoubted [Page 373] authority, that in order thereto, he procured from a person eminently skilled in mathematics and the prin­ciples of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches. These I myself have seen, and the answers determine in fa­vour of the semicircular.

If the former of the considerations above sug­gested, was at any time, or in any degree, Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne, he ought to have re­flected, that at a period when we had no better archi­tects than Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor ^*, James and Kent among us ^†, Campbell and Gibbs ^†, both Scotsmen, had adorned this country with some stately and ele­gant edifices; and if the latter was his inducement, he should have reflected, that his arguments were [Page 374] not his own, and so far as regards symmetry and correspondence of parts, how little he was qualified to judge of symmetry and the correspondence of parts, whose eye was never capable of compre­hending the dome of St. Paul's cathedral, or the towers of Westminster abbey. However, armed as he is above said to have been, with reasons against Mr. Mylne's design, he began an attack on it in a letter to the publisher of the Daily Gazetteer, inserted in that paper for the first day of December 1759, and continued it in the succeeding papers of the eighth and fifteenth of the same month. To one or more of these letters, answers were published, in which it was contended, that at Florence there is a bridge that crosses the river Arno, of an elliptical form, but the argument drawn from thence, Johnson had refuted in his first letter, by observing, that the stability thereof is so much doubted, that carts are not permitted to pass over it, and that it has stood two hundred years without imitation. These, and many other arguments, as also the opinion of that excellent mathematician Mr. Tho­mas Simpson, were not of sufficient weight with the committee for building the bridge, to recommend the semicircular arch, Mr. Mylne's design was preferred, and the arches are elliptical.

I have already remarked, that Johnson was un­skilled in the science of architecture, and I might have added, that he was a stranger to the very rudi­ments of it. He could not else have failed to notice, in the edifice here spoken of, one of the most egre­gious errors that ever disgraced a structure of its kind; columns disproportionate in the ratio between [Page 375] their heights and their diameters. The proportion of a column is taken from that of the human figure, which, at a medium, is in a man sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal. The computa­tion of columns by modules or diameters, comes to much the same, and according to Palladio, gives, to one of the Doric order, the masculine proportion of eight of those measures, and, to one of the Ionic, the feminine of nine.

Proportions, thus adjusted by nature, admit of no deviation; whenever that is attempted, deformity ensues, as is to be seen in the instance before us, where we behold a range of Ionic columns, level, it is true, at their bases, but rising from their due pro­portion at the extremities, in gradation, like the pipes in the front of an organ, to the central arch, where, instead of the proportion of a column, they assume that of a candle ^*.

It will perhaps be said, that the great elevation of the centre-arch required this preposterous elon­gation of the columns. To this it may be answered, that proportion is not to be wrested to bye-purposes, and that where beautiful forms cannot be introduced, they must be given up, and ornament yield place to convenience. It is said, that the idea of columns standing on the piers of a bridge was suggested by a design of Piranesi, extant among his works, but [Page 376] without an assertion that he assumed the licence here reprobated. Should he in any instance be found to have done so, the example of a genius, so wildly magnificent as his, will weigh but little against the practice of Palladio, Scamozzi, Vignola, and, let me add, the earl of Pembroke, the architect of Westmin­ster bridge, who, in all such emergencies as that insisted on, evaded the necessity of violating the rules of their art, by rejecting incongruous decora­tions, and trusted to the applause they should ac­quire by uniting levity and convenience with sta­bility.

There are, it must be acknowledged, persons who are as blind to symmetry and the beauty of forms, as others are deaf to the harmony of according sounds, who deny that there are any criteria by which we can discriminate beauty from deformity in one subject, and consonance from dissonance in the other, and who assert that taste is capricious and has no standard, and that fancy is its own arbiter. Let such enjoy their ignorance, while we are engaged in an investiga­tion of the principles into which the pleasures of the eye and ear are resolvable. The result of such an enquiry will be a thorough conviction, that all of what we understand by the terms symmetry and har­mony has its foundation in mathematical ratios and proportions, that exist in all the modifications of mat­ter, and are but emanations of that power, which has ordered all things in number, weight and measure ^*.

[Page 377] I forbear to remark the lesser errors in the con­struction of this edifice, such as the unwarrantable mutilation of the key-stones over the arches, and the injudicious position of the entablature of the balustrade: those I have pointed out may serve to shew, that the great encouragements given of late to the arts of design, have hitherto failed to call forth a genius in any degree comparable to those of former ages, Jones and Sir Christopher Wren; and that the citizens of London, in the meridian of its glory having, with a view to eternize the memory of a favourite minister, erected an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for, and called it by his name ^*, have thereby perpetuated their own dis­grace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.

Neither the writing of his Rasselas, nor the event of his mother's death, nor the bridge-controversy, stopped the hand of Johnson, nor interrupted the publication of the Idler; but the sale of the Universal Chronicle, the vehicle that contained it, was in some degree obstructed by the practices of those literary depredators, who subsist by the labours of others, and whose conduct, with respect to the Idler, the following paper, evidently drawn up by Johnson, will explain.

‘'London, January 5, 1759. Advertisement. The proprietors of the paper, entitled ‘'The Idler,'’ hav­ing found that those essays are inserted in the news­papers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it [Page 378] necessary to declare to the publishers of those col­lections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of ho­nourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by pu­nisshment than by crimes; we shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet ap­pears neither penitence nor shame.'’

[Page 379] He continued this paper to the extent of one hun­dred and three numbers, and on Saturday the fifth day of April 1760, closed it with an essay, containing a solemn and very affecting contemplation on the words this is the last, in various significations. The concluding paragraph seems to have been written under the pressure of that melancholy, which, almost incessantly afflicted him, heightened, perhaps, by the approach of a season of the year, to Christians the most solemn. The reflections, contained in it, are very se­rious, and so elegantly expressed, that in the hope that the perusal of it will not prove contagious to the rea­der, I here give it at length.

‘'As the last Idler is published in that solemn week which the Christian world has always set apart for the examination of the conscience, the review of life, the extinction of earthly desires, and the reno­vation of holy purposes, I hope that my readers are already disposed to view every incident with serious­ness, and improve it by meditation; and that when they see this series of trifles brought to a conclusion, they will consider that, by outliving the Idler, they have passed weeks, months, and years, which are now no longer in their power; that an end must in time be put to every thing great as to every thing little; that to life must come its last hour, and to this system of being, its last day; the hour at which probation ceases, and repentance will be vain, the day in which every work of the hand, and imagina­tion of the heart, shall be brought to judgment, and an everlasting futurity shall be determined by the past.'’

[Page 380] The Idler, taken as the title of a series of moral and oeconomical essays, is a designation that imports little; or, rather, its most obvious meaning is a bad one. Johnson was at a loss for a fitter, but he could hit on no one that had not been pre-occupied. He chose an irony, and meant that his readers should under­stand by it just the reverse of what it signified; and, in this his intention, he was in little danger of being mistaken, or being charged with idleness by any of those whom he was labouring, by all the powers of reason and eloquence, to make wiser and better.

The plan and conduct of the Idler resembles so nearly that of the Rambler and the Adventurer, that what has been said of each of those publications, might serve for a character of this, saving, that in this latter, admission is given to a greater num­ber of papers, calculated to entertain the mind with pleasing fictions, humorous characters, and va­ried representations of familiar life, than is to be found in either of the two former, the general effect whereof is, delight, too soon interrupted by their shortness. The second number of the Idler con­tains an invitation to correspondents, and it had the assistance of other hands; but I know but of three papers that can with certainty be said to have been written by any other than Johnson himself; one of the three is No. 67, by Mr. Langton; the other two, No. 76 and 79, are on the subject of painting, and, in an evening-hour when his pencil was at rest, were composed by Sir Joshua Reynolds. And here let me take notice, that in the publication of the Idler, at least when it was collected into volumes, Johnson and [Page 381] Newbery were joint-adventurers, and that they di­vided equally the profits arising from the sale thereof.

Of these essays, as also the Rambler, and those in the Adventurer which Johnson wrote, little remains to be remarked, except that, notwithstanding the depth of thinking which they display, and the nervous and elegant style in which they are penned, they were extemporaneous compositions, and hardly ever under­went a revision ^* before they were sent to the press. The original manuscripts of the Rambler have passed through my hands, and by the perusal of them I am warranted to say, as was said of Shakespeare by the players of his time, that he never blotted out a line; and I believe without the risque of that retort which Ben Jonson made to them, ‘'Would he had blotted out a thousand.'’

Another circumstance, worthy of notice, is, that in the portraits of singular characters, that occur in the papers written by Johnson, the painting is so strong and lively, that some persons, then living, looking on them as resemblances of themselves, actually [Page 382] charged him with an intention to render them ridicu­lous, and were hardly appeased by his assurances that he copied no particular subject, but drew from arche­types which his observation had furnished, and his imagination had improved.

Johnson was now become so well known, and had by the Rambler, and other of his writings, given such evidences, not only of great abilities, and of his skill in human life and manners, but of a sociable and be­nevolent disposition, that many became desirous of his acquaintance, and to this they were farther tempted by the character he had acquired of delighting in conversation, and being free and communicative in his discourse. He had removed, about the beginning of the year 1760, to chambers two doors down the Inner-Temple lane; and I have been told by his neighbour at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more enquiries were made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put toge­ther of both the Inner and Middle Temple. This circumstance in his life leads me to mention, that Richardson possessed, but in a less degree, the like powers of attraction, but they operated chiefly on young females, who, being desirous of instruction in the duties of life, were permitted by their parents and friends to visit and receive from him such lessons of prudence as he was ever ready and well qualified to give them; and it is well known, that many ingenious young women, who resorted to his house as to an aca­demy for tuition, became so improved by his conver­sation and his extemporary commentaries on his own writings, as afterwards to make a considerable figure [Page 383] in the literary world ^*. And here let me observe, that the benefits of oral instruction, joined with the perusal of such authors as we now put into female hands, may be estimated by the degree of mental im­provement at which the sex is at this day arrived, which, as Johnson once remarked to me on receiving a lady's letter, is so great, that in that kind of compo­sition, we who were their teachers, may learn of them.

From this propensity to discursive communica­tion, in which Johnson and Richardson resembled each other, nothing more is to be understood, than that both took pleasure in that interchange of senti­ments and opinions, which renders conversation in­structive and delightful, for, in other respects, they were men of very different endowments and tempers. Richardson being bred to a mechanic occupation, had no learning, nor more reading than was sufficient to enable him to form a style easy and intelligible, and a little raised above that of vulgar narrative. His sen­timents were his own, and of this he was so sensible, and also of the originality and importance of many of them, that he would ever be talking of his writings, and the words sentiment and sentimentality became, not only a part of the cant of his school, but were adopted by succeeding writers, and have been used to recom­mend to some readers sentimental journies, sentimen­tal letters, sentimental sermons, and a world of trash, [Page 384] which, but for this silly epithet, would never have at­tracted notice.

Richardson's conversation was of the preceptive kind, but it wanted the diversity of Johnson's, and had no intermixture of wit or humour. Richardson could never relate a pleasant story, and hardly relish one told by another: he was ever thinking of his own writings, and listening to the praises which, with an emulous profusion, his friends were incessantly bestow­ing on them, he would scarce enter into free con­versation with any one that he thought had not red ‘'Clarissa,'’ or ‘'Sir Charles Grandison,'’ and at best, he could not be said to be a companionable man ^*.

Those who were unacquainted with Richardson, and had red his books, were led to believe, that they ex­hibited a picture of his own mind, and that his temper and domestic behaviour could not but correspond with that refined morality which they inculcate, but in this they were deceived. He was austere in the govern­ment of his family, and issued his orders to some of his servants in writing only. His nearest female rela­tions, in the presence of strangers, were mutes, and [Page 385] seemed to me, in a visit I once made him, to have been disciplined in the school of Ben Jonson's Mo­rose, whose injunction to his servant was, ‘'Answer me not but with your leg.'’ In short, they appeared to have been taught to converse with him by signs; and it was too plain to me, that on his part, the most frequent of them were frowns and gesticulations, im­porting that they should leave his presence. I have heard it said, that he was what is called a nervous man; and how far nervosity, with so good an under­standing as he is allowed to have possessed, will excuse a conduct so opposite to that philanthropy which he laboured to inculcate, I cannot say: his benevolence might have taken another direction, and in other in­stances be very strong; for I was once a witness to his putting into the hand of Mr. Whiston the book­seller, ten guineas for the relief of one whom a sudden accident had made a widow.

Johnson's mind was never occupied on trifles: his speculations were grand and noble, his reading various and extensive, and, on some subjects, profound. As he professed always to speak in the best and most correct phrase, rejecting all such common and vulgar com­binations of speech as are in use only till others equally affected and insignificant are invented, his conver­sation-style bore a great resemblance to that of his writings, so that, in his common discourse, he might seem to incur the censure which bishop Burnet casts on the lord chancellor Nottingham, of being too elo­quent; but so far were his hearers from thinking so, that many wished for the power of retaining as well the colloquial form as the substance of his conversa­tions; [Page 386] and some there were, who to that end, in imi­tation of the Colloquia Mensalia of Luther, and the Table-talk of Selden, not to say of the books in ana ^*, as they are called, made common-places of his sayings, his precepts, and his apophthegms; but the want of judgment in the selection of them, has rendered most of the collections of this kind, that I have ever seen, of little worth.

Gesticular mimicry and buffoonery he hated, and would often huff Garrick for exercising it in his pre­sence; but of the talent of humour he had an almost enviable portion. To describe the nature of this facul­ty, as he was wont to display it in his hours of mirth and relaxation, I must say, that it was ever of that arch and dry kind, which lies concealed under the appearance of gravity, and which acquiesces in an error for the purpose of refuting it. Thus, in the Rambler, No. 1, he tells his readers, very gravely, that it is one among many reasons for which he pur­poses to entertain his countrymen, that he hopes not much to tire those whom he shall not happen to please, and if he is not commended for the beauty of his works, to be at least pardoned for their brevity. ‘'But whether,' adds he, 'my expectations are most fixed on pardon or praise, I think it not necessary to discover.'—’And in the Idler, No. 3, he suggests consolation against the dread of an imaginary evil founded on false philosophy, by admitting, that [Page 387] though certain, it is remote. The passage would be injured by contraction, and I therefore give it at length.

A friend of his used often to visit him, who, though a man of learning and great good sense, had a style of conversing so peculiarly eloquent and verbose, as to be sometimes unintelligible: Johnson had a mind one day to give me a specimen of it, and assuming his manner, he, in a connected speech on a familiar subject, uttered a succession of sentences, in language resembling the style of metaphysics, but, though fluent, so obscured by parentheses and other involu­tions, [Page 388] that I was unable to collect from it a single idea. After he had for five minutes continued this gibberish, he said, ‘'This is the manner in which * * * * entertains me whenever he comes here.'’

In the same vein of humour he once ridiculed Her­vey's Meditations on a Flower-garden and other sub­jects, in the following extemporaneous reflections on a pudding:

He excelled also in the talent of burlesque versifi­cation, and, upon occasion of a discourse at Sir Joshua Reynold's on Dr. Percy's ‘'Reliques of ancient Eng­lish poetry,'’ in which the beautiful simplicity of many of the ballads therein contained was remarked with some exaggeration, Johnson contended, that what was called simplicity was, in truth, inanity; and, to illus­trate his argument, and ridicule that kind of poetry, uttered the following impromptu:

And it being at a tea-conversation, he, addressing himself to Miss Reynolds, went on rhyming thus,

With these powers of instructing and delighting those with whom he conversed, it is no wonder that the acquaintance of Johnson was sought by many; and I will not say, either that he set so great a value on his time, as not to be accessible to all who wished for the pleasure of it, or that his vanity was not gratified by the visits of bishops, of courtiers, senators, scholars, travellers, and women.

In his conversation with the last in this enumera­tion, he had such a felicity as would put vulgar gal­lantry out of countenance. Of the female mind, he conceived a higher opinion than many men, and though he was never suspected of a blameable inti­macy with any individual of them, had a great esteem for the sex. The defect in his powers of sight ren­dered him totally insensible to the charms of beauty; but he knew that beauty was the attribute of the sex, and treated all women with such an equable compla­cency, as flattered every one into a belief, that she had her share of that or some more valuable endowment. In his discourses with them, his compliments had ever a neat and elegant turn: they were never direct, but always implied the merit they were intended to at­test.

In this enjoyment of himself and his friends, his engagements to the public were forgotten: his cri­tical talents lay dormant, and not any, nor all of those [Page 391] who wished to see his Shakespeare, could rouse his at­tention to the prosecution of that work; yet was he ready, at the call of almost any one, to assist, either by correction, or by a preface, or dedication, in the pub­lication of works not his own. Dr. Madden, so well­known by his premiums for the encouragement of Protestant working-schools in Ireland, and other in­stances of beneficence in favour of that country, in the year 1745 published a panegyrical poem on arch bishop Boulter; some years after, being mind­ed to re-publish it, he submitted it to Johnson's correction, and I found among his books a copy of the poem, with a note, in a spare leaf thereof, pur­porting, that the author had made him a visit, and, for a very few remarks and alterations of it, had presented him with ten guineas. Such casual emo­luments as these Johnson frequently derived from his profession of an author. For the dedication to his present majesty, of Adams's book on the use of the globes, he was, as himself informed me, gratified with a present of a very curious meteorological in­strument, of a new and ingenious construction.

About this time, as it is supposed, he, for sundry beneficed clergymen that requested him, composed pulpit discourses ^*, and for these, he made no scruple of confessing, he was paid: his price, I am informed, was a moderate one, a guinea; and such was his no­tion [Page 392] of justice, that having been paid, he considered them so absolutely the property of the purchaser, as to renounce all claim to them. He reckoned that he had written about forty sermons; but, except as to some, knew not in what hands they were— ‘'I have,' said he, 'been paid for them, and have no right to enquire about them ^*.'’

I have now brought him to the year 1760, the fifty-first of his age. He had nothing to depend on for subsistence but the labour of his brain; and that apprehension, touching the duration of his rational powers, which throughout his life haunted him, in­creased the terrors of approaching age. The ac­cession of our present gracious sovereign to the throne, and the bounty exercised by him to­wards Johnson, dispelled this gloomy prospect, and placed him in such a state of affluence as [Page 393] his utmost industry would hardly ever have enabled him to arrive at. Lord Bute was the minister at the time; and the person employed to notify to Johnson his majesty's intention to reward him for his literary labours with a pension of 300l. a year, was his friend Mr. Murphy. Upon receiving the news, Johnson was in doubt what answer to return, being, perhaps, disturbed with the reflection, that whatever he might deserve from the public, he had very little claim to the favour of any of the descendants of the house of Hanover; and desired that Mr. Murphy would give him till next day to deliberate upon a message so unexpected. At the end thereof he signified his will­ingness to accept it.

It was by Johnson and his friends thought fit, that he should return thanks for this distinguishing mark of the royal favour, and that lord Bute, who may be supposed to have been instrumental in procuring it, was the proper person to convey them. Accordingly, he waited on his lordship for the purpose, and, being admitted to him, testified his sense of the obligation; but having done this, he thought he had done enough, and never after could be prevailed on to knock at his door.

He had now suffered himself to be enrolled in the list of pensioners, and was become obnoxious to the censures of those, who, looking upon a perpetual enmity to government and its ministers as a proof of public virtue, endeavoured to have it believed, that all favours dispensed by the crown, even when meant as the rewards of merit, or the encouragement of learning, of ingenuity, or industry, were but the [Page 394] wages of iniquity. Johnson, it is true, had laid himself open to reproach, by his interpretation of the word Pension in his dictionary, written, it is evident, at a time when his political prejudices were strongest, and he found himself in a predicament similar to that of Dr. Sherlock, who, at the revolution, was a non­juror to king William, but, after deliberating on his refusal as a case of conscience, took the side that made for his interest, but against his reputation. But who, except the Great Searcher of Hearts, can know, that in the case of Sherlock or Johnson, either made a sacrifice of his conscience? Or, seeing that the grant of Johnson's pension was confessedly unconditional, and bound him neither to the renunciation of any of his political principles, nor the exercise of his pen in the defence of any set of men or series of measures, who will have the face to say, that his acceptance of it was criminal, or that it was in the power of any one to pervert the integrity of a man, who, in the time of his necessity, had, from scruples of his own raising, declined the offer of a valuable ecclesiastical prefer­ment, and thereby renounced an independent provision for the whole of his life?

It is yet difficult, if not impossible, to justify John­son, both in the interpretation given by him of the word Pension, and in his becoming a pensioner: in one instance or the other he was wrong, and either his discretion or integrity must be given up: in the former, he seems, in some of his actions, to have been wanting, in the latter never: not only charity, but reason, therefore, directs us in the opinion we are to form of an act which has drawn censure on his con­duct, [Page 395] and proves nothing more than that he was not equally wise at all times ^*.

The addition of three hundred pounds a year, to what Johnson was able to earn by the ordinary exer­cise of his talents, raised him to a state of comparative affluence, and afforded him the means of assisting many whose real or pretended wants had formerly excited his compassion. He now practised a rule which he often recommended to his friends, always to go abroad with a quantity of loose money to give to beggars, imitating therein, though I am confident without intending it, that good but weak man, old Mr. Whiston, whom I have seen distributing, in the streets of London, money to beggars on each hand of him, till his pocket was nearly exhausted.

He had, early in his life, been a dabbler in physic, and laboured under some secret bodily infirmities that gave him occasion once to say to me, that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain. He now drew into a closer intimacy with him a man, with whom he had been acquainted from the year 1746, one of the lowest practitioners in the art of [Page 396] healing that ever sought a livelihood by it: him he consulted in all that related to his health, and made so necessary to him as hardly to be able to live without him.

The name of this person was Robert Levett. An account of him is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1785: an earlier than that, I have now lying before me, in a letter from a person in the country to Johnson, written in answer to one in which he had desired to be informed of some particulars respecting his friend Levett, then lately deceased. The substance of this information is as follows:

He was born at Kirk Ella, a parish about five miles distant from Hull, and lived with his parents till about twenty years of age. He had acquired some knowledge of the Latin language, and had a propen­sity to learning, which his parents not being able to gratify, he went to live as a shopman with a woollen­draper at Hull: with him he stayed two years, during which time he learned from a neighbour of his master somewhat of the practice of physic: at the end thereof he came to London, with a view possibly to improve himself in that profession; but by some strange acci­dent was led to pursue another course, and became steward or some other upper servant to the then lord Cardigan, [or Cadogan] and having saved some mo­ney, he took a resolution to travel, and visited France and Italy for the purpose, as his letters mention, of gaining experience in physic, and, returning to Lon­don with a valuable library which he had collected abroad, placed one of his brothers apprentice to a mathematical-instrument maker, and provided for the education of another. After this he went to Paris, [Page 397] and, for improvement, attended the hospitals in that city. At the end of five years he returned to Eng­land, and taking lodgings in the house of an attorney in Northumberland court, near Charing cross, he be­came a practicer of physic. The letter adds, that he was about seventy-eight at the time of his death.

The account of Levett in the Gentleman's Maga­zine is anonymous; I nevertheless insert it verbatim, together with a letter of Johnson's to Dr. Lawrence notifying his death.

To this character I here add as a supplement to it, a dictum of Johnson respecting Levett, viz. that his external appearance and behaviour were such, that he disgusted the rich, and terrified the poor.

But notwithstanding all these offensive particulars, Johnson, whose credulity in some instances was as great as his incredulity in others, conceived of him as of a skilful medical professor, and thought himself [Page 401] happy in having so near his person one who was to him, not solely a physician, a surgeon, or an apothe­cary, but all. In extraordinary cases he, however, availed himself of the assistance of his valued friend Dr. Lawrence, a man of whom, in respect of his piety, learning, and skill in his profession, it may almost be said, the world was not worthy, inasmuch as it suffered his talents, for the whole of his life, to re­main, in a great measure, unemployed, and himself to end his days in sorrow and obscurity.

Of this person, with whom I was for many years ac­quainted, but who is now no more, gratitude for the benefits which myself and one most dear to me have derived from his skill and attention, obliges me to speak with reverence and respect. He was a native of Hampshire, and having ended his studies at Oxford, came to London about the year 1737, at which time Dr. Frank Nicholls had attained great reputation for skill in anatomy. To complete them, he became a pu­pil of his, in that branch of medical science, and upon Nicholls's discontinuing to read lectures therein, which he had for several years done with great applause, Dr. Lawrence took them up, and had many hearers, till Hunter, a surgeon, arrived from Scotland, who, set­tling in London, became his rival in the same practice, and having the advantage of Dr. Lawrence, in his manner of enunciating, together with the assistance and support of all his countrymen in this kingdom, and moreover, being a man whose skill in his art was equal to his pretensions, he became a favourite with the leading men in the practice of physic, and in a few winters drew to him such a resort of pupils, as in­duced [Page 402] Dr. Lawrence to give up lecturing, and betake himself to the general exercise of his profession.

In his endeavours to attain to eminence, it was his misfortune to fail: he was above those arts by which popularity is acquired, and had besides some personal defects and habits which stood in his way; a vacuity of countenance very unfavourable to an opinion of his learning or sagacity, and certain convulsive motions of the head and features that gave pain to the behold­ers, and drew off attention to all that he said ^*.

He delighted much in naval architecture, and was able with his own hands, and a variety of tools of his own contrivance, to form a model of a ship of war of any rate; first framing it with ribs and such other timbers as are requisite in a ship for service, and afterwards covering it with planks of the thickness of a half-crown piece, and the breadth of about an inch, which he fastened to the ribs with wooden pins of a proportionable size, and in this manner of working he completed many such models, elegantly wrought and most beautiful in their forms. He was also a lover of music, and was able to play his part in concert on the violoncello ^† till hindered by deafness, a disorder [Page 403] that came upon him about the middle of his life, and at length drove him to seek a retreat from the world and all its cares at Canterbury, where, about the year 1783, he died. To console him under some family disappointments, Johnson addressed to him a fine Latin ode, which is inserted in his works.

He wrote the life of his friend Dr. Nicholls, in very elegant Latin, but it was never published: his sole design in printing it being to gratify those of his own profession. In the same language, he wrote the life of Dr. William Harvey, prefixed to an edition of his works, published by the college of physicians in 1766, in one volume 4to.

The sincere and lasting friendship, that subsisted between Johnson and Levett, may serve to shew, that although a similarity of dispositions and qualities has a tendency to beget affection, or something very nearly resembling it, it may be contracted and subsist where this inducement is wanting; for hardly were ever two men less like each other, in this respect, than were they. Levett had not an understanding capable of compre­hending the talents of Johnson: the mind of John­son was therefore, as to him, a blank; and Johnson, had the eye of his mind been more penetrating than it [Page 404] was, could not discern, what did not exist, any par­ticulars in Levett's character that at all resembled his own. He had no learning, and consequently was an unfit companion for a learned man; and though it may be said, that having lived some years abroad, he must have seen and remarked many things that would have afforded entertainment in the relation, this advantage was counterbalanced by an utter inability for continued conversation, taciturnity being one of the most obvious features in his character: the con­sideration of all which particulars almost impels me to say, that Levett admired Johnson because others admired him, and that Johnson in pity loved Levett, because few others could find any thing in him to love.

And here I cannot forbear remarking, that, almost throughout his life, poverty and distressed circumstan­ces seemed to be the strongest of all recommendations to his favour. When asked by one of his most inti­mate friends, how he could bear to be surrounded by such necessitous and undeserving people as he had about him, his answer was, ‘'If I did not assist them no one else would, and they must be lost for want.'’ Among many others, whom he thus patronized, was a worthless fellow, a dancing-master by profession, and an assistant in teaching to the famous Noverre the favourite of Mr. Garrick. This man, notwithstanding the nature of his employment, which was a genteel one, and led to no such connections, delighted in the company and conversation of marshal's-court attornies, and of bailiffs and their followers, and others of a lower class, sharpers and swindlers, who, when they had made [Page 405] him drunk, would get him to sign notes and engage­ments of various kinds, which, he not being able to discharge, they had him arrested upon, and this was so frequently the case, that much of his time was passed in confinement. His wife, through Mrs. Wil­liams, got at Johnson, and told him her tale, which was, that her husband was, at that instant, detained for a small debt in a spunging-house, and he conceiving it to be a piteous one, and an additional proof that in human life the evil accidents outnumber the good, sent her to me for advice. I heard her story, and learned from it, that all the merit of the fellow lay in his heels, that he had neither principle nor discretion, and, in short, was a cully, the dupe of every one that would make him drunk. I therefore dismissed her with a message to Johnson to this effect: that her husband made it impossible for his friends to help him, and must submit to his destiny. When I next saw Johnson, I told him that there seemed to be as exact a fitness between the character of this man and his asso­ciates, as is between the web of a spider and the wings of a fly, and I could not but think he was born to be cheated. Johnson seemed to acquiesce in my opinion; but I believe, before that, had set him at liberty by paying the debt.

Another of Johnson's distressed friends was, Mr. Edmund Southwell, a younger brother of Thomas lord Southwell, of the kingdom of Ireland. This gentleman, having no patrimony, was, in his younger days, a cornet of horse; but having in a duel, into which he was forced, slain his antagonist, he quitted the service, and trusted to Providence for a support. [Page 406] He was a man of wonderful parts, of lively and en­tertaining conversation, and well acquainted with the world; he was also a brother in affliction with John­son, that is to say, he laboured under a depression or mind, occasioned by the misadventure above-men­tioned, that often approached to insanity. Being without employment, his practice was to wander about the streets of London, and call in at such coffee-houses, for instance, the Smyrna and Cocoa­tree in Pall-Mall, and Child's and Batson's in the city, as were frequented by men of intelligence, or where any thing like conversation was going forward: in these he found means to make friends, from whom he derived a precarious support. In the city he was so well known, and so much beloved and pitied, that many, by private donations, relieved his wants. In particular, Sir Robert Ladbroke, an alderman thereof, and a man of opulence, made him frequent presents of money to supply his necessities, and Mr. Bates, the master of the Queen's-arms tavern in St. Paul's church-yard, suffered him, as often as he pleased, to add to an ideal account subsisting between them, the expence of a dinner. A gentleman of great worth in the city, who knew and pitied his distresses, procured, unknown to him, from a lady famous for her beneficence, a pension of a hundred pounds a year, which he lived but few years to receive.

Johnson was a great lover of penitents, and of all such men as, in their conversation, made professions of piety; of this man he would say, that he was one of the most pious of all his acquaintance, but in this, as he frequently was in the judgment he formed of [Page 407] others, he was mistaken. It is possible that South­well might, in his conversation, express such senti­ments of religion and moral obligation, as served to shew that he was not an infidel, but he seldom went sober to bed, and as seldom rose from it be­fore noon.

He was also an admirer of such as he thought well-bred men. What was his notion of good breed­ing ould never learn. If it was not courtesy and affability, it could to him be nothing; for he was an incompetent judge of graceful attitudes and motions, and of the ritual of behaviour. Of lord Southwell, the brother of the above person, and of Tom Hervey, a profligate, worthless man, the author of the letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer, and who had nothing in his external appearance that could in the least re­commend him, he was used to say, they were each of them a model for the first man of quality in the kingdom. In this method of estimating beha­viour, he seemed to think that good-breeding is a faculty, which, like fencing, dancing, and other bodily exercises, must be learned before they can be practised; whereas, it is obvious, that this quality is nothing more than artificial benevolence, and that that politeness, which it is the employment of the in­structors of youth to teach, is but a substitute for those dispositions of mind, which, whoever possesses, and takes care to cultivate, will have very little need of foreign assistance in the forming of his man­ners.

He once mentioned to me a saying of Dr. Nicholls, and highly commended it, viz. that it [Page 408] was a point of wisdom to form intimacies, and to choose for our friends only persons of known worth and integrity, and that to do so had been the rule of his life. It is, therefore, difficult to account for the conduct of Johnson in the choice of many of his associates, and particularly of those who, when his circumstances became easy, he suffered to intrude on him. Of these he had some at bed and board, who had elbowed through the world, and subsisted by lying, begging, and shifting, all which he knew, but seemed to think never the worse of them. In his endeavours to promote the interests of people of this class, he, in some instances, went such lengths as were hardly consistent with that integrity, which he manifested on all other occasions; for he would fre­quently, by letters, recommend those to credit, who could obtain it by no other means, and thereby enabled them to contract debts, which he had good reason to suspect, they neither could nor ever would pay.

These connections exposed him to trouble and in­cessant solicitation, which he bore well enough, but his inmates were enemies to his peace, and occasioned him great disquiet: the jealousy that subsisted among them rendered his dwelling irksome to him, and he seldom approached it, after an evening's conversation abroad, but with the dread of finding it a scene of discord, and of having his ears filled with the com­plaints of Mrs. Williams of Frank's neglect of his duty and inattention to the interests of his master, and of Frank against Mrs. Williams, for the autho­rity she assumed over him, and exercised with an un­warrantable severity. Even those intruders who had [Page 409] taken shelter under his roof, and who, in his absence from home, brought thither their children, found cause to murmur; their provision of food was scanty, or their dinners ill dressed; all which he chose to en­dure rather than put an end to their clamours, by rid­ding his house of such thankless and troublesome guests. Nay, so insensible was he of the ingratitude of those whom he suffered thus to hang on him, and among whom he may be said to have divided an income which was little more than sufficient for his own sup­port, that he would submit to reproach and personal affront from some of them, even Levett would some­times insult him, and Mrs. Williams, in her paroxysms of rage, has been known to drive him from her pre­sence.

Who, that reflects on Johnson's pusillanimity in these instances, can reconcile it to that spirit which prompted him, or with those endowments which ena­bled him to maintain a superiority over all with whom he conversed? or to that seeming ferocity of temper that gave occasion to some to consider him as an animal not to be approached without terror? or account for the inconsistency above-noted, otherwise than by resolving it into those principles that dictated patience, under all the provocations of a female tongue, to Socrates? In truth, there was more asperity in his manner of expression than in his natural disposition; for I have heard that, in many instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologized to those whom he had of­fended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.

To this inconsistency of character it must be im­puted, that he failed to attract reverence and respect [Page 410] from those who lived in greatest intimacy with him. There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour that dignity, which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and, by an irresistible power, commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right: and although he was strict, and even punctilious, in the practice of the great duties of morality, he trusted but little to his domestic conduct, to his method of employing his time, and governing his family, for the good opinion he wished the world to entertain of him, but, in these particulars, gave way to the love of ease, and to self-indulgence, little regarding, in his own practice, those counsels of prudence, those oeconomical max­ims, and those reflections on the shortness of human life, with which his writings abound. To a lady, who signified a great desire to increase her acquaintance with authors, conceiving that more might be learned from their conversation and manner of living, than from their works— ‘'Madam,' said he, 'the best part of an author will always be found in his writings.'—’And to a person, who once said he paid little regard to those writers on religion or morality, whose practice corresponded not with their precepts, he imputed a want of knowledge of mankind, saying, it was gross ignorance in him not to know, that good principles and an irregular life were consistent with each other.

This was a secret which, without much mischief, might have been revealed in conversation, but John­son [Page 411] has thought fit to send it abroad in the fourteenth number of the Rambler, with this apology:

‘'We are not to wonder that most fail, amidst tu­mult, and snares, and dangers, in the observance of those precepts which they lay down in solitude, safety, and tranquillity, with a mind unbiassed, and with liberty unobstructed. It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never main­tain a single day of innocence, much less can the utmost efforts of incorporated mind reach the sum­mits of speculative virtue.'’

He farther says, ‘'It is recorded of Sir Mathew Hale that he, for a long time, concealed the con­secration of himself to the stricter duties of religion, lest, by some flagitious and shameful action, he should bring piety into disgrace ^*;'’ and upon this his conduct he suggests, that ‘'it may be prudent for a writer, who apprehends that he shall not enforce his own maxims by his domestic character, to con­ceal his name that he may not injure them.'’

[Page 412] In this passage, Johnson seems to prepare his rea­ders for that contrariety which is often observed be­tween the lives of authors and their writings, or, which is much the same, between preceptive and practical wisdom and virtue, as if they were scarcely consistent with each other, whereas, had his acquain­tance lain, at this time, as in the latter part of his life it did, with persons of rank and condition, he might have formed different notions on the subject, and been convinced, that all ages, and even the present, have afforded examples of men, in whom learning and parts, and even wit, were but auxiliaries to qualities more estimable ^†.

[Page 413] The above facts and observations are meant to shew some of the most conspicuous features and foibles in Johnson's character, and go to prove, not only that his ferocity was not so terrific, as that any one endued with temper, and disposed to moderation and forbear­ance, might not only withstand, but overcome it, but that he had a natural imbecillity about him, arising from humanity and pity to the sufferings of his fellow­creatures, that was prejudicial to his interests; and also, that he neither sought nor expected praise for those acts of beneficence which he was daily performing, nor looked for any retribution from those who were nourish­ed by his bounty. Indeed, they were such creatures as were incapable of being awed by a sense of his worth, or of discerning the motives that actuated him; they were people of the lowest and vulgarest minds ^*, whom idleness had made poor, and liberality impudent, and what is to be expected from such, is known to all that are, in the slightest degree, acquainted with the world; and lastly, they shew his method of accounting for that manifest and striking contrariety which, as he says, has been often observed, between the life of an author and his writings.

[Page 414] The history of learning furnishes us with many ex­amples of men who have deviated from the study of polite literature to that of the hermetic science, or, in plainer English, to that sublimer chemistry which leads to the transmutation of metals; and those, who may have heard that Johnson exercised himself in chemical processes, may perhaps think, that his view therein was suddenly to become the possessor of immense riches, but I am able to obviate this suspicion, and assure them, that his motive thereto was only curio­sity, and his end mere amusement. At the time he frequented the club in Ivy lane, Dyer was going through a course of chemistry under Dr. Pemberton, of Gresham college, and would sometimes give us such descriptions of processes as were very entertain­ing, particularly to Johnson, who would listen to them attentively. We may suppose, that in the course of his reading, he had acquired some know­ledge of the theory of the art, and that he wished for an opportunity of reducing that knowledge into practice: he thought that time now come, and though he had no fitter an apartment for a laboratory than the garret over his chambers in the Inner Temple, he furnished that with an alembic, with retorts, re­ceivers, and other vessels adapted to the cheapest and least operose processes. What his aims were, at first, I know not, having forgotten the account he once gave me of the earliest of his chemical operations; but I have since learned, that they dwindled down to mere distillation, and that from substances of the simplest and coarsest sort, namely, peppermint, and the dregs of strong beer, from the latter whereof he [Page 415] was able to extract a strong but very nauseous spirit, which all might smell, but few chose to taste.

Johnson had now considerably extended the circle of his acquaintance, and added to the number of his friends sundry persons of distinguished eminence: among them were, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Edmund Burke, Mr. Beauclerk, and Mr. Langton. With these he passed much of his time, and was desirous of being still closer connected. How much he delighted in convivial meetings, how he loved conversation, and how sensibly he felt the attractions of a tavern, has already been mentioned; and it was but a natural consequence of these dispositions, that he should wish for frequent opportunities of indulging them in a way that would free him from domestic restraints, from the observance of hours, and a conformity to the re­gimen of families. A tavern was the place for these enjoyments, and a weekly club was instituted for his gratification and the mutual entertainment and delight of its several members. The first movers in this asso­ciation were Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds: the number of persons included in it was nine: the place of meeting was the Turk's head in Gerrard street; the day Monday in every week, and the hour of assembling seven in the evening. To this association I had the honour of being invited. The members were,

• Johnson,
• Sir Joshua Reynolds,
• Mr. Edmund Burke,
• Christ. Nugent, M.D.
• Oliver Goldsmith, M.B.
• Mr. Topham Beauclerk,
• Mr. Bennet Langton,
• Mr. Anthony Chamier, and
• Myself.

As some of the persons above-mentioned are hap­pily [Page 416] yet living, and are too eminently known to re­ceive honour from any thing I am able to say of them, I shall content myself with giving the characters of such of them as are now no more.

Dr. Nugent was a physician, of the Romish com­munion, and rising into practice with persons of that persuasion. He was an ingenious, sensible, and learned man, of easy conversation, and elegant manners. Johnson had a high opinion of him, and always spoke of him in terms of great respect.

Goldsmith is well known by his writings to have been a man of genius and of very fine parts; but of his character and general deportment, it is the hardest task any one can undertake to give a description. I will, however, attempt it, trusting to be excused if, in the spirit of a faithful historian, I record as well his singularities as his merits.

There are certain memoirs of him extant, from which we learn, that his inclination, co-operating with his fortunes which were but scanty, led him into a course of life little differing from vagrancy, that deprived him of the benefits of regular study: it however gratified his humour, stored his mind with ideas and some knowledge, which, when he became settled, he improved by various reading; yet, to all the graces of urbanity he was a stranger. With the greatest pretensions to polished manners he was rude, and, when he most meant the contrary, absurd. He affected Johnson's style and manner of conversation, and, when he had uttered, as he often would, a laboured sentence, so tumid as to be scarce intel­ligible, would ask, if that was not truly Johnsonian; yet he loved not Johnson, but rather envied him for [Page 417] his parts; and once intreated a friend to desist from praising him, ‘'for in doing so', said he, 'you harrow up my very soul.'’

He had some wit, but no humour, and never told a story but he spoiled it. The following anecdotes will convey some idea of the style and manner of his conversation:

He was used to say he could play on the German­flute as well as most men;—at other times, as well as any man living; and in his poem of the Travel­ler, has hinted at this attainment in the following lines:

But, in truth, he understood not the character in which music is written, and played on that instrument, as many of the vulgar do, merely by ear. Roubiliac the sculptor, a merry fellow, once heard him play, and minding to put a trick on him, pretended to be charmed with his performance, as also, that himself was skilled in the art, and intreated him to repeat the air, that he might write it down. Goldsmith readily consenting, Roubiliac called for paper, and scored [Page 418] thereon a few five-lined staves, which having done, Goldsmith proceeded to play, and Roubiliac to write; but his writing was only such random notes on the lines and spaces as any one might set down who had ever inspected a page of music. When they had both done, Roubiliac shewed the paper to Goldsmith, who looking it over with seeming great attention, said it was very correct, and that if he had not seen him do it, he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him.

He would frequently preface a story thus:— ‘'I'll now tell you a story of myself, which some people laugh at, and some do not.'—’

At the breaking up of an evening at a tavern, he intreated the company to sit down, and told them if they would call for another bottle they should hear one of his bons mots:—they agreed, and he began thus:— ‘'I was once told that Sheridan the player, in order to improve himself in stage-gestures, had looking-glasses, to the number of ten, hung about his room, and that he practised before them; upon which I said, then there were ten ugly fellows toge­ther.'—’The company were all silent: he asked why they did not laugh, which they not doing, he, with­out tasting the wine, left the room in anger.

He once complained to a friend in these words:— ‘'Mr. Martinelli is a rude man: I said in his hearing, that there were no good writers among the Italians, and he said to one that sat near him, that I was very ignorant ^*.'’

‘'People,' said he, 'are greatly mistaken in me: a notion goes about, that when I am silent I mean to [Page 419] be impudent; but I assure you, gentlemen, my silence arises from bashfulness.'’

Having one day a call to wait on the late duke, then earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audience in an outer room; I asked him what had brought him there: he told me an invitation from his lordship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a reason, mentioned, that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. The earl asked me if I was acquainted with him: I told him I was, adding what I thought likely to recommend him. I retired, and staid in the outer room to take him home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his conversation:— ‘'His lordship,' says he, 'told me he had red my poem,' meaning the Tra­veller, 'and was much delighted with it; that he was going lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing that I was a native of that country, he should be glad to do me any kindness.'—’And what did you answer, asked I, to this gracious offer?— ‘'Why,' said he, 'I could say nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help: as for myself, I have no dependence on the promises of great men: I look to the booksellers for support; they are my best friends, and I am not inclined to forsake them for others.'’

Thus did this idiot in the affairs of the world, trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him! Other offers of a like kind he either rejected or failed to improve, contenting himself with the patronage of one nobleman, whose mansion afforded him the delights of a splendid table, and a re­treat for a few days from the metropolis.

[Page 420] While I was writing the History of Music, he, at the club, communicated to me some curious matter: I desired he would reduce it to writing; he promised me he would, and desired to see me at his chambers: I called on him there; he stepped into a closet, and tore out of a printed book six leaves that contained what he had mentioned to me.

As he wrote for the booksellers, we, at the club, looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, and still less of poetical composition: he had, nevertheless, unknown to us, written and addressed to the countess, afterwards duchess, of Northumberland, one of the finest poems of the lyric kind that our lan­guage has to boast of, the ballad ‘'Turn gentle Hermit of the dale ^*;'’ and surprised us with ‘'The Tra­veller,'’ a poem that contains some particulars of his own history. Johnson was supposed to have assisted him in it; but he contributed to the perfec­tion of it only four lines: his opinion of it was, that it was the best written poem since the time of Pope. The favourable reception which this essay of his poetical talent met with, soon after tempted Gold­smith to the publication of his ‘'Deserted Village,'’ the merits whereof, consisting in local particularities and beautiful descriptions of rural manners, are suffi­ciently known.

His poems are replete with fine moral sentiments, and bespeak a great dignity of mind; yet he had no sense of the shame, nor dread of the evils, of po­verty. In the latter he was at one time so involved, [Page 421] that for the clamours of a woman, to whom he was indebted for lodging, and for bailiffs that waited to arrest him, he was equally unable, till he had made himself drunk, to stay within doors, or go abroad to hawk among the booksellers his ‘'Vicar of Wake-field.'’ In this distress he sent for Johnson, who im­mediately went to one of them, and brought back mo­ney for his relief.

In his dealings with the booksellers, he is said to have acted very dishonestly, never fulfilling his en­gagements. In one year he got of them, and by his plays, the sum of 1800l. which he dissipated by gaming and extravagance, and died poor in 1774.

He that can account for the inconsistencies of character above-noted, otherwise than by shewing, that wit and wisdom are seldom found to meet in the same mind, will do more than any of Gold­smith's friends were ever able to do. He was bu­ried in the poets' corner in Westminster abbey. A monument was erected for him by a subscription of his friends, and is placed over the entrance into St. Blase's chapel. The inscription thereon was written by Johnson. This I am able to say with certainty, for he shewed it to me in manuscript.

The members of our club, that remain to be spo­ken of, were persons of less celebrity than him above­mentioned, but were better acquainted with the world, and qualified for social intercourse. Mr. Beauclerk was allied to the St. Alban's family, and took his christian name from Mr Topham of Wind­sor, the famous collector of pictures and drawings. To the character of a scholar, and a man of fine parts, he added that of a man of fashion, of which his [Page 422] dress and equipage shewed him to be emulous. In the early period of his life he was the exemplar of all who wished, without incurring the censure of foppery, to become conspicuous in the gay world. Travel, and a long residence at Rome and at Ve­nice, had given the last polish to his manners, and stored his mind with entertaining information. In painting and sculpture, his taste and judgment were accurate, in classic literature, exquisite; and in the knowledge of history, and the study of an­tiquities, he had few equals. His conversation was of the most excellent kind; learned, witty, polite, and, where the subject required it, serious; and over all his behaviour there beamed such a sunshine of chearfulness and good humour, as com­municated itself to all around him. He was a great collector of books, and left at his death a library, which, at a sale by auction, yielded up­wards of five thousand pounds.

Mr. Anthony Chamier was descended from a French prorestant family, that has produced one or more very eminent divines, and were refugees in this country at the end of the last century. He was bred to the profession of a stock-broker; but, having had a liberal education, his deportment and manner of transacting business distinguished him greatly from most others of that calling. He had acquired a knowledge of the modern languages, particularly of the Spanish, in the study whereof he took great delight. His connections, at his setting out in the world, were of the best kind, for very early in his life he was employed by those liberal-minded bro­thers the Van Necks, whose riches, and general munificence, have ranked them in the same class of [Page 423] wealthy men with the Fuggers of Augsburg, a com­pany of money-dealers, who, in their time, held the balance of the Antwerp exchange, and by their trans­actions at that mart, influenced the politics of all the courts of Europe ^*. By his dealings in the funds, and, it was supposed, with the advantage of intelli­gence which, previous to the conclusion of the peace before the last, he had obtained, he acquired such a fortune as enabled him, though young, to quit business, and become, what indeed he seemed by nature intended for, a gentleman. At the begin­ning of his present majesty's reign, he had a prospect of going secretary to an embassy to Spain, and was preparing for it, by the improvement of himself in the language of that country, but a change in the appointment of an ambassador kept him at home, and gave him opportunity of becoming acquainted with lord Hilsborough, who, upon his being made secretary of state the last time, took him for his under­secretary, in which station he died.

It was Johnson's original intention, that the num­ber of this our club should not exceed nine, but Mr. Dyer, a member of that in Ivy lane before spoken of, and who for some years had been abroad, made his appearance among us, and was cordially received. By the recommendation of Mr. Belchier the banker, and member for Southwark, he had obtained an ap­pointment to be one of the commissaries in our army in Germany; but, on the conclusion of the peace, he [Page 424] returned to England, very little the better for an em­ployment which few have been known to quit with­out having made a fortune.

The hours which Johnson spent in this society seemed to be the happiest of his life: he would often applaud his own sagacity in the selection of it, and was so constant at our meetings as never to absent himself. It is true he came late, but then he stayed late, for, as has been already said of him, he little regarded hours. Our evening toast was the motto of Padre Paolo, ‘'Esto perpetua.'’ A lady, distinguished by her beauty, and taste for literature, invited us twice to a dinner at her house, which I alone was hindered from accepting. Curiosity was her motive, and possibly a desire of intermingling with our conversation the charms of her own. She affected to consider us as a set of literary men, and perhaps gave the first occasion for distinguishing the society by the name of the literary club, an appellation which it never assumed to itself.

At these our meetings, Johnson, as indeed he did every where, led the conversation, yet was he far from arrogating to himself that superiority, which, some years before, he was disposed to contend for. He had seen enough of the world to know, that respect was not to be extorted, and began now to be satis­fied with that degree of eminence to which his writ­ings had exalted him. This change in his behaviour was remarked by those who were best acquainted with his character, and it rendered him an easy and delight­ful companion. Our discourse was miscellaneous, but chiefly literary. Politics, the most vulgar of all topics, were alone excluded. On that subject most of us were of the same opinion. The British lion [Page 425] was then licking his wounds, and we drank to the peace of old England ^*.

The institution of this society was in the winter of 1763, at which time Mr. Garrick was abroad with his wife, who, for the recovery of her health, was sent to the baths at Padua. Upon his return, he was in­formed of our association, and trusted, that the least intimation of a desire to come among us, would pro­cure him a ready admission, but in this he was mista­ken. Johnson consulted me upon it, and when I could find no objection to receiving him, exclaim­ed:—'He will disturb us by his buffoonery;'—and afterwards so managed matters, that he was never formally proposed, nor, by consequence, ever ad­mitted.

This conduct of Johnson gave me, for the first time, to understand, that the friendship between him and Garrick was not so strong as it might be sup­posed to be: it was not like that of David and Jo­nathan; it passed not the love of women, and hardly exceeded the strength of an adventitious intimacy: Garrick had a profound veneration for the learning and talents of Johnson, but was used to complain to me, that he was capricious in his friendship, and, as he termed it, coquettish in his display of it. Johnson, on his part, hated the profession of a player, and per­haps [Page 426] might contemplate with indignation, that dispo­sition of the public, which assigns to those who mi­nister to their pleasures, greater rewards than to those whose employment it is to supply their most essen­tial wants. He might possibly reflect that, in his out­set in life as an instructor of youth, his hopes were bounded by the prospect of five hundred pounds a year, and that the mimetic powers of Garrick, for under that denomination he ranked all his excellencies, produced to the possessor of them an income of four thousand.

These are such excuses for Johnson's coolness to­wards an old friend as charity might suggest; but, alas! it had a deeper root, and it is to be feared that it sprung from envy, a passion, which he some­times was candid enough to confess he was subject to, and laboured through his life to eradicate. His behaviour to Garrick was ever austere, like that of a schoolmaster to one of his scholars ^*, and he flat­tered himself, that in all he said and did, he stood in awe of his frown.— ‘'I was,' said Johnson once to a friend, 'last night behind the scenes at Drury-lane, and met Davy dressed for his part. I was glad to see him; but I believe he was ashamed to see me.'—’A supposition hardly to be admitted, even if he had been dressed in the rags of Drugger.

[Page 427] Garrick took his rejection very patiently, and shew­ed his resentment of it no otherwise, than by enquiring of me from time to time how we went on at the club. He would often stop at my gate, in his way to and from Hampton, with messages from Johnson relating to his Shakespeare, then in the press, and ask such questions as these:— ‘'Were you at the club on Monday night?'—'What did you talk of?'—'Was Johnson there?'—'I suppose he said some­thing of Davy—that Davy was a clever fellow in his way, full of convivial pleasantry, but no poet, no writer, ha?'—’I was vexed at these enquiries, and told him, that this perpetual solicitude about what was said of him, was unnecessary, and could only tend to disturb him; that he might well be content with that share of the public favour which he enjoyed, that he had nothing to do but to possess it in quiet­ness, and that too great an anxiety to obtain applause would provoke envy, and tend to intercept, if not to­tally deprive him of it.

The greatest of Mr. Garrick's foibles was, a notion of the importance of his profession: he thought that Shakespeare and himself were, or ought to be, the objects of all mens' attention. When the king of Denmark was in England, he received an order from the lord-chamberlain to entertain that mo­narch with an exhibition of himself in six of his principal characters. In his way to London, to re­ceive his instructions, he called on me, and told me this as news. I could plainly discern in his looks the joy that transported him; but he affected to be vexed at the shortness of the notice, and seemed to arraign the wisdom of our councils, by exclaiming— ‘'You see what heads they have!'’

[Page 428] Johnson's objection to the admission of Garrick may seem to be cynical, and to have arisen from jealousy or resentment, but it admits of palliation: the truth is, that Garrick was no disquisitor; his reading had been confined, and he could contribute but little to the pleasures of sober and instructive conversa­tion. Even his knowledge of the world was derived through the medium of the dramatic writers, who, all men know, are not guides to be trusted; and, in his intercourse with mankind, and manner of con­ducting business, he frequently betrayed such igno­rance and inattention, as the following instance will illustrate.

There stood near the dwelling of Mr. Garrick at Hampton, and adjoining to his garden next the river, a small house, the owner and occupier whereof was Mr. Peele a bookseller, who had retired from busi­ness. Mr. Peele had often said, that as he knew it would be an accommodation to Mr. Garrick, he had given directions, that at his decease he should have the refusal of it. A man in the neighbourhood had set his eye upon it, and formed a scheme to make it his own. He had got intelligence that there was a relation or friend of Mr. Peele's living in the coun­try, and immediately on Mr. Peele's death applied to his executors, pretending that he had a commission from him to purchase the house at any price; and, upon this suggestion, procured a conveyance of it to a person nominated by him, but under a secret trust for himself. Mr. Garrick, seeing himself thus balked of his hopes, and in danger of being troubled with an ill neighbour, thought he had nothing to do but to complain. He told his sad story to me, and in a [Page 429] lucky hour; for, just before his entering my house, I had been reading the life of the lord-keeper Guild­ford, and therein a case of a similar fraud, against which his lordship decreed: it was the case of the duke of Buckinghamshire and Ambrose Phillips, who had purchased of the duke an estate as for Mr. He­neage Finch, a son of the lord Nottingham, but in truth for himself, at two thousand pounds less than he would have sold it for to any but Mr. Finch. Upon hearing Mr. Garrick's story, I searched farther, and found the case in law-language in Vernon's chancery reports, and giving him a note of it, told him he might file a bill in chancery, and, on the authority of that deter­mination, hope for relief. About six months after, I being in town, a message came to me in the even­ing from Mr. Garrick, signifying, that his cause was to come on the next morning, and requesting me to furnish him with a note of a case that I had formerly mentioned to him as resembling his own. Astonished at his remissness, and knowing that no time was to be lost, I immediately borrowed the book I had referred him to, and giving it my servant, went with it to Drury-lane theatre, where, upon enquiry, I was informed, that he was busily employed in exhibiting an imitation of a spectacle then recent, the procession of the coronation of his present majesty, in an after­piece to the play for that night. I waited in an outer room till all was over, when in entered Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, and, after giving him time to recover from his fatigue, I told him what I had been doing to help him in his distress, and produced the book, but his thoughts were so wholly taken up by the pageant he [Page 430] was come from, which seemed still to be passing before his eyes, that he could searcely attend to me, but asked Mrs. Garrick twenty questions about it, how it went off, and whether she did not think the ap­plause of the audience great. He then turned to me, took from me the book, and said he should lay it before his counsel. The book was returned in a few days, but I heard nothing of the decree of the court till some months after, when meeting with his brother George, in the court of requests, I asked him how the cause had gone:— ‘'Oh,' said he, 'with us:—the first purchase is decreed fraudulent, and the defendant is condemned in costs.'’

Mr. Garrick's forgetfulness and inattention, in a concern that gave him some uneasiness, is not to be accounted for by those who believe, contrary to the fact, that he was ever sufficiently awake to his own interest, nor indeed by any who were not well ac­quainted with his character. In all that related to the theatre he was very acute, but in business of other kinds a novice. His profession was of such a nature, as left him no intervals of thought or cool deliberation: his mind was either elevated to the highest pitch of inten [...]on, or let down to the lowest degree of remission. In the former state, it was in­flated by the ideas with which the course of his read­ing had stored his memory; in the latter, it sunk into an indolent levity, which indulged in jokes, in mi­micry, and witticisms.

In the first of these situations, I have described him by the relation of his conduct in a law-suit: in a sea­son of vacuity, he was another man, easy and chearful, [Page 431] and disposed, out of every thing he saw or heard, to extract mirth. The following story I give as an in­stance of his pleasantry, at times when the business of the theatre did not occupy his thoughts.

Living at Twickenham, at about two miles distance from his house at Hampton, I made him, as I fre­quently did when in the country, an afternoon visit. It was in the month of August, and I found him and Mrs. Garrick in the garden, eating figs. He com­plained that the wasps, which that year were very nu­merous, had left him very few; and, talking farther about those noxious insects, told me he had heard, that a person near Uxbridge, having swallowed one of them in a draught of liquor, had died of the sting. I told him it was true, for that at a turnpike-meeting at Uxbridge I had dined with the apothecary that had attended him, and he had assured me of the fact.— ‘'I believe it,'said Mr. Garrick, 'and have been persuad­ing this lady,'pointing to Mrs. Garrick, 'to do so; but I cannot convince her, and yet, she can believe the story of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand vir­gins!'—’Mrs. Garrick, it is no secret, is of the Ro­mish persuasion.

Davies, in his life of Mr. Garrick, has mentioned a variety of particulars that do honour to his memory. Among others, he gives several instances of liberality to his friends. Johnson would frequently say, that he gave away more money than any man of his income in England; and his readiness to give the profits of a night to public charities, and to families and indi­viduals in distress, will long be remembered. He was the first that attempted to reform the stage, by banish­ing from it all profaneness and immorality, and by ex­punging [Page 432] from the plays acted at his theatre, every expression capable of any other than a good meaning. And whereas it had for many years been the custom, at one or more of the theatres, to indulge the mob, in the evening of the lord-mayor's day, with the representation of ‘'The London Cuckolds,'’ a comedy written by Ravenscroft in times of great licentiousness, and abounding in scenes of vulgar humour, he paid a handsome compliment to the ci­tizens, and shewed his regard for the welfare of youth, by discontinuing the practice, and substituting in its place the affecting tragedy of ‘'George Barnwell,'’ a play adapted to the situation and circumstances of city apprentices, and affording an instructive lesson of discretion and morality.

Notwithstanding the perpetual competition be­tween him and Rich, for the favour of the town, they lived together upon the most friendly terms. Rich, who was never celebrated either for his wit or his understanding, once made him a very elegant compliment: the occasion was this: Rich had im­proved his house at Covent garden, by altering the dis­position of the seats, so as to accommodate a greater number of spectators than formerly it would, and Mr. Garrick wishing to see these improvements, Mr. Rich invited him to the house, and went with him all over it. In the course of their survey, Mr. Gar­rick asked, in the language of the theatre, what sum of money the house would hold.— ‘'Sir,' said Mr. Rich, 'that question question I am at present unable to answer; but were Mr. Garrick to appear but one night on my stage, I should be able to tell to the utmost shil­ling.'’

[Page 433] After all that has been said of Mr. Garrick, envy must own, that he owed his celebrity to his merit; and yet, of that himself seemed so diffident, that he practised sundry little, but innocent arts, to insure the favour of the public. He kept up an interest in the city by appearing, about twice in a winter, at Tom's coffee-house in Cornhill, the usual rendezvous of young merchants at 'change time; and frequented a club, established for the sake of his company, at the Queen's-arms tavern in St. Paul's church-yard, where were used to assemble Mr. Sa­muel Sharpe the surgeon, Mr. Paterson the city-soli­citor, Mr. Draper the bookseller, Mr. Clutterbuck a mercer, and a few others; they were none of them drinkers, and in order to make a reckoning, called only for French wine. These were his standing council in theatrical affairs, and were of use to him in moderating his resentment after those riots at his theatre, which would sometimes happen, and the in­dignation he once felt upon an attack on his dwelling-house, in which the windows thereof were broken.

He had also a strong party of friends at Batson's coffee-house, and among them Dr. Wilson a physi­cian, a man of great learning ^*, but no practice, who having an easy fortune and no family, and being mas­ter of his own time, was at liberty to indulge him­self in a variety of pursuits and humours that distin­guished him from most other men. He lodged in an obscure part of the town, and spent his mornings in mathematical studies; but at noon was constantly to [Page 434] be seen at Batson's, with a circle of persons round him, whom he entertained with his conversation. He had no taste for polite literature or stage entertainments; but in his old age took it into his head to be an ad­mirer of Mr. Garrick, and seldom failed to be at his theatre, whenever he had a part in the play of the night. His constant appearance there had procured him almost a prescriptive right to a particular seat in the pit. In that region of the house he was the first, and almost the loudest applauder of Mr. Garrick, and his praises were the chief subject of his discourse the succeeding day. To this person, as to a city-friend, Mr. Garrick held himself obliged, and by many per­sonal civilities he courted his favour.

Such as those above noted were the foibles in the character of that celebrated actor of whom I have been speaking, and such were the arts which he prac­tised to acquire and ensure popularity; arts as unne­cessary as they were innocent, seeing, that almost from the time he first became known, he was in the actual possession of that applause which he was seeking, and received from the public an ample reward of repu­tation, as well for the part he acted in social life, as for his excellent performance on the stage.

Besides Mr. Garrick, there were others that were desirous of becoming members of this our club, the fame whereof had spread abroad, and induced many, who hoped to acquire a reputation for literature, to wish for an admission among us. That unfor­tunate divine, as he was called, Dr. William Dodd, was one of the number, and made a secret effort for this purpose. This person, at that time, dwelt with his wife in an obscure corner of Hounslow heath, [Page 435] near a village called Worton; but kept, in a back lane near him, a girl who went by the name of Ken­nedy. His pretensions to learning, and especially to classical erudition, were very great; and he had in his house a few young gentlemen, who, at very expen­sive rates, were committed to his care, as to an aca­demy, for instruction. A brother of his wife's rented some land of me, and of him I learned from time to time many particulars respecting his character and man­ner of living, which latter, as he represented it, was ever such as his visible income would no way ac­count for. He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever known, and that himself had been the bearer of letters and messages to great men, soliciting promotion to vacant livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down stairs. Dodd's wish to be received into our society was conveyed to us only by a whisper, and that being the case, all op­position to his admission became unnecessary.

Johnson was now at ease in his circumstances: he wanted his usual motive to impel him to the ex­ertion of his talents, necessity, and he sunk into indo­lence. Whoever called in on him at about mid­day, found him and Levett at breakfast, Johnson in deshabille, as just risen from bed, and Levett filling out tea for himself and his patron alternately, no conversation passing between them. All that visited him at these hours, were welcome. A night's rest, and breakfast, seldom failed to refresh and fit him for discourse, and whoever withdrew went too soon. His invitations to dinners abroad were numerous, and he seldom balked them. At evening parties, where were [Page 436] no cards, he very often made one; and from these, when once engaged, most unwillingly retired.

In the relaxation of mind, which almost any one might have foreseen would follow the grant of his pension, he made little account of that lapse of time, on which, in many of his papers, he so severely mora­lizes. And, though he was so exact an observer of the passing minutes, as frequently, after his coming from church, to note in his diary how many the ser­vice took up in reading, and the sermon in preaching; he seemed to forget how many years had passed since he had begun to take in subscriptions for his edition of Shakespeare. Such a torpor had seized his facul­ties, as not all the remonstrances of his friends were able to cure: applied to some minds, they would have burned like caustics, but Johnson felt them not: to other objects he was sufficiently attentive, as I shall presently shew.

In the performance of the engagement I am under, I find myself compelled to make public, as well those particulars of Johnson that may be thought to abase as those that exalt his character. Among the former, may be reckoned the credit he for some time gave to the idle story of the Cock-lane ghost, concerning which the following facts are the least unworthy of being noted. In the month of January 1762, it was reported, that at a house in Cock lane near West Smithfield, there were heard certain noises, accom­panied with extraordinary circumstances, tending to the discovery of the death of a young woman who was said to have been destroyed by poison. The agent in this business was a girl, who pretended, that [Page 437] the spirit of the deceased appeared to her, and ter­rified her with the noises above-mentioned. This report drew many persons to the house, who, being thus assembled, put several questions to the girl, and received answers, as from the ghost, describing the circumstances of the poisoning, and a promise, by an affirmative signal, that it would attend one of the querists into the vault under the church of St. John, Clerkenwell, where the body was deposited, and give a token of its presence by a knock upon the coffin: it was therefore determined to make trial of the ex­istence or veracity of the supposed spirit; and it was then advertised, that the person to whom the promise was made, was about to visit the vault, and ac­cordingly the whole company present adjourned to the church. He who had a claim to the performance of the promise, and one more, went into the vault, and solemnly required to hear the signal; but nothing more ensued. The person accused of the poisoning, with several others, then descended the vault, but no effect was perceived. It was, therefore, the opinion of the whole assembly, that the girl had some art of making or counterfeiting particular noises, and that there was no agency of any higher cause.

Johnson, whose sentiments with respect to superna­tural agency are discoverable in many parts of his writings, was prompted by curiosity to visit this place, and wait for the appearance of the ghost. Mr. Saun­ders Welch, his intimate friend, would have dissuaded him from his purpose, urging, that it would expose him to ridicule; but all his arguments had no effect; he went to the house, and, as it is supposed, into the [Page 438] church, and gave countenance to the vulgar expec­tation, that the ghost would appear; but at length, being convinced that the whole transaction was an imposture, he drew up, as may be inferred from the style and advertisement at the end of the paper, an account of the detection thereof, published in the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1762.

Soon after this, the imposture being more clearly and even to demonstration detected, the persons con­cerned in it were prosecuted, and underwent a punish­ment suited to their offence.

What Mr. Welch foretold, in his advice to Johnson, touching this imposture, was now verified: he was censured for his credulity; his wisdom was arraigned, and his religious opinions resolved into superstition. A reverend divine of the time, who had taken effec­tual care by his conduct to avoid the like imputa­tions, but was enough distinguished by a greater folly, political enthusiasm, exhibited him to ridicule in a satyrical poem, and revived the remembrance of that engagement to the public, which, by this, and other instances of the laxity of his mind, he seemed not much inclined to fulfil.

Nor was this all: that facetious gentleman Mr. Foote, who, upon the strength and success of his sa­tyrical vein in comedy, had assumed the name of the modern Aristophanes, and at his theatre, had long en­tertained the town with caricatures of living persons, with all their singularities and weaknesses, thought that Johnson at this time was become a fit subject for ridicule, and that an exhibition of him in a drama written for the purpose, in which himself should re­present Johnson, and in his mien, his garb, and his [Page 439] speech, should display all his comic powers, would yield him a golden harvest. Johnson was apprised of his intention; and gave Mr. Foote to understand, that the licence under which he was permitted to entertain the town, would not justify the liberties he was accustomed to take with private characters, and that if he persisted in his design, himself would be a spectator of his disgrace, and would, by a severe chas­tisement of his representative on the stage, and in the face of the whole audience, convince the world, that, whatever were his infirmities, or even his foibles, they should not be made the sport of the public, or the means of gain to any one of his profession ^*. [Page 440] Foote, upon this intimation, had discretion enough to desist from his purpose. Johnson entertained no resentment against him, and they were ever after friends.

Johnson was insensible to the effects of this abuse; but the poem above-mentioned had brought to re­membrance, that his edition of Shakespeare had long been due. His friends took the alarm, and, by all the arts of reasoning and persuasion, laboured to convince him, that having taken subscriptions for a work in which he had made no progress, his credit was at stake. He confessed he was culpable, and promised from time to time to begin a course of such reading as was ne­cessary to qualify him for the work: this was no more than he had formerly done in an engagement with Coxeter, to whom he had bound himself to write the life of Shakespeare, but he never could be prevailed on to begin it, so that, even now, it was questioned whether his promises were to be relied on. For this reason, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some other of his friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time, and this, toge­ther possibly with some distrust of the continuance of his mental powers, set him to work; but, as he had been remiss in making collections for the purpose, he [Page 441] found it an irksome task. Theobald declares, that to settle the text of his author, and to elucidate ob­scure passages in him, he had found it necessary to peruse a great number of plays and other publications, to the very titles of most whereof it is certain Johnson was a stranger. He, it is true, had red as many old Eng­lish books as came in his way, but he had never sought after any such; he was no collector, and in fact was destitute of materials for his work. All therefore that he did, or could do, after the waste of so much time, was, to read over his author in the former edi­tions, and solicit help from his friends; who, if he is not mistaken in his assertion, were but slack in offer­ing him assistance. To me, among others, he did the honour of sending for such notes as he thought I might have made in the course of my reading. Mr. Garrick was his messenger, as he frequently passed by my gate in the country; and, though I was at that time deeply engaged in the History of Music, I fur­nished him with a few remarks, which, unimportant as they are, he thought fit to insert. Others, more valuable, he got from such of his friends as were at leisure to assist him.

The year 1765 gave to the world an edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works by Samuel Johnson, the greatest proficient in vernacular erudition, and one of the ablest critics of his time. Much had been expected from it, and little now appeared to have been performed; a few conjectural emenda­tions of the text, and some scattered remarks on particular passages, were all that was presented to our view that had any pretence to novelty, except [Page 442] some general observations, which serve to illustrate the beauties and mark the defects of the several plays, and are inserted at the end of each.

For the apparent meagreness of the work, the pau­city of the notes, and other evidences of the editor's want of industry, and indeed unfitness for the office of a scholiast, so far as it regards the illustration of the text, some atonement, it must be confessed, is made by the preface, wherein, as if the author had reserved himself for one great effort of his genius, all the powers of eloquence and critical erudition are displayed. In truth, it is an essay on dramatic poesy in general, in which, with a degree of perspicacity that had never before been exercised on the subject, he has exhibited the perfections of his author in a blaze of splendour that distracts us with its radiance. To attemper our admiration, he has, however, thought fit to note the slumbers of even this great genius, his violations of historical truth, his deviations from dramatic regularity, his low conceits, and the frequent recurrence of scenes that suspend actions of importance, and, wherever interposed, are ex­crescences; and this not in a style of perfunctory disquisition, but with such a degree of asperity as critics discover when they are criticising the works of a rival.

For thus detracting from the merit of his favou­rite, Mr. Garrick was to the highest degree exaspe­rated with Johnson: he reproached him, though not to his face, with want of feeling and the knowledge of human nature, of which, he said, he understood nothing, but what he had learned from books:— [Page 443] ‘'All that he writes,' added he, 'comes from his head: Shakespeare, when he sat down to write, dipped his pen into his own heart ^*.'’

[Page 444] Johnson seemed to be conscious that this work would fall short of the expectations it had raised, and endeavoured to ward off the censure of the public by an insinuation in the preface, that his friends had been backward in furnishing him with assistance. The passage is pretty strongly pointed, and is here given in his own words.

‘'Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what I could substitute for their mis­takes, and how I could supply their omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into my hands, I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neg­lecting what I had not the power to do.'’

Few there were who saw this passage, and knew that Mr. Garrick had the earliest editions of all Shakespeare's plays, but construed this into a re­proach on him; in that sense he understood it, and it gave him great offence. To clear himself of the imputation of a conduct so unfriendly, he pro­tested to me, that his collection had ever been ac­cessible to Johnson, and that himself had signified, that any or all the books in it were at his service; and, farther to convince me, he, at the next visit I made him, called in his man Charles, and bade him relate to me his instructions respecting the use of his library, or the loan of books to Johnson.— ‘'Sir,' said the man, 'I was told to let Mr. Johnson have what­ever books he wanted; but he never applied for any ^*.'’

[Page 445] To say the truth, Mr. Garrick was rather forward in offering the use of his library to the writers of the time: he did it to Mr. Whalley, when editing the works of Ben Jonson, and to Dr. Percy, the collector and publisher of the ‘'Reliques of ancient English poetry.'’ His view, as I conjecture, was, to receive, in return for his kindness, thanks, with perhaps some additional compliment; and in these two instances he was gratified with both. I imagine that Johnson was unwilling to buy the favour intended him at that price, and that therefore he declined it.

We are not to suppose that the publication of Shakespeare, a work undertaken without any im­pulse, and executed with reluctance, would greatly add to the literary reputation of Johnson; yet such was the character he had acquired by his dictionary, and other of his writings, that the heads of the uni­versity of Dublin thought him worthy of the highest academical honour that it was in their power to con­fer, and accordingly, on the twenty-third day of July 1765, he was, by them, presented with a diploma, creating him doctor in both laws; a distinction the more to be valued as it was unsolicited, and a volun­tary testimony of the esteem in which he was held by that learned body. The causes assigned for bestowing [Page 446] it are contained in the following words, part of the instrument, ‘'ob egregiam scriptorum elegantiam et utilitatem.'’

His great affection for our own universities, and par­ticularly his attachment to Oxford, prevented Johnson from receiving this honour as it was intended, and he never assumed the title which it conferred. He was as little pleased to be called Doctor in consequence of it, as he was with the title of Domine, which a friend of his once incautiously addressed him by. He thought it alluded to his having been a school­master; and, though he has ably vindicated Milton from the reproach that Salmasius meant to fix on him, by saying that he was of that profession ^*, he wished to have it forgot, that himself had ever been driven to it as the means of subsistence, and had failed in the attempt.

Johnson was now arrived at the fifty-sixth year of his age, and had actually attained to that state of independence, which before he could only affect. He was now in possession of an income that freed him from the apprehensions of want, and exempted him from the necessity of mental labour. He had discharged his obligations to the public, and, with no incumbrance of a family, or any thing to controul his wishes or desires, he had his mode of living to chuse. Blest with what was to him a competence, he had it now in his power to study, to meditate, and to put in practice a variety of good resolutions, which, almost from his first entrance into life, he had been making. [Page 447] Some specimens of these have been given in a collection of prayers and devotional exercises lately published by his direction, to which I could add a great number. They are the effusions of a fervent piety, and the result of most severe examinations of himself in his hours of retirement; and have for their objects, early rising, a good use of time, abstinence, the study of the Scriptures, and a constant attendance on divine worship; in the performance of all which duties he seems to construe his frequent interruptions into cri­minal remissness. One extract from his diary I how­ever here insert, for the purpose of shewing the state of his mind at about the beginning of the year 1766.

[Page 448] It was a frequent practice with him, in his addresses to the divine Majesty, to commemorate and recom­mend to mercy his wife and departed friends; and the knowledge thereof has induced a suspicion, that he adopted the Romish tenet of Purgatory. To clear his memory from this imputation, I am ne­cessitated to mention a few particulars which I learned from him in conversation, that may serve to shew, that no such conclusion is to be drawn from his practice in this respect; for that his ac­quiescence therein arose from a controversy, which, about the year 1715, was agitated between certain divines of a Protestant communion, that professed to deny, not less than they did the doctrine of transubstantiation, that of purgatory.

These were, the non-juring clergy of the time; of whom, and also of their writings, Johnson was ever used to speak with great respect. One of them, Dr. Thomas Brett, was a man profoundly skilled in ritual literature, as appears by a dissertation of his, printed, together with a collection of ancient liturgies, in 1720 ^*; and he, as I infer from the style of the book and the method of reasoning therein, wrote a tract intitled, ‘'Reasons for restoring some prayers and directions, as they stand in the communion-service of the first English reformed liturgy, compiled by the bishops in the second and third years of king Edward VI.'’ among which he argues for the following pe­tition, [Page 449] part of the prayer for the whole state of Christ's church, since called a prayer for the whole state of Christ's church militant here on earth. ‘'We commend unto thy mercye, O Lord, all other thy seruauntes, which are departed hence from us, with the signe of saythe, and now do reste in the slepe of peace: Graunte unto them, we beseche thee, thy mercy, and euerlastyng peace, and that at the daie of the generall resurreccion, we and all they which bee of the misticall body of thy sonne, may altogether bee set on his right hand, and heare that his most ioyfull voice: Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of my father, and possesse the kingdome whiche is prepared for you from the begynning of the worlde: Graunt this, O Father, for Jesus Christes sake, our onely mediatour and aduocate.'’

He first shews, that the recommending the dead to the mercy of God is nothing of the remains of popery, but a constant usage of the primitive church, and for this assertion, he produces the authority of Tertullian, who flourished within an hundred years after the death of the apostle St. John, and also, the authority of St. Cyprian, St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine, by citations from the several writings of those fathers.

He then argues, that this custom neither supposes the modern purgatory, nor gives encouragement to libertinism and vice; that the ancient church be­lieved the recommending the dead a serviceable office; that the custom seems to have gone upon this principle, that supreme happiness is not to be expected till the resurrection, and that the interval [Page 450] between death and the end of the world is a state of imperfect bliss; the church therefore, concludes he, might believe her prayers for good people would improve their condition, and raise the satisfactions of this period.

No one will say that these are mean authorities, or object to the practice of thus recommending the dead, as an innovation, excepting those persons who reject all tradition in matters of religion. Bucer was one that did, and, therefore, being consulted in the revisal of king Edward's first liturgy, he argued, that there being no express warrant in Scripture for the practice, prayer for the dead was sinful; and, accordingly, the words contended for were omitted in the second.

This tract was, with great acuteness, and no less learning, answered by another nonjuring divine, in one intitled ‘'No sufficient reasons for restoring some prayers and directions of king Edward the sixth's liturgy.'’ A reply was given to it, and the contro­versy was carried on to a great length; the result of it was, a schism among the nonjurors: those, for restoring the prayers, compiled a new communion-office; others, who were against widening the breach with the nati­onal church, chose to abide by the present form; and this diversity of sentiments and practice was, as John­son once told me, the ruin of the nonjuring cause.

In the study of this controversy, which I have rea­son to think interested Johnson very deeply, he seems to have taken part with Dr. Brett and the separatists his followers, whose conduct is accounted for and vindicated, in the dissertation on liturgies above­mentioned.

[Page 451] Such as are disposed to charge Johnson with weak­ness and superstition, and are so weak as to insinuate that, because he recommended his deceased wife and friends to the divine mercy, (though with the quali­sying words, ‘'so far as it may be lawful')’ he must have been popishly affected, or a believer in the doctrine of purgatory, may hence learn to be less severe in their censures, and lament their ignorance of ecclesiastical history, which would have taught them, that the prac­tice prevailed, long before popery was established, or purgatory thought of; and that, though it may not upon the whole be defensible, there is more to be said for it, than many of the enemies to his memory are able to answer ^*.

And to those of his friends, who think that, for the sake of his reputation, the prayers and meditations, in which these sentiments have appeared, should have been suppressed, it ought surely to be an answer, that they were put into the hands of the reverend divine, who, to my knowledge, attended him with great affection and assiduity through his last illness, with an express charge to commit them to the press, and who, if he had forborne this friendly office, had deprived a charitable and laudable institution of a be­nefit, which the performance of it was intended to confer.

With a view to improve the leisure he now enjoyed, and seemingly determined to reform those habits of indolence, which, in the former part of his life, he had [Page 452] contracted, he removed from the Temple into a house in Johnson's court, Fleet street, and invited thither his friend Mrs. Williams. An upper room, which had the advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study, and furnished with books, chosen with so little regard to editions or their external ap­pearance, as shewed they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of learning. Here, he was in a situation and circumstances that en­abled him to enjoy the visits of his friends, and to receive them in a manner suitable to the rank and condition of many of them. A silver standish, and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished those ap­pearances of squalid indigence, which, in his less happy days, disgusted those who came to see him.

In one of his diaries he noted down a resolution to take a seat in the church: this he might possibly do about the time of this his removal. The church he frequented was that of St. Clement Danes, which, though not his parish-church, he preferred to that of the Temple, which I recommended to him, as being free from noise, and, in other respects, more commo­dious. His only reason was, that in the former he was best known. He was not constant in his at­tendance on divine worship; but, from an opinion peculiar to himself, and which he once intimated to me, seemed to wait for some secret impulse as a mo­tive to it.

[Page 453] I could never collect from his discourse, that he was drawn to public worship by the charms of pul­pit eloquence, or any affection for popular preachers, who, in general, are the worst; nor can I form any judgment of the value he set on it, having never been present with him at church but once, and that at a time, when, in compliment to him, as it may be sup­posed, the preacher gave us a sermon, that red like a Saturday's Rambler ^*, and was, by many, soon dis­covered to have been cast in the same mould, or, in other words, of Johnson's composing; but he seemed to think it a duty to accept in good part the endea­vours of all public instructors, however meanly qua­lified for the office, and ever to forbear exercising his critical talents on the effusions of men inferior in learning and abilities to himself. Probably he, on such occasions, recollected the quaint distich of Her­bert:

Or he might have red, among the essays of the Messieurs of Port-Royal, one that teaches us how to profit by bad preaching.

The Sundays which he passed at home were, ne­vertheless, spent in private exercises of devotion ^†, [Page 454] and sanctified by acts of charity of a singular kind: on that day he accepted of no invitation abroad, but gave a dinner to such of his poor friends as might else have gone without one.

He had little now to conflict with but what he called his morbid melancholy, which, though oppres­sive, had its intermissions, and left him the free ex­ercise of all his faculties, and the power of enjoying the conversation of his numerous friends and visitants. These reliefs he owed in a great measure to the use of opium, which, as I have elsewhere mentioned, he was accustomed to take in large quantities, the effect whereof was generally such an exhilaration of his spirits as he sometimes suspected for intoxication.

I am now about to mention a remarkable era of his life, distinguished by a connexion that, for many years, was a source of great satisfaction and comfort to him. It was a friendship, contracted, as his diary imports, in 1765, with Mr. Thrale, a brewer, in Southwark, who, though a follower of a trade, which in other countries is lightly thought of, yet as in this it implies great opulence, and the power of conducing in various ways to the interests of the community, ranked as a gentleman. He had received the be­nefit of an university education, and was a represen­tative in parliament, as his father had been, for the above-mentioned borough; and in every view of his character, could not but be deemed a valuable addi­tion [Page 455] to the number of Johnson's friends. To his villa at Streatham, in Surrey, Johnson was invited, not as a guest, but as a resiant, whenever he was disposed to change the town for the coun­try air: for his accommodation, an apartment was allotted; for his entertainment, a library was fur­nished with such books as himself chose, and little was wanting to persuade him, that, when at Streatham, he was at home. He soon experienced the salutary ef­fects of his new abode, and there is little doubt that to it he was indebted for some years of his life.

It might have been expected that Johnson, in the easy circumstances in which he had for some time felt himself, and with such a love of independence as he affected, would have declined obligations that he was unable to repay, at least in kind; but he knew that friendship weighs not in a balance the fa­vours it confers. Mr. Thrale's tenders carried in them all the evidences of sincerity, and he had the example of men, equally wise with himself, to justify his acceptance of such invitations as were now made him ^*. The only obligation they subjected him to [Page 456] was, that of supporting his character, and, in a family where there were many visitants, furnishing such con­versation, as was to be expected from a man who had distinguished himself by his learning, his wit, and his eloquence. This, it must be confessed, was a burdensome task to one who, like others, must be supposed to have had his sombrous intervals, and, in the hour of repletion, to wish for the indulgence of being silent, or, at least, of talking like other men. To be continually uttering apophthegms, or speeches worthy of remembrance, was more than could have been expected of Socrates ^†.

[Page 457] Besides the conveniences for study, with which he was furnished at Streatham, he had opportunities of exercise, and the pleasure of airings and excursions. He was once prevailed on by Mr. Thrale to join in [Page 458] the pleasures of the chace, in which he shewed himself a bold rider, for he either leaped, or broke through, many of the hedges that obstructed him. This he did, not because he was eager in the pursuit, but, as he said, to save the trouble of alighting and remounting. He did not derive the pleasure or benefit from riding that many do: it had no tendency to raise his spi­rits; and he once told me that, in a journey on horse­back, he fell asleep. In the exercise of a coach he had great delight; it afforded him the indulgence of indolent postures, and, as I discovered when I have had him in my own, the noise of it assisted his hearing ^*.

It cannot be supposed but that these indulgences were a great relief to Johnson in his declining years; they, nevertheless, indisposed him for meditation and reflection; and, as he has noted in his diary, assigning for the reason the irregularity of the family, it broke his habit of early rising, which he had persisted in from new-year's day 1765, to about the midsummer following ^†. It is possible that the family, had they [Page 459] been disposed to it, might with equal truth have com­plained, that he was little less irregular, and that, if they obliged him to break his resolution of early rising, he often prevented their retiring to rest, at a seasonable hour, that he might not want the gratifi­cation of tea.

About this time, Johnson had the honour of a con­versation with his majesty, in the library, at the queen's house. Whether the occasion of it was accidental, or otherwise, I have never been informed; but from this account of it, given by him, it afforded him great sa­tisfaction. He spoke to me of the king's behaviour, in terms of the highest gratitude and approbation, and described it as equalling in grace and condescen­sion what might have been expected from Lewis the fourteenth, when the manners of the French court were in the highest state of cultivation. The public are already in possession of the handsome compliment which his majesty made him; I will, nevertheless, give it here a place: he asked Johnson, if he intended to give the world any more of his compositions; Johnson answered, he believed he should not, for that he thought he had written enough; ‘'I should have thought so too,' replied his majesty, 'if you had not written so well ^†.'’

[Page 460] Johnson was now approaching towards sixty. He was an exact computer of time, and, as his essays abundantly shew, regretted deeply the lapse of those minutes that could not be recalled, and though, in his own judgment of himself, he had been criminal in the waste of it, he was ever resolving to subtract from his sleep those hours which are fittest for study and meditation. Numberless are the resolutions that I meet with in his diaries, for a series of years back, to rise at eight; but he was unable, for any long conti­nuance, to perform them, a weakness, less inexcusable than he thought it, for he was ever a bad sleeper, and was sufficiently sensible of his infirmity, in that respect, to have allayed his scrupulosity, had he not been a most rigorous judge of his actions. To im­press the more strongly on his mind the value of time, and the use it behoved every wise man to make of it, he indulged himself in an article of luxury, which, as far as my observation and remembrance will serve me, he never enjoyed till this late period of his lise: it was a watch, which he caused to be made for him, in the year 1768, by those eminent artists Mudge and Dutton: it was of metal, and the outer case covered with tortoise-shell; he paid for it seventeen guineas. On the dial-plate thereof, which [Page 461] was of enamel, he caused to be inscribed, in the ori­ginal Greek, these words of our blessed Saviour, [...] ^*, but with the mistake of a letter μ for ν: the meaning of them is, ‘'For the night cometh.'’ This, though a memento of great importance, he, about three years after, thought pedantic; he, there­fore, exchanged the dial-plate for one in which the in­scription was omitted.

In the same year, 1768, upon the establishment of the royal academy of painting, sculpture, &c. Johnson was nominated professor of ancient literature, an of­fice merely honorary, and conferred on him, as it is supposed, upon the recommendation of the president, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

In the variety of subjects on which he had exer­cised his pen, Johnson had hitherto forborne to med­dle with the disputes of contending factions, which is all, that, at this day, is to be understood by the word politics. He was ever a friend to government, in a general sense of the term, as knowing what be­nefits society derives from it; and was never tempted to write on the side of what is called opposition, but at a period of his life, when experience had not enabled him to judge of the motives which induce men to assume the characters of patriots. In the year 1769, he saw with indignation the methods which, in the business of Wilkes, were taken to work upon the po­pulace, and, in 1770, published a pamphlet, intitled, ‘'The false alarm,'’ wherein he asserts, and labours to shew, by a variety of arguments founded on prece­dents, that the expulsion of a member of the house of [Page 462] commons, for such offences as he had been convicted of, was both just and seasonable, and that no such calamity as the subversion of the constitution, was to be feared from an act, that had usage, which is the law of parliament, to warrant it. The non-acquies­cence of the people interested in the question, is there­fore branded by him with folly and madness, in the following animated expressions:— ‘'Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discon­tent, and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with the exhortations and me­naces of faction. The madness has spread through all ranks and both sexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr. Wilkes: honest simplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wise have es­caped the infection.'’

To ridicule the conduct of opposition, he adopts a term, invented by the leaders thereof, and calls the conjuncture of events, at the time of which he is speaking, an alarming crisis, but endeavours to abate the fears of its termination, by alluding to parliamen­tary decisions apparently partial, and sometimes op­pressive; and shewing, that the vexation excited by injustice, suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man or single community, was local and tem­porary. This position he illustrates by the following observation: ‘'We have found by experience, that though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has been compelled to see its dearest interests in the hands of him whom it did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and whatever talk has been of the danger of pro­perty, [Page 463] yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built the house was master of the door.'’

In a tone more grave, he addresses such as are ca­pable of conviction, and tells them—that ‘'they have as much happiness as the condition of life will easily receive; and that a government, of which an erro­neous, or unjust, representation of one county only, is the greatest crime that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is a government approaching nearer to perfection than any that experience has shewn, or history related.'’

The pamphlet concludes with some shrewd re­marks on the support given to faction by the sec­taries, and that frigid neutrality of the tories in this business, which he censures in these words: ‘'They do not yet consider that they have at last a king, who knows not the name of a party, and who wishes to be the common father of his people.'’

It was not to be imagined, that a publication, so unpopular as this, would long remain unanswered. Of many answers to it, one alone seemed to Johnson worthy of a reply; but, in a consultation with his friends, he was advised to forbear. Had he engaged in a vindication of ‘'The false alarm,'’ the world might possibly have been entertained with a speci­men of his abilities in controversial writing, in which there is little doubt that he would have displayed the temper and perspicuity of Hooker, the strength of Chillingworth, and the dexterity of Hoadly, though, in truth, he was no friend to controversy; [Page 464] his opinion on that subject being, that it seldom produced conviction, that an impotent argument against a book was best resuted by silence, and that it is want of policy to give immortality to that which must of itself expire.

In the next succeeding year, a subject of more general importance to the interests of this country engaged his attention: it was a question between us and the court of Spain, touching the pre-discovery, and, consequently, the right of dominion over certain islands in the South seas, known to us by the name of Pepys's or Falkland's islands, and to the Spa­niards by that of the Malouines, spots of earth so inconsiderable, as Johnson asserts, that in the desert of the ocean they had almost escaped human notice; and which, if they had not happened to make a sea­mark, had perhaps never had a name. Lord Anson, in his voyage, had noticed these islands, and the re­lator thereof had recommended them as necessary to the success of any future expedition against the coast of Chili, and, of such importance, that the pos­session of them would produce many advantages in peace; and in war would make us masters of the South sea. In 1748, our ministry sent out a few sloops, for a fuller knowledge of Pepy's and Falk­land's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea; but, upon a remonstrance of Wall, the Spanish ambassador here, maintaining the right of his master to the exclusive dominion of the South sea, they relinquished part of their original design, and our purpose of settling there was disowned. Thus the matter rested, till lord Egmont was appointed to the [Page 465] direction of our naval operations, who, in the year 1765, sent out an expedition, the commander whereof took possession of Falkland's island in the name of his Britannic majesty, and placed a garrison in a place of defence, to which he gave the appellation of Port Egmont. In this settlement, we were soon after dis­turbed; for Madariaga, a Spanish commodore, with five frigates and a train of artillery, appearing before the island, obliged our people to capitulate, and ob­tained possession. This event was no sooner known at our court, than hostilities against Spain were re­solved on, and a powerful fleet was assembled: these preparations brought on a conference between prince Masserano, the Spanish ambassador here, and our mi­nister, and a subsequent negociation at Madrid, between Mr. Harris our minister there, and the marquis Gri­maldi: the result was, a disavowal on the part of Spain of the violent enterprise of Buccarelli, the governor of Buenos Ayres, who had sent the force that dispossessed the English, and a promise to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and stores therein, but with a declaration, that this engagement should not affect the question of the prior right of sovereignty of the Malouine, otherwise called Falkland's islands ^*.

[Page 466] The acquiescence of our court in these concessions of that of Madrid, and the reference of a disputable question to the Greek calends, furnished the leaders of faction with a new topic for clamour, and war be­came the cry. The heavy burthen of debt, incurred by the last, was no reason against a new one, and mil­lions were to be expended, and thousands murdered, for the titular sovereignty of an island, which Johnson thus strongly and even poetically characterises:— ‘'A bleak and gloomy solitude, an island thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer: an island which not the southern sava­ges have dignified with habitation; where a garrison must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expence will be perpetual, and the use only occasional, and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the future refuge of buccaniers.'’

These are his sentiments respecting the incommo­dities of this contested settlement: against the advan­tages suggested by the relator of Anson's expedition, whom he represents as having written under the in­fluence of a heated imagination, he opposes the fol­lowing arguments, founded in true policy and sound morality:

To silence this clamour, to defeat the purposes of a wicked and malevolent faction, to allay the thirst for human blood, and to bring the deluded people to a sense of their true interest, was the aim of Johnson in writing this most judicious pamphlet: he succeeded in his endeavour, the miseries of war were averted, the contractors disappointed, and a few months restored the populace to the use of their understandings.

In a review of the several particulars herein before related, it will appear, that Johnson's course of life [Page 469] was very uniform. London was a place of residence which he preserred to all others, as affording more intelligence, and better opportunities of conversation than were elsewhere to be found, and he was but little delighted either with rural scenes or manners. No­velty, and variety of occupations, it is true, were objects that engaged his attention, and from these he never failed to extract information. Though born and bred in a city, he well understood both the theory and prac­tice of agriculture, and even the management of a farm: he could describe, with great accuracy, the pro­cess of malting; and, had necessity driven him to it, could have thatched a dwelling. Of field recreations, such as hunting, setting, and shooting, he would dis­course like a sportsman, though his personal defects rendered him, in a great measure, incapable of de­riving pleasure from any such exercises.

But he had taken a very comprehensive view of human life and manners, and, that he was well ac­quainted with the views and pursuits of all classes and characters of men, his writings abundantly shew. This kind of knowledge he was ever desirous of in­creasing, even as he advanced in years: to gratify it, he was accessible to all comers, and yielded to the in­vitations of such of his friends as had residences in the country, to vary his course of living, and pass the pleasanter months of the year in the shades of ob­scurity.

In these visits, where there were children in the family, he took great delight in examining them as to their progress in learning, or, to make use of a [Page 470] term almost obsolete, of apposing them ^*. To this purpose, I once heard him say, that in a visit to Mrs. Percy, who had the care of one of the young princes, at the queen's house, the prince of Wales, being then a child, came into the room, and began to play about; when Johnson, with his usual curiosity, took an op­portunity of asking him what books he was reading, and, in particular, enquired as to his knowledge of the Scriptures: the prince, in his answers, gave him great satisfaction; and, as to the last, said, that part of his daily exercises was to read Ostervald. In many families into which he went, the fathers were often desirous of producing their sons to him for his opi­nion of their parts, and of the proficiency they had [Page 471] made at school, which, in frequent instances, came out to be but small. He once told me, that being at the house of a friend, whose son in his school-vacation was come home, the father spoke of this child as a lad of pregnant parts, and said, that he was well versed in the classics, and acquainted with history, in the study whereof he took great delight Having this infor­mation, Johnson, as a test of the young scholar's at­tainments, put this question to him:— ‘'At what time did the heathen oracles cease?'—’The boy, not in the least daunted, answered:— ‘'At the disso­lution of religious houses.'’

By the exercise of such offices as these; by his dis­position to encourage children in their learning, and joining admonition to instruction, to exhort them to obedience to their parents and teachers, Johnson r [...]ndered himself a welcome guest in all the families into which he was admitted, and, in various ways, did he employ his talents in the gratification of his friends. A gentleman, with whom he had maintained a long and strict friendship, had the misfortune to lose his wife, and wished Johnson, from the outlines of her ch [...]racter, which he should give him, and his own knowledge of her worth, to compose a monumental inscription for her: he returned the husband thanks for the confidence he placed in him, and acquitted himself of the task in the following fine eulogium, now to be seen in the parish church of Watford in Hertfordshire:

He had long been solicited by Mr. James Boswell, a native of Scotland, and one that highly valued him, to accompany him in a journey to the Hebrides, or Western islands of that kingdom, as to a part of the world in which nature was to be viewed in her rudest and most terrific form; and where, whatever was [Page 473] wanting to delight the eye, or soothe the imagination, was made up by objects that could not fail to expand it, and turn delight into astonishment; and being now, in the year 1773, his own master, having no literary engagement to fulfil, he accepted the invi­tation. He began the tour proposed, in the autumn of the year above-mentioned, and, computing from the eighteenth day of August, when he left Edin­burgh, to the ninth of November, when he returned thither, completed it in seven weeks and six days; and, at his return to England, drew up and published an account of it.

The Western islands of Scotland are called by the ancient geographers, the Aebudae and Hebrides. The Scotch historians, namely, Hector Boethius, bishop Lesly, Buchanan, and Johnson, have given us little more concerning them than their names. Cam­den has given a general, but brief description of them, and speaks of their number as about forty-four; but bishop Gibson adds, that they have been reckoned at three hundred, in which computation every spot or islet must be supposed to be included: but a parti­cular description of the Western islands was wanting to the world till the year 1703, when a person of the name of Martin, published a book with that title, containing a full account of those islands, and of the government, religion, and customs of the inhabitants thereof; and also, ‘'of the second sight or faculty of fore-seeing things by vision, so common among them.'’

Of this writer little more is known, than that of which himself seems to be the relator, viz. that he was born in one of the most spacious and fertile isles [Page 474] in the west of Scotland; and, besides his liberal edu­cation at the university, had the advantage of seeing foreign places, and conversing with some of the royal society; but who, nevertheless, seems to have been a very weak, credulous, and superstitious man, and, notwithstanding his liberal education, with respect both to matter and form, an injudicious writer. The same person had a few years before made a voyage to St. Kilda, the most remote of the Western islands, and, in 1698, published a description thereof.

The defects of Martin, in the accounts given by him of the Hebrides, and the inhabitants of the se­veral isles so called, are amply supplied by a late traveller thither, Mr. Pennant, who, in the years 1769 and 1772 made the tour of Scotland, and, with a curious and penetrating eye remarked all that seems to have been worthy of notice, respecting either the situation of the spots by him described, or the people whom necessity has doomed, or par­ticular circumstances have led, to become dwellers there.

The extent of these islands, from north to south, is computed at two hundred miles, and their medium width such as, were they one continent, would make a country as large as Scotland. Of the inhabitants, those of St. Kilda for instance, some are Christians, resembling, both in their religious tenets and the pu­rity of their lives, those of the primitive times; others are of the Romish communion, and the rest are of that denomination of protestants, who adhere to the reformation of that furious bigot John Knox. The civil constitution of these several tracts of land, for countries they are not to be called, is uniform: [Page 475] it is feudatory, and of this the many castles and places of defence, every where visible among them, in which their lords and chieftains reside, are evident proofs. In extent of land they differ greatly: Sky, the largest of them, is above sixty measured miles long; but, the greater number of them are less than four miles in length, and two in breadth. Iona, or Icolmkill, is but two miles long and one broad, yet, it was once an episcopal seat, and had on it a cathedral and a place of sepulture, in which no fewer than forty-eight Scottish, eight Norwegian, and four Irish kings, are interred; and also, two monastic establish­ments, the one for men, the other for women: the ruins of these edifices are yet remaining, and may be seen, accurately delineated, in Mr. Pennant's ‘'Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides,'’ made in 1772, and published in 1774. Others of these isles are yet smaller: Cannay is three miles by one, and Staffa is a mile long, and half a mile broad, and has but one house.

The situation of these islands, in the bosom of the deep, exposed to howling winds, and beating waves that excavate their very foundations, and rains whose intermission is little more than casual, together with the inconveniences of an excision from the continent, is a circumstance so much against them, as to deprive the inhabitants of many of the greatest social com­forts, and the possibility of subsisting under the want of them is hardly conceivable. It is true, that in some of the islands, nearest the continent, the necessa­ries, and some of the luxuries, of life are attainable, by a communication with the nearest shore; but extreme indigence is the lot of all the islanders, excepting their [Page 476] chieftains, and the proprietors of land held in feudal subjection immediately under them. In the subordi­nate ranks, the condition of the people is so forlorn and destitute, that, were it not that they are as virtuous and innocent as they are poor, they must be deemed the most wretched inhabitants of the earth ^*.

[Page 477] The circumstances of discrimination between these people and the rest of mankind, are so many, and their characters, by consequence, so different, their manners and customs so singular, and their mode of life so in­consistent with all that can be conceived, even in the lowest degree of civilization, that we are not to seek [Page 478] for the motives which, at different times, have induced travellers to visit them.

The islands which Johnson and his friend saw, though few in comparison with the whole number, [Page 479] were some of the most considerable of the Hebrides; and his manner of describing them and the inhabi­tants, as also, his reception, is entertaining; but it is not enough particular to render it intelligible to a stranger. In the relation of historical facts, and local circumstances, Johnson delighted not: whatever in­telligence came in his way, furnished him with mat­ter for reflection, and his book is rather a disquisition on Hebridian manners, than such a description of the islands and the people as it was in his power to give.

As an instance of Johnson's inattention to histo­rical facts, let me mention his account of Icolmkill ^*, called also Iona, which, though introduced by a sen­timent that is admired for its piety and pathos of expression, is so abrupt, as to displease. He calls it that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion; but who can read thus much, concerning a spot so dignified, without wishing, that the author had mentioned a few of those histo­rical particulars, on which his reflections are founded? He might have told us from Bede, that the island takes its name from Columb, an abbot, who, about [Page 480] the year 565, came from Ireland, and preached the Gospel to the northern Picts, and was called the apostle of the Picts, and that Melischen their king, being converted to the faith of Christ, gave the abbot the isle of Iona, by Bede called Hy or Hu, who built two churches thereon, in one whereof he is interred, and also a monastery.

Bede flourished about 734, and may be said to speak from recent authority. Bishop Gibson has re­cognised his account, and adds, that in a little village here, or hereabout, named Sodor, or, as others call it, Soa, a bishop's see was erected, from which all the adjacent isles, including Iona, took the name of So­dorenses: the jurisdiction thereof, he elsewhere says, was given to the bishop of the isle of Man, and hence arises the compound appellative, bishop of Sodor and Man. In the first of these particulars, he, how­ever, stands corrected in a relation cited by Mr. Pen­nant, and founded on good authority, purporting, that during the time that the Norwegians were in possession of the isles, they divided them into two parts; the northern, which comprehended all that lay to the north of a certain promontory, and were, there­fore, called the Norderys; and the southern, which were those that lay to the south thereof, and were, for a similar reason, called the Suderys. Voyage to the Hebrides, 257.

I have some reason to think that, in writing the account of his journey to the Western islands, John­son had in his eye one of the most delightful books of the like kind in our language, ‘'Maundrell's journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem.'’ The motives that in­duced him to undertake a labour so formidable to a [Page 481] man of his age, as his tour must be thought, I will not enquire into: doubtless, curiosity was one of them; but, it was curiosity directed to no peculiar object. He was neither an antiquary nor a natura­list; he had little acquaintance with the treasures which lie below the surface of the earth; and for the study of botany he never discovered the least re­lish. If any particular subject may be said to have engaged his attention, it must have been the manners of a people of whom he knew little but by report, the knowledge whereof might furnish him with new topics for reflection and disquisition, an exercise of his mental powers which, of all others, he most de­lighted in. That in this employment he has con­ducted himself with that impartiality which becomes a lover of truth, the natives of the kingdom he visited deny; and, that he carried out of this country the tem­per of a man who hoped for an hospitable reception among strangers, few are so hardy as to assert. Accord­ingly, we find in his narrative an intermixture, not only of praise and blame, but of gratitude and invective.

The volume which this tour gave birth to may pro­perly be called a dissertation, for it has scarcely any facts, and consists chiefly in propositions which he hunts down, and enlivens with amusing disquisition. As he says himself, on another occasion, the negative cata­logue of particulars is very copious: what he did not see, what he could not learn, what he would not believe, what he did not enquire about, and what he is not sure of, altogether form a considerable enumeration. Yet the merit of this tract is great; for, though I will admit that no one going his route could derive from him direction or intelligence; though no remembrance [Page 482] could be refreshed, nor remarks corroborated; be­cause his web was spun, not from objects that pre­sented themselves to his view, but from his own pre­existent ideas; I am convinced, that every body must have regretted the omission, had he, for any reason, withheld so entertaining a series of reflections.

A reference to the work will discover both the cause and effect of the confined observation that must be remarked in it: he pofesses his views to be directed to life and manners: of the former, if taken in its general sense, he could obtain a very ina­dequate knowledge who was entertained by the opu­lent, at the best houses, with the best fare of the country, and who, while he suffered no inconveni­ence within doors, enquired after little without; and, of the latter he could gain little information, for the manners he most closely observed were imported from the places where southern elegance is taught. His known love of ease precluded him from intelligence: all deficiencies by which he could suffer, the natural hospitality of those to whom he was a guest, tempo­rarily supplied or concealed, and happy was it for him that he found not the same prejudices that he carried with him.

In all Johnson's disquisitions, whether argumentative or critical, there is a certain even-handed justice that leaves the mind in a strange perplexity. When he speaks of the paucity of trees in Scotland, his indig­nation seems excited at the supineness it manifested. He says— ‘'to drop a seed into the ground can cost nothing, and the trouble is not great of protecting the young plant till it is out of danger.'—’In this the reader willingly acquiesces, and wonders, with [Page 483] Johnson, that plantation is neglected, till he is told in the conclusion of the paragraph, that it must be al­lowed difficult, where there is neither wood for pali­sades, nor thorns for hedges. He again, in a subse­quent page, resumes the same kind of satirical admi­ration, which he balances by observing, that the land which covers future forests cannot be arable. This also is satisfactory: the question of first importance certainly is—Where shall corn grow?—no one will deny, that food must be secured, before the delights of foliage, or the emoluments of timber are thought of. But all our wonder and regret at national inac­tivity, is dissipated, when we are told, that Sir James Macdonald had made an experiment by planting several millions of trees, which the want of fences to keep the cattle off, had rendered abortive. Thus it is that he frequently raises an edifice, which appears founded and supported to resist any attack; and then, with the next stroke, annihilates it, and leaves the va­cuity he found.

With respect to the inaccuracy he has been charged with, it must, in justice, be imputed to the defect of his perceptions: he neither saw nor heard clearly; and, though this might be urged against his attempt­ing to relate what he had met with or been told, it must be admitted in excuse for any mis-representa­tion; since no one could acquire credit by doubting the uniform veracity of Johnson. He candidly con­fesses his inability, whenever he suspected it; and owns, that his thoughts are the thoughts of one who has seen little.

I wish I could as readily apologize for the manner in which he speaks of the people of that part of Scot­land [Page 484] he visited. He seems to think a barren soil disgraceful to the proprietors; and his aversion is most excited, where he finds the comforts of life most sparingly bestowed: where he meets with refinement, he is placid, and is unwilling to depart from elegance; but, when he is displeased, or unsatisfied, he expresses himself with a keenness of satire, which, however it may delight by its poignancy, is not to be justified; and I have reason to think very highly, not only of the kindness which consulted his humour, but of that temper and forbearance which restrained those persons who, while they were endeavouring to gratify him, received indubitable proof of his antipathy to their country.

But it is due to him to take notice, that in civility he has preserved the same equilibrium as in argu­ment. If he has stigmatized Scotland as a country, and the Scots as a people, his compliments to indi­viduals, in some measure atone for it: they are judi­cious, elegant, and well conceived, and express the sense of gratitude proportioned to the favours he experienced.

I will not repeat, for I do not wish to perpetuate, those passages that have given disgust. I have ever esteemed the Scots as a brave, useful, and virtuous people, and should be very sorry if they imagined Johnson's prejudices common to their southern neighbours. If, in his journey across their continent, he had remembered, that a very commendable and well-directed spirit of literary industry had distin­guished them, and, when among the Hebridians, that a perpetual struggle against difficulties, and a pa­tient toleration of irremediable evils, is eminently [Page 485] laudable, I am persuaded he would have written with less asperity, and that his remarks would not have given that offence which I cannot but own well founded.

It is no less to be lamented, that he left not behind him those prejudices against the ecclesiastical estab­lishment of Scotland and the religious persuasion of the people, which, though in England they gave little offence, could not, in that kingdom, be indulged without the suspicion of bigotry. It is pretty well agreed that, between the church of England and that of Scotland, the questions in dispute relate not to doctrines, but to discipline, which, in the judgment of many sober persons, is numbered among things indifferent. Being in a country of which Christianity, in its utmost purity, is the religion, it might have been expected, that Johnson, with a true catholic spirit, and as a testimony of respect for their teachers, would occasionally have been present at divine service in their churches; but his narrative contains not the least hint of any such compliance, though he has noted his joining in public worship at the English non-juring episcopal chapel at Aberdeen ^*.

From a tour to which he had no stronger an incen­tive, from which he was so little able to extract plea­sure, and which had occasioned a suspension of the enjoyments he found in a metropolis, it seems at first wonderful, that he should have returned satisfied: [Page 486] that he did so is certain; and it must be attributed to the gratification he felt in the respect that had been paid to him, in seeing the celebrity he had acquired, and in increasing the stock of his ideas.

Had Johnson been more explicit in his acknow­ledgments of the hospitable and courteous treatment he experienced from a people, who had reason to look on him rather as a spy than a traveller, and might have said to him— ‘'To discover the naked­ness of the land are ye come,'—’he would have given a proof, that he had, in some degree, overcome his prejudices against them and their country; but they seemed to be unconquerable.

One of the last duties we learn, is that of consi­dering mankind as one great family, and the natives of foreign countries, however differing from us in opinions, manners, customs, and other particulars, as standing in the same relation with ourselves to the common Father of us all: a duty which leads us, as Thompson elegantly expresses it, to

Johnson's prejudices were too strong to permit him to extend his philanthropy much beyond the limits of his native country, and the pale of his own church; and, that he was unable to conquer his habits of think­ing and judging, is the only apology that can be offered for his asperity towards the people whose country and manners he, in his journey above spoken of, has taken upon him to describe; or that he has forborne to display any such generous sentiments respecting the inhabitants of Scotland as others have done who have visited that country.

[Page 487] In the close of his book he might have at large expressed some sense of gratitude for the many courtesies that had been shewn him. He might at least have said, ‘'the barbarous people shewed us much kindness;'’ but the last paragraph is frigid and unanimated to an excess of affectation, and must ever suffer by a comparison with the conclusion of Mr. Pennant's Tour, which, as well for its elegance, as the benevolent spirit which it evidences, I here insert.

‘'I look back to the North, and with a grateful mind acknowledge every benefit I received, from the remotest of the Hebrides to the present spot; whether I think of the hospitality of the rich, or the efforts of unblameable poverty, straining every nerve to accommodate me, amidst dreary hills and ungenial skies. The little accidents of diet or of lodging, affect not me: I look farther than the mere differences of living or of customs, to the good heart, and extensive benevolence, which softens every hardship, and turns into delicacies the grossest fare. My constitution never yet was disposed to apathy, for which I can claim no merit, but am thankful to the author of my frame.'—’And, in a quotation from the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Brown, he adds:— ‘"I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can discover in others: those national repugnancies do not touch me; nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch, much more my fellow­subjects, howsoever remotely placed from me. But, where I find their actions in balance with my coun­trymen's, I honour, love, and embrace them in [Page 488] some degree. I was born in the right climate, but seem to be framed and constellated unto all: all places, all airs, make unto me one country; I am in England every where and under every me­ridian."’

I must here observe, as it was a circumstance that gave him some trouble after his return to England, that during his stay in the Hebrides, Johnson was very industrious in his enquiries touching the Earse language, with a view to ascertain the degree of credit due to certain poems then lately published and as­cribed to Ossian, an ancient bard, who, till then, had scarce been heard of. His opinion, upon the question of their genuineness, is pretty decisive, and will ap­pear best in his own words.

No sooner did this strong and unequivocal de­claration of Johnson's opinion of the poems of Ossian appear, than Mr. James Macpherson, the publisher of them, not only repelled the charge of forgery therein contained, but, in a letter to the author of it, threatened him with corporal chastisement. If Mr. Macpherson had known his man, he would pro­bably have forborne the thought of such a revenge. To shew his contempt of him and all that he was able to do that could hurt him, Johnson returned the following brief but spirited answer:

Whether Johnson was apprehensive that his adver­sary would put his threat in execution, or that he meant to shew all who came to see him, that he stood upon his guard, he provided himself with a weapon, both of the defensive and offensive kind. It was an oak-plant of a tremendous size; a plant, I say, and not a shoot or branch, for it had had a root, which being trimmed to the size of a large orange, became the head of it. Its height was upwards of six feet, and from about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to near three: this he kept in his bed-chamber, so near the chair in which he con­stantly sat, as to be within reach.

But this precaution for his defence turned out to be unnecessary. Johnson's letter, above inserted, put an end to the dispute between him and Macpherson; but, by other persons, it was continued with a degree of asperity equal to that which was shewn in the con­troversy [Page 492] concerning the genuineness of Phalaris's epistles, and with as much acuteness as that which tended to ascertain the question, whether the poems lately ascribed to Rowlie are not forgeries. Mode­rators have also interposed, as there did in the dispute about the authenticity of the Sybilline oracles, and with as little success: the world remains, and is likely ever to remain, without satisfaction in respect of either the one or the other.

Before this time, Johnson had undertaken to revise the former edition of his Shakespeare, and extend his plan, by admitting the corrections and illustrations of various other commentators. He therefore, in con­junction with Mr. George Steevens, published in 1773, a new edition of that author, in ten octavo volumes, which was republished with additions in 1778.

In 1774, the parliament having been dissolved, and Mr. Wilkes persisting in his endeavours to be­come a representative in that which was about to be chosen, Johnson addressed to the electors of Great Britain a pamphlet, entitled ‘'The Patriot;'’ the de­sign whereof is to guard them from imposition, and teach them to distinguish that which, of itself seems sufficiently obvious, the difference between true and false patriotism; but the madness of the people was then at its height, and they needed to be told how often in their lucid intervals they had lamented the deceits practised on them by artful and designing men. With this view, he describes a patriot, as one whose public conduct is regulated by one single mo­tive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every [Page 493] thing to the common interest. These, and other marks of patriotism by him pointed out, he allows to be such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly mis­apply; but he enumerates several characteristical modes of speaking and acting, which may prove a man not to be a patriot; which discrimination he illustrates in sundry instances, by pointed references to the conduct of many of those men who were courting the favour of the people: these, an abridg­ment would injure, and I therefore give them in his own words: ‘'It may safely be pronounced, that those men are no patriots, who, when the nati­onal honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to a disavowal of their at­tempt, and a relaxation of their claim, would still have instigated us to a war for a bleak and barren spot in the Magellanic ocean, of which no use could be made, unless it were a place of exile for the hy­pocrites of patriotism.—He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights, cannot be a pa­triot. That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims of American usur­pation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its natural and lawful authority over its own colo­nies, those colonies which were settled under Eng­lish protection, were constituted by an English char­ter, and have been defended by English arms. To suppose, that, by sending out a colony, the nation established an independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at their own pleasure, and that they shall not be [Page 494] included, like millions of their fellow subjects, in the general system of representation, involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the shew of patriotism would palliate.'—’His last de­signation of the class of men whom he means to stig­matise, is the following:— ‘'That man is not a pa­triot, who denies his governors their due praise, and who conceals from the public the benefits which they receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious appellation, who impute want of public spirit to the late parliament; an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuations of counsel, and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession in the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve the constitution, in the new judi­cature instituted to try elections.'’

Johnson published also in 1775, a pamphlet intitled, ‘'Taxation no Tyranny,'’ an answer to the resolutions and address of the American congress; in which, as the ground of his argument, he assumes as self-evident, the following proposition:

With much wit does he ridicule, and with force of reasoning refute, the arguments founded on the in­ability of the Americans to bear taxation, their powers of resistance, the stubbornness of their tempers, and the profits accruing to this country by its commerce with them: these, he tells us, are used only as auxiliaries to that other, which, as he briefly states it, is— ‘'that to tax the colonies is usurpation and oppression, an in­vasion of natural and legal rights, and a violation of those principles which support the constitution of the English government.'’

He next considers the legal consequences of migra­tion from a mother-country, and afterwards proceeds to an examination of that fallacious position, that from [Page 496] an Englishman nothing can be taken but by his own consent, and of the argument grounded thereon, that the Americans, being unrepresented in parliament, cannot be said to have consented in their corporate capacity, and that, refusing their consent as individuals, they cannot legally be taxed.

Of this he says, that ‘'it is a position of a mighty sound, but that every man that utters it, with what­ever confidence, and every man that hears it, with whatever acquiescence, if consent be supposed to imply the power of refusal, feels to be false, for that, in wide extended dominions, the business of the pub­lic must be done by delegation, and the choice of delegates is by a select number of electors, who are often far from unanimity in their choice; and where the numbers approach to equality, almost half must be governed, not only without, but against their choice.'’ Of those, who are not electors, he says:— ‘'they stand idle and helpless spectators of the common­weal, wholly unconcerned in the government of them­selves.'’ The resolution of the Congress, that their an­cestors, who first settled the colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother-country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England, he admits; but granting it, he contends, that their boast of original rights is at an end, and that, by their emi­gration, they sunk down into colonists, governed by a charter; and that though, by such emigration, they had not forfeited, surrendered, or lost, any of those rights, they had lost them by natural effects, that is to say, had abandoned them.— ‘'A man,' says he, 'can be but in one place at once; he cannot have the ad­vantages [Page 497] of multiplied residence. He that will en­joy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade. And though an emigrant, having a right to vote for a knight or burgess, by crossing the Atlantic does not nullify that right, he renders the exertion of it no longer possible.—But the privileges of an American,' adds he, 'scorn the limits of place; they are part of himself, and can­not be lost by departure from his country; they float in the air, or glide under the ocean.'’

He next considers the legal operation of charters, and forgets not to note, that from the exemption of the first settlers in Massachuset's bay from taxes for seven years, it must be inferred, that at the end thereof they were liable to taxation.

It is not my purpose to give at length the several arguments contained in this most excellent pamphlet. I shall, therefore, content myself with extracting from it a few passages, which stand distinguished from others, either by their wit, or the strength of reasoning displayed in them. Of that class are these that follow:

To the menaces of the heroes of Boston, that they would leave their town and be free, rather than submit to the stamp-act, in which case he says, they would leave good houses to wiser men, he opposes this sober advice:

In a more serious strain of reasoning, he thus argues: ‘'Our colonies, however distant, have been hitherto treated as constituent parts of the British empire. The inhabitants, incorporated by English charters, are entitled to all the rights of Englishmen. They are governed by English laws, entitled to English dignities, regulated by English counsels, and pro­tected by English arms; and it seems to follow by consequence not easily avoided, that they are sub­ject to English government, and chargeable by Eng­lish taxation.'’

The above citations are evidences of Johnson's skill in political controversy, and are but slight spe­cimens of that species of oratory which delights the ear, and convinces the understanding. With respect to logical precision, and strength of argument, the tracts, from whence they are severally taken, defy all com­parison; and, as they abound in wit, and discover nothing of that acrimony which disgraces former controversies, the Disciplinarian and Bangorian not excepted, may be considered as standing exemplars of polemical eloquence, and political ratiocination.

The friends of sedition and rebellion were highly exasperated against Johnson for his interfering, by these publications, in the debate of political questions: they were provoked to see such talents as his employed in exposing the malignity of faction, and detecting [Page 500] the artifices of those, who, by specious oratory and false reasoning, were courting popularity, and deluding the inhabitants of this country into a resignation of their rights. It was not, said they, for a man of his abstracted genius, a philosopher, a moralist, and a poet, to concern himself in the contentions be­tween a parent-state and its offspring. The muses, gentle creatures! are of no party: they

And, in conformity to this character, it behoved him to be a silent spectator of all that was passing, and leave the agitation of political questions to men, whose malevolence comprehended in it all the qua­lifications necessary in the course of such a war­fare ^*.

But Johnson was of another mind: he was con­scious of his own abilities, and felt within himself such powers of reasoning, such a knowledge of the principles of civil policy, as qualified him for a contest, not with American planters, or colony agents, but with tumid orators, factious lawyers, and interested selfish merchants. And, in this exercise of his pen, [Page 501] he was not less sincere than formidable. Admitting him to be a tory, he was a friend to both the ecclesi­astical and civil establishment of his country; and he thought it his duty, as a good subject, when the legis­lative authority was denied, to refute the arguments of such as resisted it.

It has been insinuated, that in his vindication of the measures of government, as contained in the several pamphlets before cited, Johnson had an eye rather to the obligation which his pension implied, than to the questions in debate. This, if it could be proved, might be an objection to his integrity, but sets him but on a level with his opponents, whose apparent and known motive to opposition and clamour was the desire of popularity, as a means, whereby the ambi­tious among them hoped to attain power, and the indigent to acquire places or emoluments; and who will say, that an itch for vulgar applause is not as corrupt a motive to an action as any that can be im­puted to one in Johnson's situation? But with matters of opinion, motives have nothing to do: arguments alone are the weapons of controversy. With respect to the first pamphlet, ‘'The False Alarm,'’ the question there agitated was, whether the expulsion of a member of one of the houses of parliament, by a majority of votes, imported a design on the liberties of the peo­ple; and impartial posterity, which must decide upon it, will look no farther than to the reasoning of each party.

Of those who endeavour at this time to excite sus­picions of this nature, it may be truly said, that they understand neither the constitution, nor the politics of this country; nor do they know, that the former [Page 502] is now so amended by the concessions which, since the restoration, have been made by the crown to the people, that less is to be feared from princes or their ministers, who are ever responsible for their conduct, than from artful and designing men, stimulated by ambition, or provoked by disappointment, and fur­nished with the fascinating powers of popular elo­quence.

I forbear to animadvert on the two next succeeding pamphlets, ‘'Falkland's islands,'’ and ‘'The Patriot;'’ but shall observe that the last of the four, ‘'Taxation no Tyranny,'’ has not only never received an answer, but the converse of the proposition has never yet been so proved, by arguments founded on legal principles, as to make a vindication of Johnson's reasoning ne­cessary, for any other purpose, than that of preventing the ignorant from being misled. The principle as­sumed by Johnson, that ‘'the supreme power of every community has the right of requiring from all its subjects such contributions as are necessary to the public safety, or public prosperity,'’ is as self-evident, as that obedience is due from children to parents, and is not refuted by the assertion, that the consent of those who are required thus to contribute, is ne­cessary, for, were it so, what becomes of the right? Neither is the position, that taxation and representation are correlative, to be admitted as a principle of the English constitution, seeing it does not, nor ever did, exist as a part of it; and that the far greater number of the subjects of England, men who are not free­holders to a certain amount, copyholders, who are a third of the landholders in this kingdom, and all women, are unrepresented in parliament, and bound by laws enacted by the representatives of others, but [Page 503] in no sense of themselves. In cities, and boroughs, the representation is often of the meanest of the people; in London, for instance, where a mechanic, if he be a liveryman, has a vote, and a freeholder, wanting that qualification, though assessed ever so high to the land-tax, has none.

This assertion might possibly have place in a state about to be founded, as none ever was or is likely to be, on solemn agreement, or that political fiction called an original contract; but, the constitution of a state already formed, is to be taken as we find it. Nor has any one of those who deny the right of a mother­country to tax its colonies, attempted to prove an exemption, by any arguments than are to be found in Mr. Locke's Essay on Government, a dis­course of general import, and which applies to no ex­isting constitution on earth ^*.

The above tracts, as they contain no evidence of a personal attachment of the author to those who, at the respective times of their appearance, had the direction of the public councils, are a refutation of all those slanders which they drew on him; and, as [Page 504] the subjects of them, severally, are questions of the greatest national importance, sufficiently distinguish him from those hireling scribblers, who, in the con­tests of factions, are retained on the side of either party, and whom the vulgar style political writers. In like manner did Addison and Hoadly employ their talents: they were both friends of government, and wrote in defence of the public measures, and not only escaped obloquy, but were and still are celebrated as lovers of their country.

I have hitherto forborne to speak, otherwise than in general terms, of Johnson's political principles; but, the task of reviewing the tracts above cited, has revived in my memory many of his sentiments, which, at different times, he communicated to me, on the subjects of government, the English constitution, and the motives to party opposition. That he was a tory, he not only never hesitated to confess, but, by his frequent invectives against the whigs, was forward to proclaim: yet, was he not so besotted in his no­tions, as to abett what is called the patriarchal scheme, as delineated by Sir Robert Filmer and other writers on government; nor, with others of a more sober cast, to acquiesce in the opinion that, because submis­sion to governors is, in general terms, inculcated in the Holy Scriptures, the resistance of tyranny and op­pression is, in all cases, unlawful: he seemed rather to adopt the sentiments of Hooker on the subject, as ex­plained by Hoadly, and, by consequence, to look on submission to lawful authority as a moral obligation: he, therefore, condemned the conduct of James the second during his short reign; and, had he been a subject of that weak and infatuated monarch, would, [Page 505] I am persuaded, have resisted any invasion of his right, or unwarrantable exertion of power, with the same spirit, as did the president and fellows of Mag­dalen college, or those conscientious divines the seven bishops. This disposition, as it leads to whiggism, one would have thought, might have reconciled him to the memory of his successor, whose exercise of the regal authority among us merited better returns than were made him; but, it had no such effect: he never spoke of king William but in terms of reproach, and, in his opinion of him, seemed to adopt all the preju­dices of jacobite bigotry and rancour.

For the English constitution, as originally framed, he ever expressed a profound reverence. He under­stood it well, and had noted in his mind the changes it had at various periods undergone, that is to say, first, in the reign of Hen. VII. when the yeomanry were put into a state of competition with the nobility; afterwards, when by the abolition of tenures, and the putting down the court of wards and liveries, occasion was given to Sir Harbottle Grimston to say that, in that transaction, neither did the crown know what it lost, nor the people what they had gained; and lastly, by the erecting a monied, in opposition to the landed, interest, and the introduction of the science and practice of funding.

He, therefore, looked not on Magna Charta as the palladium of our liberties, (knowing full well, that, excepting that chapter thereof, which has been so often partially cited, that is to say, with the omission of the words, vel per legem terrae ^*, very little of the [Page 506] whole statute will apply to the constitution in its now improved state;) but to the subsequent concessions of the crown in favour of the people, such as are the petition of right, the habeas-corpus act, the bill of rights, and numercus other statutes of a like beneficial tendency.

To party-opposition he ever expressed great aver­sion; and, of the pretences of patriots, always spoke with indignation and contempt. He partook of the short-lived joy that infatuated the public, when Sir Robert Walpole ceased to have the direction of the national councils, and trusted to the professions of Mr. Pulteney and his adherents, who called themselves the country-party, that all elections should thenceforward be free and uninfluenced, and that bribery and cor­ruption, which were never practised but by courtiers and their agents, should be no more. A few weeks, nay, a few days, convinced Johnson, and indeed all England, that what had assumed the appearance of patriotism, was personal hatred and inveterate malice in some, and in others, an ambition for that power, which, when they had got it, they knew not how to exercise. A change of men, and in some respect, of measures, took place; Mr. Pulteney's ambition was gratified by a peerage; the wants of his associates were relieved by places, and seats at the public boards; and, in a short time, the stream of government resumed its former channel, and ran with a current as even as it had ever done.

[Page 507] Upon this development of the motives, the views, and the consistency of the above-mentioned band of patriots, Johnson once remarked to me, that it had given more strength to government than all that had been written in its defence, meaning thereby, that it had destroyed all confidence in men of that character. Little did he then think, that the people of this country would again be deluded, by fallacious reasoning and specious eloquence, into a fruitless expenditure of near one hundred millions, or that statues would ever be erected to eternize the memory of a minister, of whom, in 1771, he said it would be happy if the nation should dismiss him to nameless obscurity.

History has been said to be philosophy teaching by example, and well would it be for mankind, if they would convert events into precepts, and not postpone their care to prevent evils, till their own ex­perience shall have brought them home to themselves. New generations of men arise in succession, who, in the nonage of their faculties, are credulous, weak, and open to deceit: these, unhackneyed in the ways of the world, trust to the professions of all who pretend a friendship for them; and, when they are told they are ill governed, are as ready, as were the Israelites of old, to murmur against their rulers. And let all be said that can of a principle in men invested with power, to abuse it and become tyrants, the history of the world will inform us, that there is also a disease, which the Scriptures emphatically term, the madness of the people, from which evils greater than from despotism are to be feared, and that government, even where it is best administered, subsists more by force than by the consent of those who derive benefit from it. [Page 508] What an advantage, then, does this disposition in a people give to ambitious men, endowed with that kind of eloquence, which fascinates without conviction, and, while it delights, stupifies!

His frequent reflections on the politics of this country, and the willingness of the people to be de­ceived, had begot in Johnson such an apathy, as ren­dered him deaf to the calls of those who were watching over our dearest rights. When the cry was loudest against general warrants, he took not the alarm; and, when they were declared illegal, he protested to me, that he would, at no time of his life, have given half a crown to be for ever indemnified against their ope­ration. The question of the legality of that kind of process is now at an end, and I will not arraign the decision that condemned it; but it will ever remain a question, whether we have not lost more by it than we have gained; and, that the friends of liberty, par­ticularly the citizens of London, may be enabled to discuss it, I will furnish them with a few facts, that I believe they have never yet been aware of.

Few are so ignorant as not to know, that the English manufactures excel those of all other coun­tries; but many there are who need to be told, that the time may come, when they shall cease to maintain that character. Many of the princes of Europe have become emulous of our greatness, and have long been labouring to establish, in their dominions, such articles of trade, as should not only rival our's, but, in respect of cheapness, gain a preference at foreign markets. To this end, it has, for some years past, been the practice of the emissaries of foreign courts, by their agents, and the temptation of large [Page 509] premiums, to engage artificers to leave this country, and, taking with them their wives and families, as also their engines, tools, and implements of their respec­tive trades, to settle abroad. Clothiers, weavers, frame-work-knitters, watch-makers, and men of va­rious other occupations, have been the people whom they have chiefly thus inveigled, and have, from time to time, in great numbers, in ships provided and stationed for the purpose, transported out of the kingdom. To check this practice, acts of parliament have been made, which lay such emigrants under great disabilities, even to the depriving them of the privileges of subjects, and others that inflict heavy penalties on those that seduce them; and the aid of government has been frequently implored to restrain, in their flight from their native land, ship-loads of the most useful of all subjects. The method has uniformly been, upon information given at his office, for a secretary of state to issue his warrant, a general one, that is to say, without any specification of names, to stop the sailing of the vessel, which, perhaps, was lying at Wapping, Ratcliff, or Blackwall, ready with the tide to depart. Warrants of this kind seldom failed of their effect; the emigrants were seized, and the mischief prevented.

This relief it is now not in the power of govern­ment or its ministers to grant: the answer to such an application is now, and must be— ‘'General warrants have been determined to be illegal: furnish us with the names of the persons whom you would have ap­prehended, or we cannot help you ^*.'’

[Page 510] The licence, which this determination affords, has already begun to operate, and, perhaps, in no instance more than in the article of watches. For many years past, this manufacture has flourished to such a degree, that large fortunes have been acquired by it, and that chiefly in our commerce with Spain, in which country, a watch, fabricated in England, has been deemed a present for a grandee, and even for a sovereign prince. It is well known, that the late king of Spain was extremely fond of clocks and watches, and that he was used, by letters in his own hand-writing, to correspond with Mr. Ellicot on the subject of his art; and, that this ingenious artificer [Page 511] learnt the Spanish language, to enable him to main­tain the correspondence with his majesty. Since that time, the French, and also the Genevans, have become our rivals in this curious species of mechanism, and we have lately experienced, that English watches no longer find their vent abroad ^*. The woollen, the silk, the linen, and the cotton manufactures have been obliged to the legislature for assistance against the endeavours of other European powers, to estab­lish them in their several countries, where, as labour is cheaper than it is with us, they would have a good chance to flourish, and exclude us from foreign markets.

These mischiefs have followed from the restraint of a power, which, as it had oftener been exercised for the benefit of the trade and manufactures of this kingdom, than to the hurt of individuals, might well have been suffered to remain where it was, especially as the ministers thereof were, at all times, responsible for any abuse of it.

The probable consequence of this innovation will be, that in a few years, we shall see the French and neighbouring nations excel us as much in other manufactures, as they already do in those of camb­rick and paper, in printing, and other of the manual arts.

[Page 512] The calamities which ensue from the stagnation of commerce, are many and grievous, and, when these begin to be felt, as they shortly may, those good people of this country, who have of late been so clamorous for liberty, may recover their wits, and be half persuaded, that a sinking trade, empty ware­houses and unfurnished shops are greater evils than any loyal and peaceable subject need fear from the operation of a general warrant.

The publication of Johnson's political tracts, ex­hibited him to the world in a new character: he ceased now to be considered as one who, having been occu­pied in literary studies, and more conversant with books than with men, knew little of active life, the views of parties, or the artifices of designing men: on the contrary, they discovered that he had, by the force of his own genius, and the observations he had made on the history of our own and other countries, attained to such skill in the grand leading principles of political science, as are seldom acquired by those in the most active and important stations, even after long experience; and that, whatever opinions he might have formed on this subject, he had ability by strong reasoning to defend, and by a manly and con­vincing eloquence to enforce.

Mr. Thrale, a man of slow conceptions, but of a sound judgment, was not one of the last that dis­cerned in his friend this talent, and believing, that the exercise of it might redound to the benefit of the public, entertained a design of bringing Johnson into parliament. We must suppose that he had previously determined to furnish him with a legal qualification, and Johnson, it is certain, was willing to accept the [Page 513] trust. Mr. Thrale had two meetings with the mi­nister, who, at first, seemed inclined to find him a seat; but, whether upon conversation he doubted his fitness for his purpose, or that he thought himself in no need of his assistance, the project failed.

Had it succeeded, and Johnson become a member of the house of commons, as he was one of the most correct speakers ever known ^*, he would undoubtedly have exhibited to that assembly a perfect model of senatorial eloquence; and might probably have pre­vented the introduction therein of a great number of words, phrases, and forms of speech, to which neither dictionaries, nor the example of any English writer of authority, have given a sanction ^†.

Johnson was a little soured at this disappoint­ment: he spoke of lord North in terms of asperity, as indeed he did of all those ministers whose councils indicated a want of spirit to carry into action the measures which were resolved on as expedient: in which particular, the above minister must surely [Page 514] be exculpated, whose designs, it is too well known, were blasted by those to whom the execution of them was committed. Of the abilities of Mr. Grenville, he also entertained but a mean opinion, for his giving up the Manila ransom.— ‘'Grenville,' he would say, if he 'could have got the Manila ransom, was able to have counted the money, but he knew not how to enforce the payment of it.'’ Of Sir Robert Walpole, not­withstanding that he had written against him in the early part of his life, he had a high opinion: he said of him, that he was a fine fellow, and that his very enemies deemed him so before his death: he ho­noured his memory for having kept this country in peace many years, as also for the goodness and placa­bility of his temper; of which Pulteney, earl of Bath, thought so highly, that, in a conversation with John­son, he said, that Sir Robert was of a temper so calm and equal, and so hard to be provoked, that he was very sure he never felt the bitterest invectives against him for half an hour ^*. To the same purpose, Johnson related the following anecdote, which he said he had [Page 515] from lord North: Sir Robert having got into his hands some treasonable letters of his inveterate enemy, Will. Shippen, one of the heads of the Jacobite fac­tion, he sent for him, and burned them before his face. Some time afterwards, Shippen had occasion to take the oaths to the government in the house of commons, which, while he was doing, Sir Robert, who stood next him, and knew his principles to be the same as ever, smiled:— ‘'Egad Robin,' said Shippen, who had observed him, 'that's hardly fair.'’

It is not a little wonderful, that Sir Robert Wal­pole could preserve such an equanimity under the greatest provocations, as he is known to have done, or that he could entertain a kindness for any one, seeing he is known to have asserted, that every man has his price; to which I will add, from unquestion­able authority, that some time before his death, he uttered this sentiment— ‘'that so great is the depra­vity of the human heart, that ministers, who only could know it, were, in charity to mankind, bound to keep it a secret.'—’Agreeable to this of Dr. Young,

In the year 1775, Johnson received from the univer­sity of Oxford the highest testimony of esteem, which that learned body could confer, in a diploma creating him a doctor in the faculty of law. The instrument bears date the thirtieth day of March, in the above year, and recites the motives for this honourable distinction in [Page 516] the following eulogium:— ‘'Sciatis, virum illustrem, Samuelem Johnson, in omni humaniorum literarum genere eruditum, omniumque scientiarum compre­hensione felicissimum, scriptis suis, ad popularium mores formandos summâ verborum elegantiâ ac sententiarum gravitate compositis, ita olim incla­ruisse, ut dignus videretur cui ab academiâ suâ eximia quaedam laudis praemia deferrentur, quique in venerabilem magistrorum ordinem summâ cum dignitate co-optaretur. Cum vero eundem clarissi­mum virum tot postea tantique labores, in patriâ praesertim linguâ ornandâ et stabiliendâ feliciter impensi, ita insigniverint, ut in literarum repub­licâ princeps jam et primarius jure habeatur, Nos Cancellarius, &c.'’

In the summer of the same year, Johnson ac­cepted of an invitation from his friend Mr. Thrale, to make one of a party with him and his wise, in a tour to Paris. No memoirs of this journey, in his own hand-writing, are extant; nor is the want thereof to be regretted, unless it were certain, that he was enough master of the French language to be able to converse in it ^*, and that he had noted down the reflections he may be supposed to have made in a visit to a strange country, and a residence among a people whose national character differs from our own. His garb and mode of dressing, if it could be called dressing, had long been so inflexibly determined, as [Page 517] to resist all the innovations of fashion. His friends had therefore great difficulty in persuading him to such a compliance in this respect, as might serve to keep them in countenance, and secure him from the danger of ridicule: he yielded to their remonstrances so far as to dress in a suit of black and a Bourgeois wig, but resisted their importunity to wear ruffles ^*.

In the course of this narrative it has been shewn, that although, and that by his own declarations, the literary faculties of Johnson were, at most times, inert, and that he could seldom be stimulated to the exercise of his pen, but by the immediate prospect of gain; yet, he was ever ready to assist the publication of any work that had either novelty or any intrinsic worth, with a life of the author, a dedication, preface, or an introduction tending to recommend it, as in the case of ‘'Ascham's Pieces,'’ the last edition of Sir Thomas Browne's ‘'Christian Morals,'’ and Kennedy's ‘'Scripture Chronology,'’ and many more, all of which he ushered into the world, and, for aught that appears, without any recompence. With a like benevolent disposition, he was ready to assist with a prologue, or an epilogue, the representation of a play written by a friend; or with an occasional address of the same kind, under cir­cumstances that put it in his power to promote the interests of the family of a deceased author: accord­ingly, he wrote, for his friend Goldsmith, a prologue to a comedy written by him, called ‘'The Good­natured man,'’ and acted in 1769; and, for the grand­daughter of Milton, a prologue to Comus, exhibited on the fifth day of April, 1750.

[Page 518] The same good office he performed for the wife and children of Mr. Hugh Kelly, the author of a comedy called, ‘'A Word to the Wise,'’ which, in the year 1770, was brought on the stage, but, by the malice of a party, was obstructed in the represen­tation, and consigned to oblivion. This person, it is said, was originally a stay-maker, but, being a man of wit and parts, he quitted that unmanly occupation, and having, as we must suppose, some slender means to enable him thereto, he betook himself to reading and study, and, at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the bar, and practised at the quarter-sessi­ons under me, but with little success. In aid of this profession, he became the conductor of a paper called ‘'The Public Ledger,'’ and took up that precarious one of a writer for the stage, in which he met with some encouragement, till it was insinuated, that he was a pensioner of the minister, and, therefore, a fit object of patriotic vengeance. He died in the year 1769, and leaving a wife and five children unprovided for, the proprietors of Covent-garden theatre, in 1777; with their usual generosity, permitted to be acted at their house, for the benefit of his family, the comedy above-mentioned; and, to soften the hearts of the au­dience, Johnson was easily prevailed on to write upon the occasion the following very fine lines:

In the year 1777, he was induced, by a case of a very extraordinary nature, to the exercise of that in­discriminate humanity, which, in him, was obedient to every call. A divine of the church of England, Dr. William Dodd, already mentioned in the course of this account, and who had assisted in the education of the present earl of Chesterfield, having, by his extravagance, involved himself in difficulties, had re­course to the following, among many other expe­dients, to raise money. As a pretended agent for this nobleman, and in consideration of the sum of 600l. he forged the hand of the earl to the grant of an annuity, chargeable on his estate, which for­gery being detected, Dodd was convicted of felony, and sentenced to the usual punishment for such of­fences. The public were, at first, very little interested in the fate of a man, who, besides the arts he had practised to make himself conspicuous as a man of letters, had rendered himself scandalous, by an offer, to the first law-officer in the kingdom, of a large sum of money, for a presentation to a valuable rectory; but, by various artifices, and particularly, the inser­tion of his name in the public papers, with such palliatives as he and his friends could invent, never without the epithet of unfortunate, they were be­trayed into such an enthusiastic commiseration of his [Page 521] case, as would have led a stranger to believe, that himself had been no accessary to his distresses, but that they were the inflictions of Providence.

Great endeavours were used with the earl, to pre­vail on him to desist from a prosecution, but without effect. His lordship preferred a bill of indictment for felony, and the same being found before me at Hicks's Hall, upon the evidence of himself, and other witnesses, Dodd was, at the Old Bailey, arraigned thereon, and convicted.

The evidence on the trial, was so very full and clear, that the jury hesitated not in the least to pro­nounce him guilty of the indictment; and, no cir­cumstances of alleviation appearing, they did not, as juries seldom fail to do where that is the case, re­commend him as an object of that clemency, which his majesty is ever ready to exert, in favour of those who have the least claim to it.

We live in an age in which humanity is the fashion. If the reports of the gaol-committee in 1726 are, in all particulars, to be depended on, and do not exagge­rate the facts therein stated, there was a time when, as well prisoners for debt, as for offences, were cruelly treated by those who had the custody of them; but, at this day, the temper of the times is under a con­trary biass, for, not only in actual confinement, are prisoners treated with greater lenity than till of late years was ever known, but, in courts of justice, the regard shewn to offenders falls little short of respect. In prosecutions at the suit of the crown, the indul­gence of prisoners is nearly as great as it ought to be, were that true which the law does but hardly presume, viz. that every offender, who is brought to a legal trial, [Page 522] is innocent, till his guilt be proved. Those whose duty it is to conduct the evidence, fearing the censure that others have incurred by a contrary treatment of prisoners, are restrained from enforcing it; and, as it is an exercise of compassion that costs nothing, and is sure to gain the applause of vulgar hearers, every one interests himself on the side of the prisoner, and hopes, by his zeal in his behalf, to be distinguished as a man of more than ordinary humanity.

The tenderness of our courts of justice, in prose­cutions that affect the life or liberty of the offender, is acknowledged and celebrated by all writers on the subjects of jurisprudence and internal policy; but, be­side this, the chances of eluding conviction, or, if not that, of punishment, are so many, that they deter many injured persons from the prosecution of great criminals; and, as it is a speculation that has often employed my thoughts, I will endeavour at an enume­ration of them. The chances are these: 1 That the offender is not discovered, or, if discovered, not apprehended. 2 That the person injured is not both able and willing to prosecute him. 3 That the evidence is not sufficient for the finding of the bill, or if it be, 4 That the indictment is so framed as that the offender cannot be convicted on it; or, 5 That the witnesses to support it may die, or be prevailed upon to abscond, or to soften their testimony; or, 6 They may be entangled or made to contradict themselves, or each other, in a cross exa­mination, by the prisoner's council; or, 7 A mild judge; or, 8 An ignorant or perverse jury: 9 A re­commendation to mercy; or, 10 Appeals to the public by states of his case in pamphlets, or news-paper pa­ragraphs, [Page 523] which the Newgate solicitors know very well how to get drawn. 11 Practices with a jury to ob­tain a declaration, that some of them were dissatisfied with the verdict. 12 A motion in arrest of judgment. 13 A writ of error grounded on some defect or mis­take on the face of the record. 14 An escape; and lastly, Interest to procure a pardon ^*.

[Page 524] But Dodd's case was such as excluded him from the benefit of all the above chances, excepting the last; and of that he laboured with all his might to avail himself. A petition to the throne for a pardon, was an expedient that naturally suggested itself, but, as it required the utmost powers of eloquence to pal­liate his offence, he found means to interest Dr. Johnson in his behalf, and easily procured from him two of the most energetic compositions of the kind ever seen, the one a petition from himself to the king, the other, a like address from his wife to the queen, severally conceived in the terms fol­lowing:

[Page 527] To the first of these petitions, but not without diffi­culty, Mrs. Dodd first got the hands of the jury that found the bill against her husband, and after that, as it is supposed, of the jury that tried him. It was then circulated about, and all the while the cry for mercy was kept up in the news-papers, and the merits and sufferings of the unfortunate divine were so artfully represented by paragraphs therein inserted, that, in a short space of time, no fewer than twenty-three thou­sand names were subscribed thereto. Moreover, letters and addresses, written also by Johnson, imploring their interposition, were sent to the minister and other great persons.

While the two petitions were in suspence, the fol­lowing observations, penned by Dr. Johnson, appeared in the public papers:

While Dodd was waiting the event of the petitions, his wife and friends were not idle. Dr. Johnson told [Page 529] me, that they had offered Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, a thousand pounds to let him escape; and that failing, that a number of them, with bank­notes in their pockets, to the amount of five hun­dred pounds, had watched for a whole evening, about the door of the prison, for an opportunity of corrupting the turnkey; but could not succeed in the attempt.

When all hopes of a favourable answer to either of the petitions were at an end, Johnson drew up for publication a small collection of what are called ‘'Occasional papers by the late William Dodd, L.L.D.'’ and five hundred copies thereof were printed for the benefit of his wife; but she, con­scious that they were not of her husband's writing, would not consent to their being published; and the whole number, except two or three copies, was sup­pressed. The last office he performed for this wretched man, was the composing a sermon, which he delivered in the chapel of Newgate, on Friday 6th June, 1777, and which was soon after published with the title of ‘'The Convict's Address.'’

Johnson had never seen the face of Dodd in his life. His wife had found her way to him during his confinement, and had interested him so strongly in his behalf, that he lamented his fate, as he would have done that of an intimate friend under the like circumstances. He was deeply concerned at the failure of the petitions; and asked me at the time, if the request contained in them was not such an one as ought to have been granted to the prayer of twen­ty-three thousand subjects? to which I answered, that the subscription of popular petitions was a thing of [Page 530] course, and that, therefore, the difference between twenty and twenty thousand names was inconsiderable. He further censured the clergy very severely, for not interposing in his behalf, and said, that their inactivity arose from a paltry fear of being reproached with partiality towards one of their own order.

Here I cannot forbear remarking, an inconsistency in the opinion of Johnson respecting the case of Dodd. He assisted in the solicitations for his pardon, yet, in his private judgment, he thought him unworthy of it, having been known to say, that had he been the ad­viser of the king, he should have told him that, in par­doning Dodd, his justice, in remitting the Perreaus to their sentence, would have been called in question.

About this time, Dr. Johnson changed his dwelling in Johnson's court, for a somewhat larger in Bolt court, Fleet street, where he commenced an intimacy with the landlord of it, a very worthy and sensible man, some time since deceased, Mr. Edmund Allen the printer. Behind it was a garden, which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence at Streatham, he received the visits of his friends, and, to the most intimate of them, sometimes gave, not inelegant dinners.

Being at ease in his circumstances, and free from that solicitude which had embittered the former part of his life, he sunk into indolence, till his faculties feemed to be impaired: deafness grew upon him; long intervals of mental absence interrupted his con­versation, [Page 531] and it was difficult to engage his attention to any subject. His friends, from these symptoms, concluded, that his lamp was emitting its last rays, but the lapse of a short period gave them ample proofs to the contrary.

In the year 1774, the long-agitated question of li­terary property received a final decision, on an appeal to the supreme judicature of this kingdom, whereby it was, in effect, declared, that such property was merely ideal, and existed only in imagination ^*. The immediate consequence of this determination [Page 532] was, a scramble of the lowest and least principled of the booksellers, for the jewel thus cast among them. Regardless of that obvious rule of natural justice, which gives the possessor a right to what he has purchased, they printed books, for the copy-right whereof very large sums had been paid by book­sellers, who, for their liberality to authors, and the encouragement by them given to voluminous works, had been looked on and acknowledged as the patrons of literature. Among these numerous depredators was one, who projected an edition of the English poets, which, by advertisements conceived in the most hyperbolical terms, and calculated to impose upon the credulity of the ignorant, was obtruded on the public.

The booksellers, against whose interest this intended publication was likely to operate, derived their right to the works of many of the poets, included in the above design by mesne assignments, from those ever respectable men the Tonsons, who had purchased them of their authors. To check this attempt, therefore, they determined themselves to publish an edition of the poets, and, in order to obtain for it a preference, engaged Johnson to write the lives of all, or the chief of them; and he undertook and exe­cuted the task with great alacrity, and in a manner that argued not the least decline of his faculties.

When Johnson had determined on this work, he was to seek for the best mode of executing it. On a hint from a literary lady of his acquaintance and mine, he adopted, for his outline, that form in which the countess D'Aunois has drawn up the memoirs of the [Page 533] French poets, in her ‘'Recueils des plus belles pieces des Poëtes François;'’ and the foundation of his work was, the lives of the dramatic poets by Lang­baine, and the lives of the poets at large by Win­stanley, and that more modern one than either, their lives by Giles Jacob, whose information, in many instances, was communicated by the persons them­selves. Nevertheless, the materials which Johnson had to work on were very scanty. He was never a sedulous enquirer after facts or anecdotes, nor very accurate in fixing dates: Oldys was the man of all others the best qualified for such an employment; Johnson's talent was disquisition; a genius like his, disdained so servile a labour. Whenever, therefore, he found himself at a loss for such intelligence as his work required, he availed himself of the industry of a friend or two, who took pleasure in furnishing him with such particulars as are to be found in the lives of Addison, Prior, Pope, Swift, Gay, and a few others, whose persons, habits, and characters, some yet, or very lately living, were able, either from their own knowledge, or authenticated tradition, to describe.

The book came abroad in the year 1778, in ten small volumes, and no work of Johnson has been more celebrated. It has been said to contain the soundest principles of criticism, and the most judi­cious examen of the effusions of poetic genius, that any country, not excepting France, has to shew; and so much of this is true, that, in our perusal of it, we find our curiosity, as to facts and circumstances, ab­sorbed in the contemplation of those penetrating reflections and nice discriminations, which are far the greater part of it.

[Page 534] It is, nevertheless, to be questioned, whether John­son possessed all the qualities of a critic, one of which seems to be a truly poetic faculty. This may seem a strange doubt, of one who has transfused the spirit of one of Mr. Pope's finest poems into one written by himself in a dead language, and, in two instances, nearly equalled the greatest of the Roman satyrists. By the poetic faculty, I mean that power which is the result of a mind stored with beautiful images, and which exerts itself in creation and description: of this Johnson was totally devoid. His organs, im­perfect as they were, could convey to his imagination but little of that intelligence which forms the poetic character, and produces that enthusiasm which distin­guishes it. If we try his ability by Shakespeare's fa­mous description;

he will appear deficient. We know that he wanted this power; that he had no eye that could be said to [...]oll or glance, and, therefore, that all his conceptions of the grandeur and magnificence of external objects, of beautiful scenes, and extensive prospects, were derived from the reports of others, and consequently were but the feeble impressions of their archetypes; [Page 535] so that it may be questioned whether, either waking or sleeping,

were ever presented to his view.

This defect in his imaginative faculty, may well account for the frigid commendation which Johnson bestows on Thomson, and other of the descriptive poets, on many fine passages in Dryden, and on the Henry and Emma of Prior. Moral sentiments, and versification, seem chiefly to have engaged his atten­tion, and on these his criticisms are accurate, but severe, and not always impartial. His avowed fond­ness for rhyme is one of the blemishes in his judg­ment: he entertained it in opposition to Milton, and cherished it through the whole of his life; and it led him into many errors. Dryden had his doubts about the preference of rhyme to blank verse; and I have heard Johnson accuse him for want of principle in this respect, and of veering about in his opinion on the subject. No such imputation could fasten on himself.

That Johnson had no sense of the harmony of mu­sical sounds, himself would frequently confess, but this defect lest him not without the power of deriving pleasure from metrical harmony, from that commix­ture of long and short quantities, which the laws of prosody have reduced to rule, and from whence arises a delight in those whose ear is unaffected by consonance. The strokes on the pulsatile instruments, the drum for instance, though they produce monoto­nous sounds, have, if made by rule, mathematical ra­tios of duple and triple, with numberless fractions, [Page 536] and admit of an infinite variety of combinations, which give pleasure to the auditory faculty; but of this Johnson seems also to have been insensible. That his own numbers are so harmonious as, in general, we find them, must have been the effect of his sedu­lous attention to the writings of Dryden and Pope, and the discovery of some secret in their versification, of which he was able to avail himself.

If Johnson be to be numbered among those poets in whom the powers of understanding, more than those of the imagination, are seen to exist, we have a reason for that coldness and insensibility which he so often discovers in the course of this work; and, when we recollect that he professed himself to be a fasti­dious critic, we are not to wonder, that he is some­times backward in bestowing applause on passages that seem to merit it. In short, he was a scrupulous estimator of beauties and blemishes, and possessed a spirit of criticism, which, by long exercise, may be said to have become mechanical. So nicely has he balanced the one against the other, that, in some in­stances, he has made neither scale preponderate, and, in others, by considering the failings of his authors as positive demerit, he has left some celebrated names in a state of reputation below mediocrity. A spirit like this, had before actuated him in his preface to Shakespeare, in which, by a kind of arithmetical process, subtracting from his excellencies his failings, he has endeavoured to sink him in the opinion of his numerous admirers, and to persuade us, against reason and our own feelings, that the former are an­nihilated by the latter.

[Page 537] His censures of the writings of lord Lyttelton, and of Gray, gave great offence to the friends of each: the first cost him the friendship of a lady, whose re­marks on the genius of Shakespeare have raised her to a degree of eminence among the female writers of this time; and the supposed injury done by him to the memory of Gray, is resented by the whole uni­versity of Cambridge. The character of Swift he has stigmatized with the brand of pride and selfishness, so deeply impressed, that the marks thereof seem inde­lible. In the praises of his wit, he does him no more than justice; of his moral qualities, he has made the most; and of his learning, of which Swift possessed but a very small portion, he has said nothing. Few can be offended at Johnson's account of this man, whose arrogance and malevolence were a reproach to human nature; and in whose voluminous writings little is to be found, that can conduce to the improve­ment or benefit of mankind, or, indeed, that it be­seemed a clergyman to publish.

In his own judgment of the lives of the poets, Johnson gave the preference to that of Cowley, as containing a nicer investigation and discrimination of the characteristics of wit, than is elsewhere to be found. Others have assigned to Dryden's life the pre-eminence. Upon the whole, it is a finely written, and an enter­taining book, and is likely to be coeval with the memory of the best of the writers whom it cele­brates.

To the life of Pope, he thought proper to adjoin a criticism on the epitaphs of that poet, written some years before, and inserted in a monthly pamphlet, intitled ‘'The Visitor,'’ in which he detects a great [Page 538] number of faulty passages, and puerile sentiments. An attempt of the like kind had formerly been made by Concanen, one of the Dunciad heroes, in a paper called ‘'The Speculatist,'’ first published in one of the periodical papers of the day, and afterwards collected into an octavo volume; but it went no farther than to a censure of the inscription on Craggs's monument in Westminster abbey, which, by the way, was never in­tended for an epitaph, but is an eulogium on that states­man, taken from Pope's ‘'Epistle to Mr. Addison, oc­casioned by his dialogues on medals.'’ Johnson has no­ticed this, and apologizing for some faults in it, imputes them, in his strong manner of expression, to the violence with which the lines were torn from the original. The whole of Concanen's criticism turns upon the length of the inscription, which is six lines, and, by a strange blunder of Pope, is recommended as a motto for the supposed medal to be struck in commemoration of his services, and gives occasion to the critic to ask— ‘'Is this a motto for a medal or a mill­stone.'’

But Johnson, who never examined the writings of any author, but with an eye the most penetrating, has taken a nearer view of these compositions of Pope, as they appear in his works, and discovered, that scarce any one of them, notwithstanding the beauty of ver­sification which they display, will bear the test of sound criticism. For his remarks on them, this is no fit place: the inquisitive reader is therefore referred for the perusal of them to the life of Pope, among the poets; and, for farther information on the subject of monumental inscriptions, to ‘'An Essay on Epitaphs,'’ among his philological tracts.

[Page 539] All that is necessary to remark on his examen of Pope's epitaphs is, that, in one instance, it was pro­ductive of a singular event, the total erasure of that epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller's monument in West­minster abbey, which had long been objected to, as being a very indifferent imitation of cardinal Bembo's famous distich on Raphael; and it seems that the author thought so, for, in the later editions of his works, he has omitted it.

After he had finished the lives of the poets, Johnson, contemplating the strength of his mental powers, was so little sensible of any decay in them, that he enter­tained a design of giving to the world a translation of that voluminous work of Thuanus, the history of his own times, an undertaking surely too laborious for one who had nearly completed the age of man, and whose mind was generally occupied by subjects of greater importance than any that relate to this world. But, in this estimate of his abilities, he soon found himself deceived. Sleepless nights, and the use of opium, which he took in large quantities, alternately depressed and raised his spirits, and ren­dered him an incompetent judge of his own powers, so that, had he pursued his resolution, he would, doubt­less, have sunk under the burden of so great a la­bour.

It may farther be questioned whether, upon trial, he would not have found himself unequal to the task of transfusing into an English version the spirit [Page 540] of his author. Johnson's talent was original thinking, and though he was ever able to express his own sen­timents in nervous language, he did not always suc­ceed in his attempts to familiarise the sense of others: his translation of Pere Lobo's voyage has little to recommend it but the subject-matter. Among his papers was found, a translation from Sallust of the ‘'Bellum Catilinarium,'’ so flatly and insipidly rendered, that the suffering it to appear would have been an in­deligible disgrace to his memory.

We must now take our leave of Johnson as an au­thor, and view him as a man worn out with literary labour and disease, contemplating his dissolution, and exerting all his powers to resist that constitutional malady which now, more than ever, oppressed him. To divert himself from a train of thinking which often involved him in a labyrinth of doubts and difficulties touching a future state of existence, he solicited the frequent visits of his friends and ac­quaintance, the most discerning of whom could not but see, that the fabric of his mind was tottering; and, to allay those scruples and terrors which haunted him in his vacant hours, he betook himself to the reading of books of practical divinity, and, among the rest, the writings of Baxter, and others of the old puritan and non-conforming divines. Of Baxter, he entertained a very high opinion, and often spoke of him to me as a man of great parts, profound learn­ing, and exemplary piety: he said, of the office for the communion drawn up by him and produced at the Savoy-conference, that it was one of the finest compositions of the ritual kind he had ever seen ^*. [Page 541] It was a circumstance to be wondered at, that a high­churchman, as Johnson ever professed himself to be, should be driven to seek for spiritual comfort in the writings of sectaries; men whom he affected, as well to condemn for their ignorance, as to hate for their principles; but, as his acquaintance with the world, and with the writings of such men as Watts, Foster, Lardner, and Lowman, increased, these prejudices were greatly softened. Of the early puritans, he thought their want of general learning was atoned for by their skill in the Scriptures, and the holiness of their lives ^*; and, to justify his opinion of them, [Page 542] and their writings, he once cited to me a saying of Howell in one of his letters, that to make a man a complete Christian, he must have the works of a Papist, the words of a Puritan, and the faith of a Protestant ^*. At times when he was most distressed, I recommended to him the perusal of bishop Taylor's ‘'Rules and Exercises of holy Living and Dying,'’ and also, his ‘'Ductor Dubitantium,'’ a book abounding in erudi­tion, and most aptly suiting his circumstances. Of the former, though he placed the author at the head of all the divines that have succeeded the fathers, he said, that in the reading thereof, he had found little more than he brought himself; and, at the mention of the latter, he seemed to shrink. His Greek testament was generally within his reach, and he red much in it. He was competently skilled in the writings of the fathers, yet was he more conversant with those of the great English church-men, namely, Hooker, Usher, Mede, Hammond, Sanderson, Hall, and others of that class. Dr. Henry More, of Cam­bridge, he did not much affect: he was a platonist, and, in Johnson's opinion, a visionary. He would frequently cite from him, and laugh at, a passage to this effect:— ‘'At the consummation of all things, it shall come to pass, that eternity shall shake hands with opacity.'’ He had never, till I mentioned [Page 543] him, heard of Dr. Thomas Jackson, of Corpus Christi college, Oxon. Upon my recommendation of his works, in three folio volumes, he made me a promise to buy and study them, which he lived not to perform. He was, for some time, pleased with Kempis's, or rather John Gerson's tract ‘'De Imi­tatione Christi,'’ but at length laid it aside, say­ing, that the main design of it was to promote mo­nastic piety, and inculcate ecclesiastical obedience. One sentiment therein, he, however, greatly ap­plauded, and I find it adopted by bishop Taylor, who gives it in the following words:— ‘'It is no great matter to live lovingly with good-natured, with humble and meek persons; but he that can do so with the froward, with the wilful, and the ignorant, with the peevish and perverse, he only hath true charity. Always remembering, that our true solid peace, the peace of God, consists rather in compliance with others, than in being complied with; in suffering and forbearing, rather than in contention and victory ^*.'’

In the course of these studies, he exercised his powers of eloquence, in the composition of forms of devotion, adapted to his circumstances and the state of his mind at different times. Of these, a specimen has lately been given to the public. He also translated into Latin many of the collects in our liturgy. This was a practice which he took up in his early years, and continued through his life, as he did also the noting down the particular occurrences of each day thereof, but in a loose and desultory way, [Page 544] in books of various forms, and in no regular or con­tinued succession.

He seemed to acquiesce in that famous saying of John Valdesso, which induced the emperor Charles the fifth to resign his crown, and betake himself to religious retirement; ‘'Oportet inter vitae negotia, et diem mortis, spatium aliquod intercedere ^*,'’ never­theless, he was but an ill husband of his time. He was, throughout his life, making resolutions to rise at eight, no very early hour, and breaking them. The visits of idle, and some of them very worthless persons, were never unwelcome to him; and though they interrupted him in his studies and meditations, yet, as they gave him opportunities of discourse, and furnished him with intelligence, he strove rather to protract that shorten or discountenance them; and, when abroad, such was the laxity of his mind, that he consented to the doing of many things, otherwise indifferent, for the avowed reason that they would drive on time.

Of his visitors at this time myself was one, and having known the state of his mind at different periods, and his habitual dread of insanity, I was greatly desirous of calming his mind, and rendering him susceptible of the many enjoyments of which I thought him then in possession, namely, a permanent income, tolerable health, a high degree of reputation for his moral qualities and literary exertions, by which latter he had made a whole country sensible of its obligation to him, and, lastly, that he had as [Page 545] few enemies as a man of his eminence could expect. On one day in particular, when I was suggesting to him these and the like reflections, he gave thanks to Almighty God, but added, that notwithstanding all the above benefits, the prospect of death, which was now at no great distance from him, was become ter­rible, and that he could not think of it but with great pain and trouble of mind.

I was very much surprised and shocked at such a declaration from such a man, and told him, that from my long acquaintance with him, I conceived his life to have been an uniform course of virtue, that he had ever shewn a deep sense of, and zeal for, religion, and that, both by his example and his writings, he had recommended the practice of it: that he had not rested, as many do, in the exercise of common ho­nesty, avoiding the grosser enormities, yet rejecting those advantages that result from the belief of divine revelation, but that he had, by prayer, and other ex­ercises of devotion, cultivated in his mind the seeds of goodness, and was become habitually pious. These suggestions made little impression on him: he la­mented the indolence in which he had spent his life, talked of secret transgressions, and seemed desirous of telling me more to that purpose than I was willing to hear.

From these perturbations of mind, he had, how­ever, at times, relief. Upon a visit, that I made him some months after, I found him much altered in his sentiments. He said that, having reflected on the transactions of his life, and acknowledged his sins before God, he felt within himself a confidence in his [Page 546] mercy, and that, trusting to the merits of his Redeemer, his mind was now in a state of perfect tranquillity.

In these discourses, he would frequently mention, with great energy and encomiums, the penitence of the man who assumed the name, and by that I must call him, of George Psalmanaazar, a Frenchman, but who pretended to be a native of the island of For­mosa, and a convert from paganism to Christianity, and, as such, received baptism. By the help of his great learning and endowments, he eluded all attempts to de­tect his impostures, but, in his more advanced age, be­came a sincere penitent, and, without any other mo­tive than a sense of his sin, published a confession of them, and begged the pardon of mankind in terms the most humble and affecting. The remainder of his life was exemplary, and he died in 1763. The habitation of this person was in Ironmonger row, Old street, Middlesex, in the neighbourhood whereof he was so well known and esteemed, that, as Dr Hawkesworth once told me, scarce any person, eve [...] children, passed him without shewing him the usua [...] signs of respect. He was one of the writers of th [...] Universal-History, and, by his intercourse with th [...] booksellers it was, as I conceive, that Johnson becam [...] acquainted with him ^*.

I mention the above particulars, as well to corroborate those testimonies of Johnson's piety already extan [...] as to refute the objections of many infidels, who, desirous of having him thought to be of their party [Page 547] endeavoured to make it believed, that he was a mere moralist, and that, when writing on religious subjects, he accommodated himself to the notions of the vul­gar: and also, because a certain female sceptic, of his acquaintance, was once heard to say, that she was sure Dr. Johnson was too great a philosopher to be a believer.

From this digression, which I mean as an intro­duction to certain particulars of his behaviour in his last illness, hereafter related, I proceed to the future events of his life. In the year 1781, death put an end to the friendship that, for some years, had subsisted between him and Mr. Thrale, but gave birth to a relation that seemed to be but a continuation of it, viz. that of an executor, the duties of which office involved in it the management of an immense trade, the disposal of a large fortune, and the interests of children rising to maturity. For the trouble it might create him, Mr. Thrale bequeathed to him, as he did to each of his other executors, a legacy of two hundred pounds.

Dr. Johnson was not enough a man of the world to be capable alone of so important a trust. Indeed, it required, for the execution of it, somewhat like a board, a kind of standing council, adapted, by the several qua­lifications of the individuals that composed it, to all emergencies. Mr. Thrale wisely foresaw this, and associated with Johnson three other persons, men of great experience in business, and of approved worth and integrity. It was easy to see, as Johnson was unskilled in both money and commercial transactions, that Mr. Thrale's view, in constituting him one of his executors, could only be, that, by his philosophical [Page 548] prudence and sagacity, of which himself had, in some instances, found the benefit ^*, he might give a general direction to the motions of so vast a machine as they had to conduct. Perhaps he might also think, that the celebrity of Johnson's character would give a lustre to that constellation, in which he had thought proper to place him. This may be called vanity, but it seems to be of the same kind with that which induced Mr. Pope to appoint Mr. Murray, now earl of Mansfield, one of the executors of his will.

No sooner had this trust devolved on him, than he applied to me for advice. He had never been an executor before, and was at a loss in the steps to be taken. I told him the first was proving the will, a term that he understood not. I explained it to him, as also the oath that would be tendered to him, faith­fully to execute it, to administer the testator's effects according to law, and to render a true account thereof when required. I told him that in this act he would be joined by the other executors, whom, as they were all men of business, he would do well to follow.

[Page 549] Johnson had all his life long been used to lead, to direct, and instruct, and did not much relish the thoughts of following men, who, in all the situa­tions he could conceive, would have looked up to him: he therefore, as he afterwards confessed to me, began to form theories and visionary projects, adapted as well to the continuation and extension of the trade, which, be it remembered, was brewing, as the disposal of it; but in this, as he also acknowledged, he found himself at a loss. The other executors, after reflecting on the difficulty of conducting so large an undertaking, the disagreeableness of an office that would render them, in effect, tax-gatherers, as all of that trade are, and place them in a situation between the public and the revenue, determined to make sale of the whole, and blew up Johnson's schemes for their commencing brewers, into the air. In the carrying this resolution into act, the executors had a great difficulty to encounter: Mr. Thrale's trade had been improving for two generations, and was become of such an enormous magnitude, as nothing but an ag­gregate of several fortunes was equal to; a circum­stance, which could not but affect the intrinsic value of the object, and increase the difficulty of finding purchasers: of things indivisible exposed to sale, an estimate may be formed, till their value rises to a certain amount; but, after that, a considerable abate­ment from their intrinsic worth must be made, to meet the circumstance of a paucity of purchasers. This was the case in the sale of Pitt's diamond, which, in the ratio by which jewels are valued, was computed to be worth 225,000l. but, because [Page 550] only a very few persons were able to purchase it, was sold to the last king of France for little more than 67,000l.

This difficulty, great as it was, Mr. Thrale's exe­cutors found the way to surmount: they commenced a negociation with some persons of worth and cha­racter, which, being conducted on both sides with fairness and candour, terminated in a conveyance of the trade, with all its appendages, for which the con­sideration was, an hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Of this arduous transaction, Johnson was little more than a spectator, and, when called upon to ratify it, he readily acquiesced. There only remained for him to do justice to the memory of him, whom he could not but consider as both his friend and bene­factor, and this he did, by an exercise of his talent, in the following monumental inscription: ‘Hic conditur quod reliquum est
HENRICI THRALE,
Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit,
Ut vitam illi longiorem multi optarent;
Ita sacras,
Ut quam brevem esset habiturus prescire videretur;
Simplex, apertus, sibique semper similis,
Nihil ostentavit, aut arte fictum, aut cura
Elaboratum.
In senatu, regi, patriaeque,
Fideliter studuit;
Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus:
Domi inter mille mercaturae negotia,
Literarum elegantiam minimè neglexit,
Amicis, quocunque modo laborantibus,
[Page 551]Conciliis, auctoritate, muneribus adfuit.
Inter familiares, comites, convivas, hospites,
Tam facili fuit morum suavitate,
Ut omnium animos ad se alliceret;
Tam felici sermonis libertate,
Ut nulli adulatus, omnibus placeret.
Natus 1724. Ob. 1781.
Consortes tumuli habet Rodolphum patrem,
Strenuum fortemque virum, et Henricum,
Filium unicum, quem spei parentum
Mors inopina decennem
Praeripuit.
Ita
Domus felix et opulenta, quam erexit
Avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit.
Abi viator,
Et vicibus rerum humanarum perspectis,
Eternitatem cogita.’

The death of Mr. Thrale dissolved the friendship between him and Johnson; but it abated not in the latter, that care for the interests of those whom his friend had left behind him, which he thought himself bound to cherish, as a living principle of gratitude. The favours he had received from Mr. Thrale, were to be repaid by the exercise of kind offices towards his relict and her children, and these, circumstanced as Johnson was, could only be prudent councils, friendly admonition to the one, and preceptive in­struction to the others, both which he was ever ready to interpose. Nevertheless, it was observed by myself, and other of Johnson's friends, that, soon after the decease of Mr. Thrale, his visits to Streatham be­came [Page 552] less and less frequent, and that he studiously avoided the mention of the place or family ^*.

Having now no calls, and, as I believe, very little temptation, to become a sojourner, or even a guest, in the habitation of his departed friend, he had leisure to indulge himself in excursions to the city of his na­tivity, as also to Oxford; for both which places he ever entertained an enthusiastic affection. In the former, he was kindly received, and respectfully treated, by Mrs. Lucy Porter, the daughter, by her former husband, of his deceased wife, and in the latter, by the reverend Dr. Adams, who had been his tutor at Pembroke college, and is now the head of that seminary. While he was thus resident in the uni­versity, he received daily proofs of the high esti­mation in which he was there held, by such mem­bers of that body as were of the greatest eminence for learning, or were any way distinguished for their na­tural or acquired abilities.

Besides the places above-mentioned, Johnson had other summer-retreats, to which he was ever welcome, the seats of his friends in the country. At one of these, in the year 1782, he was alarmed by a tumour, by surgeons termed a sarcocele, that, as it increased, gave him great pain, and, at length, hurried him to town, with a resolution to submit, if it should be thought necessary, to a dreadful chirurgical operation; but, on his arrival, one less severe restored him to a [Page 553] state of perfect ease in the part affected. But he had disorders of another kind to struggle with: he had frequent fits of pain which indicated the passage of a gall-stone, and he now felt the pressure of an asthma, a constitutional disease with him, from which he had formerly been relieved by copious bleedings, but his advanced age forbade the repetition of them.

In the beginning of the year 1782, death de­prived him of his old friend and companion; he who had, for near forty years, had the care of his health, and had attended him almost constantly every morning, to enquire after the state of his body, and fill out his tea, the mute, the officious, and the humble Mr. Levett. Of this disastrous event, as soon as it happened, Johnson sent to his friend, Dr. Lawrence, the following account:

[Page 554] I find in one of Johnson's diaries the following note: ‘'January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the church-yard of Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday 17, about seven in the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and faithful friend. I have known him from about 46. Commendari.—May God have had mercy on him. May he have mercy on me!'’

The grief which the loss of friends occasioned Johnson, seems to have been a frequent stimulative with him to composition. His sense of Levett's worth he expressed in the following lines, which may, perhaps, contribute, more than any one circumstance in his character, to keep the memory of his existence alive:

About the middle of June 1783, his constitution sustained a severer shock than it had ever before felt: this was a stroke of the palsy, so very sudden and severe, that it awakened him out of a sound sleep, and rendered him, for a short time, speechless. As it had not affected his intellectual powers, he, in that cumbent posture to which he was confined, attempted to repeat, first in English, then in Latin, and afterwards in Greek, the Lord's Prayer, but succeeded in only the last effort, immediately after which, finding himself again bereft of the power of speech, he rang for his servant, and making signs for pen, ink, and paper, wrote and sent the following note to his friend and next-door neighbour, Mr. Allen the printer.

[Page 557] Mr. Allen immediately rose to his assistance, and, in the morning, dispatched a message to Dr. He­berden and Dr. Brocklesby, who, in a few days, so far relieved him, that his speech became, to a good degree, articulate, and, till his organs began to tire, he was able to hold conversation. By the skill and attention of these two worthy persons, he was, at length, restored to such a degree of health that, on the 27th of the same month, he was able to water his garden, and had no remaining symptoms of disease, excepting that his legs were observed to be swoln, and he had some presages of an hydropic affection. These gave him some concern, and in­duced him to note, more particularly than he had formerly done ^*, the variations of the state of his health.

But bodily afflictions were not the only trials he had to undergo. He had been a mourner for many friends, and was now in danger of losing one, who had not only cheared him in his solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which, other­wise, would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him from domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expences of his house, and kept at a distance some of those necessitous visitants, towards whom his bounty, though it had seldom wrought any good, had often been exercised.

[Page 558] This person was Mrs. Williams, whose calamitous history is related among the events recorded in the foregoing pages. She had for some months been declining, and during the doctor's late illness was confined to her bed. The restoration of his health made it necessary for him to retire into the country; but, before his departure, he composed and made use of the following energetic prayer.

During his absence from London, viz. on the sixth day of September 1783, Mrs. Williams was released from all her cares and troubles by an easy death, for which she was well prepared. The last offices were performed for her by those of her friends who were [Page 559] about her in the time of her illness, and had admi­nistered to her all the assistance in their power.

At his return to London, Johnson found himself in a forlorn and helpless condition: his habitual melancholy had now a real subject to work on, and represented his house as a dreary mansion. Soli­tude was ever ungrateful to him, and the want of a companion, with whom he might pass his evening hours, often drove him to seek relief in the conver­sation of persons in all respects his inferiors. To talk much, and to be well attended to, was, through­out his life, his chief delight: his vein of discourse, which has often enough been described, was calcu­lated to attract the applause, and even admiration, of small circles; to him, therefore, a confraternity of persons, assembled for the purpose of free commu­nication, or, in other words, a club, could not but be a source of pleasure, and he now projected one, which will hereafter be described. In every association of this kind, he was sure, unless by concession, to pre­side, and, ex cathedra, to discuss the subjects of enquiry and debate.

The death of Mr. Thrale, and Johnson's estrange­ment from the dwelling and family of this his valued friend, have already been mentioned: it remains to say of this event, that it was not followed by a total oblivion, on the part of his relict, of the intimacy that had subsisted between him and her husband, it appearing, that an intercourse by letters was still kept up between them. It was, nevertheless, easy to discover by his conversation, that he no longer looked on himself as a welcome guest at Streatham, and that he did but ill brook the change in his course of life that he now experienced. He had, for near twenty years, par­ticipated [Page 560] in most of those enjoyments that make wealth and affiuence desirable; had partaken, in common with their owners, of the delights of a villa, and the convenience of an equipage; and had been entertained with a variety of amusements and occu­pations. In short, during the whole of that period, his life had been as happy as it had been in the power of such persons to make it.

That this celebrated friendship subsisted so long as it did, was a subject of wonder to most of John­son's intimates, for such were his habits of living, that he was by no means a desirable inmate. His unmanly thirst for tea made him very troublesome. At Streatham, he would suffer the mistress of the house to sit up and make it for him, till two or three hours after midnight. When retired to rest, he in­dulged himself in the dangerous practice of reading in bed. It was a very hard matter to get him de­cently dressed by dinner-time, even when select com­panies were invited; and no one could be sure, that in his table-conversation with strangers, he would not, by contradiction, or the general asperity of his beha­viour, offend them.

These irregularities were not only borne with by Mr. Thrale, but he seemed to think them amply atoned for by the honour he derived from such a guest as no table in the three kingdoms could pro­duce; but, he dying, it was not likely that the same sentiments and opinions should descend to those of his family who were left behind. Such a friendly con­nection and correspondence as I have just mentioned, continued, however, between Johnson and the widow, till it was interrupted by an event that will shortly be related.

[Page 561] I have in his diary met with sundry notes, signifying that, while he was at Streatham, he endeavoured, by reading, to acquire a knowledge of the Dutch lan­guage, but that his progress in the study thereof was very slow.

It has been already related that, being seized with a paralysis about the month of June 1783, he was so far recovered therefrom, as to entertain a hope, that he had nearly worn out all his disorders. ‘'What a man am I!'’ said he to me, in the month of No­vember following, ‘'who have got the better of three diseases, the palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of my friends, with­out the interruptions of weakness or pain!'—’To these flattering testimonies I must add, that in this seeming spring-tide of his health and spirits, he wrote me the following note:

Our intended meeting was prevented by a cir­cumstance, which the following note will explain:

With this invitation I chearfully complied, and met, at the time and place appointed, all who could be mustered of our society, namely, Johnson, Mr. Ryland, and Mr. Payne of the bank. When we were collected, the thought that we were so few, occa­sioned some melancholy reflections, and I could not but compare our meeting, at such an advanced pe­riod of life as it was to us all, to that of the four old men in the ‘'Senile Colloquium'’ of Erasmus. We dined, and in the evening regaled with coffee. At ten, we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us, with a sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to soli­tude and chearless meditation.

Johnson had proposed a meeting, like this, once a month, and we had one more; but, the time ap­proaching for a third, he began to feel a return of some of his complaints, and signified a wish, that we would dine with him at his own house; and, ac­cordingly, we met there, and were very chearfully entertained by him.

[Page 563] A few days after, he sent for me, and informed me, that he had discovered in himself the symptoms of a dropsy, and, indeed, his very much increased bulk, and the swoln appearance of his legs, seemed to in­dicate no less. He told me, that he was desirous of making a will, and requested me to be one of his executors: upon my consenting to take on me the office, he gave me to understand, that he meant to make a provision for his servant Frank, of about 70l. a year for life, and concerted with me a plan for in­vesting a sum sufficient for the purpose: at the same time he opened to me the state of his circumstances, and the amount of what he had to dispose of.

In a visit, which I made him in a few days, in con­sequence of a very pressing request to see me, I found him labouring under great dejection of mind. He bade me draw near him, and said, he wanted to enter into a serious conversation with me; and, upon my expressing a willingness to join in it, he, with a look that cut me to the heart, told me, that he had the prospect of death before him, and that he dreaded to meet his Saviour. I could not but be astonished at such a declaration, and advised him, as I had done once before, to reflect on the course of his life, and the ser­vices he had rendered to the cause of religion and virtue, as well by his example, as his writings; to which he answered, that he had written as a philoso­pher, but had not lived like one. In the estimation of his offences, he reasoned thus— ‘'Every man knows his own sins, and also, what grace he has resisted. But, to those of others, and the circumstances under which they were committed, he is a stranger: he is, there­fore, to look on himself as the greatest sinner that [Page 564] he knows of ^*.'’ At the conclusion of this argument, which he strongly enforced, he uttered this passionate exclamation,— ‘'Shall I, who have been a teacher of others, myself be a castaway?'’

Much to the same purpose passed between us in this and other conversations that I had with him, in all which I could not but wonder, as much at the freedom with which he opened his mind, and the compunc­tion he seemed to feel for the errors of his past life, as I did, at his making choice of me for his confessor, knowing full well how meanly qualified I was for such an office.

It was on a Thursday that I had this conversation with him; and here, let not the supercilious lip of scorn protrude itself, while I relate that, in the course thereof, he declared his intention to devote the whole of the next day to fasting, humiliation, and such other devotional exercises, as became a man in his situation. On the Saturday following, I made him a visit, and, upon entering his room, observed in his countenance such a serenity, as indicated that some re­markable crisis of his disorder had produced a change in his feelings. He told me, that, pursuant to the re­solution he had mentioned to me, he had spent the preceding day in an abstraction from all worldly con­cerns; that, to prevent interruption, he had, in the morning, ordered Frank not to admit any one to him, and, the better to enforce the charge, had added these awful words, ‘'For your master is preparing himself to die.'’ He then mentioned to me, that, in the [Page 565] course of this exercise, he found himself relieved from that disorder which had been growing on him, and was become very oppressing, the dropsy, by a gradual evacuation of water to the amount of twenty pints, a like instance whereof he had never before experienced, and asked me what I thought of it.

I was well aware of the lengths that superstition and enthusiasm will lead men, and how ready some are to attribute favourable events to supernatural causes, and said, that it might savour of presumption to say that, in this instance, God had wrought a miracle; yet, as divines recognize certain dispensations of his provi­dence, recorded in the Scripture by the denomination of returns of prayer, and his omnipotence is now the same as ever, I thought it would be little less than criminal, to ascribe his late relief to causes merely natural, and, that the safer opinion was, that he had not in vain humbled himself before his Maker. He seemed to acquiesce in all that I said on this important subject, and, several times, while I was discoursing with him, cried out, ‘'It is wonderful, very won­derful!'’

His zeal for religion, as manifested in his writings and conversation, and the accounts extant that attest his piety, have induced the enemies to his memory to tax him with superstition. To that charge, I oppose his behaviour on this occasion, and leave it to the judgment of sober and rational persons, whether such an unexpected event, as that above-mentioned, would not have prompted a really superstitious man, to some more passionate exclamation, than that it was won­derful ^*.

[Page 566] He had no sooner experienced the ease and comfort which followed from the remarkable event above­mentioned, than he began to entertain a hope, that he had got the better of that disease which most op­pressed him, and that length of days might yet be his portion; he, therefore, sought for a relief from that solitude, to which the loss of Mrs. Williams and others of his domestic companions, seemed to have doomed him; and, in the same spirit that induced him to at­tempt the revival of the Ivy lane club, set about the establishment of another. I was not made privy to this his intention, but, all circumstances considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard, as I did from a friend of mine, that the great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a six­penny club, at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that, though some of the members thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for three pence each night, might, three nights in a week, hear him talk, and partake of his conversation. I soon after­wards learned from the doctor, the nature of, as also the motives to this institution, which, as to him, was novel, in this respect, that, as the presidency [Page 567] passed in rotation, he was oftner excluded from, than entitled to enjoy, that pre-eminence which, at all times, and in all convivial assemblies, was considered as his right.

The more intimate of Johnson's friends looked on this establishment, both as a sorry expedient to kill time, and a degradation of those powers which had administered delight to circles, composed of persons, of both sexes, distinguished as well by their rank, as by their talents for polite conversation. It was a mortification to them, to associate in idea the clink of the tankard, with moral disquisition and literary inves­tigation; and many of them were led to question whether that pleasure could be very great, which he had rendered so cheap: they, however, concealed their sentiments, and, from motives of mere com­passion, suffered him to enjoy a comfort, which was now become almost the only one of which he was capable; and this he did for the short space of about ten months, when the increase of his complaints ob­liged him to forego it.

I have now brought him to the seventy-fifth year of his age, and the last of his life, in which two re­markable events occurred, the one whereof gave him great uneasiness, and the other, though much talked of, little or none. The time I am speaking of, is the year 1784, by about the middle whereof, he was, to appearance, so well recovered, that both himself and his friends hoped, that he had some years to live. He had recovered from the paralytic stroke of the last year, to such a degree, that, saving a little diffi­culty in his articulation, he had no remains of it: he had also undergone a slight fit of the gout, and [Page 568] conquered an oppression on his lungs, so as to be able, as himself told me, to run up the whole stair-case of the Royal Academy, on the day of the annual dinner there. In short, to such a degree of health was he restored, that he forgot all his complaints: he resumed sitting to Opie for his picture, which had been begun the year before, but, I believe, was never finished, and accepted an invitation to the house of a friend, at Ashbourn in Derbyshire, proposing to stay there till towards the end of the summer, and, in his return, to visit Mrs. Porter, his daughter-in-law, and others of his friends, at Lichfield.

A few weeks before his setting out, he was made uneasy by a report, that the widow of his friend Mr. Thrale was about to dispose of herself in marriage to a foreigner, a singer by profession, and with him to quit the kingdom. Upon this occasion he took the alarm, and to prevent a degradation of herself, and, what as executor of her husband was more his con­cern, the desertion of her children, wrote to her, she then being at Bath, a letter, a spurious copy whereof, beginning ‘'If you are not already ignominiously married,'’ is inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1784. That this letter is spurious, as to the language, I have Johnson's own authority for saying; but, in respect of the sentiments, he avowed it, in a declaration to me, that not a sentence of it was his, but yet, that it was an adumbration of one that he wrote upon the occasion. It may, therefore, be sus­pected, that some one who had heard him repeat the contents of the letter, had given it to the public in the form in which it appeared.

What answer was returned to his friendly monition, [Page 569] I know not, but it seems that it was succeeded by a letter of greater length, written, as it afterwards ap­peared, too late to do any good, in which he expressed an opinion, that the person to whom it was addressed had forfeited her fame. The answer to this I have seen: it is written from Bath, and contains an indignant vin­dication as well of her conduct as her fame, an inhi­bition of Johnson from following her to Bath, and a farewell, concluding— ‘'Till you have changed your opinion of—let us converse no more.'’

In this transaction, Johnson seemed to have for­gotten the story of the Ephesian Matron, related by Petronius, but was, by this time, convinced that, in his endeavours to prevent an attachment, which he foresaw would be prejudicial to the interests of his friend's children, and fix an indelible disgrace on their mother, who was about to abandon them and her country, he had been labouring to hedge in the cuckow. From the style of the letter, a conclusion was to be drawn, that baffled all the powers of rea­soning and persuasion:

which being the case, he contented himself with re­flecting on what he had done to prevent that which he thought one of the greatest evils that could befall the progeny of his friend, the alienation of the affec­tions of their mother. He looked upon the deser­tion of children by their parents, and the withdrawing from them that protection, that mental nutriment which, in their youth, they are capable of receiving, the exposing them to the snares and temptations of [Page 570] the world, and the solicitations and deceits of the artful and designing, as most unnatural; and, in a letter on the subject to me, written from Ashbourn, thus delivered his sentiments:

‘'Poor Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice,' [meaning, as I understood, by the former, the love of her children, and, by the latter, her pride,] 'would have restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her enemies to exult over, and for her friends, if she has any left, to forget or pity.'’

In the mention of the above particulars, it is far from my design to reprehend the conduct of the lady to whom they relate. Being her own mistress, she had a right to dispose of herself, and is unamenable to any known judicature. Johnson, in his relation of executor to her husband, as also in gratitude to his memory, was under an obligation to promote the welfare of his family. It was also his duty, as far as he was able, to avert an evil which threatened their interests. What he endeavoured, for that purpose, is part of his history, and, as such only, I relate it.

While Dr. Johnson was in the country, his friends in town were labouring for his benefit. Mr. Thrale, a short time before his death, had meditated a journey to Italy, and formed a party, in which Johnson was in­cluded, but the design never took effect. It was now conceived, by Johnson's friends, that a foreign air would contribute to the restoration of his health; and his inclination concurring with their sentiments, a plan was formed for his visiting the continent, attended with a male-servant. The only obstacle to the journey was, an apprehension, that the expence of it would be [Page 571] greater than his income would bear; and, to get over this difficulty, Sir Joshua Reynolds undertook to soli­cit an addition of 200l. to his pension, and to that end, applied to lord Thurlow, who, as the public have been fully informed, exerted his endeavours for the purpose, but the application failing, he de­clared himself willing, upon the security of that pen­sion of which Johnson was in possession, to advance him 500l ^*. This generous offer Johnson thought proper to decline by a letter, of which the following is an authentic copy, being taken from his own draft now in my hands.

An incorrect copy of the above letter, though of a private nature, found its way into the public pa­pers ^* in this manner. It was given to Sir Joshua Reynolds, unsealed, to be delivered to lord Thurlow. Sir Joshua, looking upon it as a handsome testimony of gratitude, and, as it related to a transaction in which he had concerned himself, took a copy of it, and shewed it to a few of his friends. Among these, was a lady of quality, who, having heard it red, the next day desired to be gratified with the perusal of it at home: the use she made of this favour was, the copying and sending it to one of the news-papers, [Page 573] whence it was taken and inserted in others, as also in the Gentleman's and many other Magazines. Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing—'I am betrayed,'—but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed in­juries, the error that made the publication possible.

Dr. Brocklesby was one of those physicians who would not encourage Johnson in a wish to visit the con­tinent; nevertheless, to console him for his late dis­appointment, and that the supposed narrowness of his circumstances might be no hindrance to such a design, he made him a voluntary offer of 100 l. a year, payable quarterly, towards his support abroad, but could not prevail on him to accept it ^*.

[Page 574] His excursion to Ashbourn was less beneficial than he hoped it would be: his disorders began to return, and he wanted company and amusement. During his stay there, he composed sundry prayers, adapted to the state of his body and mind; and translated from Horace, lib. IV. the ode, ‘'Diffugêre nives, redeunt jam gramina campis,'’ in the words following:

In his return to London, he stopped at Lichfield, and from thence wrote to me several letters, that served but to prepare me for meeting him in a worse state of health than I had ever seen him in. The concluding paragraph of the last of them is as follows: ‘'I am relapsing into the dropsy very fast, and shall make such haste to town that it will be useless to write to me; but when I come, let me have the benefit of your advice, and the consolation of your company.' [dated Nov. 7, 1784.]’ After about a fortnight's stay there, he took his leave of that city, and of Mrs. Porter, whom he never afterwards saw, and arrived in town on the sixteenth day of No­vember.

After the declaration he had made of his intention to provide for his servant Frank, and before his going into the country, I had frequently pressed him to make a will, and had gone so far as to make a draft of one, with blanks for the names of the executors and residuary legatee, and directing in what manner it was to be executed and attested; but he was exceedingly averse to this business; and, while he was in Derbyshire, I repeated my solicitations, for this purpose, by letters. When he arrived in town, he had done nothing in it, and, to what I formerly said, I now added, that he had never mentioned to me the disposal of the residue of his estate, which, [Page 576] after the purchase of an annuity for Frank, I found would be something considerable, and that he would do well to bequeath it to his relations. His answer was, ‘'I care not what becomes of the residue.'—’A few days after, it appeared that he had executed the draft, the blanks remaining, with all the solemnities of a real will. I could get him no farther, and thus, for some time, the matter rested.

He had scarce arrived in town, before it was found to be too true, that he was relapsing into a dropsy; and farther, that he was at times grievously afflicted with an asthma. Under an apprehension that his end was ap­proaching, he enquired of Dr. Brocklesby, with great earnestness indeed, how long he might probably live, but could obtain no other than unsatisfactory answers: and, at the same time, if I remember right, under a seeming great pressure of mind, he thus addressed him, in the words of Shakespeare:

To which the doctor, who was nearly as well red in the above author as himself, readily replied,

Upon which Johnson exclaimed— ‘'Well applied:—that's more than poetically true.'’

[Page 577] He had, from the month of July in this year, mark­ed the progress of his diseases, in a journal which he intitled ‘'Aegri Ephemeris,'’ noting therein his many sleepless nights by the words, Nox insomnis. This he often contemplated, and, finding very little ground for hope that he had much longer to live, he set him­self to prepare for his dissolution, and betook himself to private prayer and the reading of Erasmus on the New Testament, Dr. Clarke's sermons, and such other books as had a tendency to calm and comfort him.

In this state of his body and mind, he seemed to be very anxious in the discharge of two offices that he had hitherto neglected to perform: one was, the com­municating to the world the names of the persons con­cerned in the compilation of the Universal History; the other was, the rescuing from oblivion the memory of his father and mother, and also, of his brother: the former of these he discharged, by delivering to Mr. Nichols the printer, in my presence, a paper con­taining the information above-mentioned, and direc­tions to deposit it in the British museum. The other, by composing a memorial of his deceased parents and his brother, intended for their tomb-stone, which, whether it was ever inscribed thereon or not, is extant in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1785. The note ascertaining the names of the compilers of the Universal History, is inserted in the Magazine for the preceding month. The monumental inscription is as follows:

He would also have written, in Latin verse, an epi­taph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to the task of original poetic composition in that lan­guage.

Nevertheless, he succeeded in an attempt to render into Latin metre, from the Greek Anthologia, sundry of the epigrams therein contained, that had been omit­ted by other translators, alledging as a reason, which he had found in Fabricius, that Henry Stephens, Bu­chanan, Grotius, and others, had paid a like tribute to [Page 579] literature ^*. The performance of this task was the employment of his sleepless nights, and, as he im­formed me, it afforded him great relief.

His complaints still increasing, I continued pressing him to make a will, but he still procrastinated that business. On the twenty-seventh of November, in the morning, I went to his house, with a purpose still farther to urge him not to give occasion, by dying intestate, for litigation among his relations; but finding that he was gone to pass the day with the reverend Mr. Strahan, at Islington, I followed him thither, and found there our old friend Mr. Ryland, and Mr. Hoole. Upon my sitting down, he said, that the prospect of the change he was about to un­dergo, and the thought of meeting his Saviour, trou­bled him, but that he had hope that he would not reject him. I then began to discourse with him about his will, and the provision for Frank, till he grew angry. He told me, that he had signed and sealed the paper I left him;—but that, said I, had blanks in it, which, as it seems, you have not filled up with the names of the executors.— ‘'You should have filled them up yourself,'’ answered he.—I replied, that such an act would have looked as if I meant to prevent his choice of a fitter person.— ‘'Sir,' said he, 'these minor virtues are not to be exercised in matters of such importance as this.'—’At length, he said, that on his return home, he would send for a clerk, and dictate a will to him.—You will then, said I, be inops consilii; rather do it now. [Page 580] With Mr. Strahan's permission, I will be his guest at dinner; and, if Mr. Hoole will please to hold the pen, I will, in a few words, make such a disposition of your estate as you shall direct.—To this he assented; but such a paroxysm of the asthma seized him, as prevented our going on. As the fire burned up, he found himself relieved, and grew chearful. ‘'The fit,' said he, 'was very sharp; but I am now easy.'’ After I had dictated a few lines, I told him, that the ancient form of wills contained a profession of the faith of the testator; and that, he being a man of eminence for learning and parts, it would afford an illustrious example, and well become him, to make such an explicit declaration of his belief, as might obviate all suspicions that he was any other than a Christian ^*. He thanked me for the hint, and, calling for paper, wrote on a slip, that I had in my hand and gave him, the following words: ‘'I humbly com­mit to the infinite and eternal goodness of Almighty God, my soul polluted with many sins; but, as I hope, purified by repentance, and redeemed, as I trust, by the death of Jesus Christ;'’ and, returning it to me, said, ‘'This I commit to your custody.'’

[Page 581] Upon my calling on him for directions to proceed, he told me, that his father, in the course of his trade of a bookseller, had become bankrupt, and that Mr. William Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue his business— ‘'This,' said he, 'I consider as an obligation on me to be grateful to his descen­dants, and I therefore mean to give 200l. to his re­presentative.'—’He then meditated a devise of his house at Lichfield to the corporation of that city for a charitable use; but, it being freehold, he said— ‘'I cannot live a twelve-month, and the last statute of mortmain ^* stands in the way: I must, therefore, think of some other disposition of it,'—’His next consideration was, a provision for Frank, concerning the amount whereof I found he had been consulting Dr. Brocklesby, to whom he had put this question— ‘'What would be a proper annuity to bequeath to a favourite servant?'—’The doctor answered, that the circumstances of the master were the truest measure, and that, in the case of a nobleman, 50l. a year was deemed an adequate reward for many years' faithful service.— ‘'Then, shall I,' said Johnson, 'be nobilissimus; for, I mean to leave Frank 70l. a year, and I desire you to tell him so.'—’And now, at the making of the will, a devise, equivalent to such a provision, was therein inserted. The residue of his estate and effects, which took in, though he intended it not, the house at Lichfield, he bequeathed to his executors, in trust for a religious association, which it is needless to describe.

[Page 582] Having executed the will with the necessary forma­lities, he would have come home, but being pressed by Mr. and Mrs. Strahan to stay, he consented, and we all dined together. Towards the evening, he grew chearful, and I having promised to take him in my coach, Mr. Strahan and Mr. Ryland would accom­pany him home. In the way thither he appeared much at ease, and told stories. At eight I set him down, and Mr. Strahan and Mr. Ryland betook themselves to their respective homes.

Sunday 28th. I saw him about noon; he was dozing; but waking, he found himself in a circle of his friends. Upon opening his eyes, he said, that the prospect of his dissolution was very terrible to him, and addressed himself to us all, in nearly these words: ‘'You see the state in which I am; conflicting with bodily pain and mental distraction: while you are in health and strength, labour to do good, and avoid evil, if ever you hope to escape the distress that now oppresses me.'—A little while after,—'I had, very early in my life, the seeds of goodness in me: I had a love of virtue, and a reverence for religion; and these, I trust, have brought forth in me fruits meet for repentance; and, if I have re­pented as I ought, I am forgiven. I have, at times, entertained a loathing of sin and of myself, parti­cularly at the beginning of this year, when I had the prospect of death before me; and this has not abated when my fears of death have been less; and, at these times, I have had such rays of hope shot into my soul, as have almost persuaded me, that I am in a state of reconciliation with God.'’

[Page 583] 29th. Mr. Langton, who had spent the evening with him, reported, that his hopes were increased, and that he was much cheared upon being reminded of the general tendency of his writings, and of his example.

30th. I saw him in the evening, and found him chearful. Was informed, that he had, for his dinner, eaten heartily of a French duck pie and a pheasant.

Dec. 1. He was busied in destroying papers.—Gave to Mr. Langton and another person, to fair copy, some translations of the Greek epigrams, which he had made in the preceding nights, and transcribed the next morning, and they began to work on them.

3d. Finding his legs continue to swell, he signi­fied to his physicians a strong desire to have them scarified, but they, unwilling to put him to pain, and fearing a mortification, declined advising it. He afterwards consulted his surgeon, and he performed the operation on one leg.

4th. I visited him: the scarification, made yesterday in his leg, appeared to have had little effect.—He said to me, that he was easier in his mind, and as fit to die at that instant, as he could be a year hence.—He re­quested me to receive the sacrament with him on Sunday, the next day. Complained of great weak­ness, and of phantoms that haunted his imagination.

5th. Being Sunday, I communicated with him and Mr. Langton, and other of his friends, as many as nearly filled the room. Mr. Strahan, who was constant in his attendance on him throughout his illness, performed the office. Previous to reading the exhortation, Johnson knelt, and, with a degree of fervour that I had never been witness to before, [Page 584] uttered the following most eloquent and energetic prayer:

‘'Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his me­rits and in thy mercy: forgive and accept my late conversion; enforce and accept my imperfect repen­tance; make this commemoration of him available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy son Jesus effectual to my re­demption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends, have mercy upon all men. Support me by the grace of they holy spirit in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death, and receive me, at my death, to ever­lasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ.—Amen.'’

Upon rising from his knees, after the office was concluded, he said, that he dreaded to meet God in a state of idiocy, or with opium in his head; and, that having now communicated with the effects of a dose upon him, he doubted if his exertions were the genuine operations of his mind, and repeated from bishop Taylor this sentiment, ‘'That little, that has been omitted in health, can be done to any purpose in sickness ^*.’

[Page 585] 6th. I again visited him. Before my departure, Dr. Brocklesby came in, and, taking him by the wrist, Johnson gave him a look of great contempt, and ri­diculed the judging of his disorder by the pulse. He complained, that the sarcocele had again made its appearance, and asked, if a puncture would not relieve him, as it had done the year before: the doctor answered, that it might, but that his surgeon was the best judge of the effect of such an operation. Johnson, upon this, said, ‘'How many men in a year die through the timidity of those whom they con­sult for health! I want length of life, and you fear giving me pain, which I care not for.'’

8th. I visited him with Mr. Langton, and found him dictating to Mr. Strahan another will, the former being, as he had said at the time of making it, a tem­porary one. On our entering the room, he said, ‘'God bless you both.'’ I arrived just time enough to direct the execution, and also the attestation of it. After he had published it, he desired Mr. Strahan to say the Lord's prayer, which he did, all of us joining. Johnson, after it, uttered, extempore, a few pious ejaculations.

9th. I saw him in the evening, and found him dictating, to Mr. Strahan, a codicil to the will he had [Page 586] made the evening before. I assisted them in it, and received from the testator a direction, to insert a devise to his executors of the house at Lichfield, to be sold for the benefit of certain of his relations, a bequest of sundry pecuniary and specific legacies, a provision for the annuity of 70l. for Francis, and, after all, a devise of all the rest, residue, and remainder of his estate and effects, to his executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his executors and administrators; and, having dictated accordingly, Johnson executed and published it as a codicil to his will ^*.

He was now so weak as to be unable to kneel, and lamented, that he must pray sitting, but, with an effort, he placed himself on his knees, while Mr. Strahan repeated the Lord's Prayer. During the whole of the evening, he was much composed and re­signed. Being become very weak and helpless, it was [Page 587] thought necessary that a man should watch with him all night; and one was found in the neighbourhood, who, for half a crown a night, undertook to sit up with, and assist him. When the man had left the room, he, in the presence and hearing of Mr. Stra­han and Mr. Langton, asked me, where I meant to bury him. I answered, doubtless, in Westminster abbey: ‘'If,' said he, 'my executors think it proper to mark the spot of my interment by a stone, let it be so placed as to protect my body from injury.'’ I assured him it should be done. Before my departure, he desired Mr. Langton to put into my hands, money to the amount of upwards of 100l. with a direction to keep it till called for.

10th. This day at noon I saw him again. He said to me, that the male nurse to whose care I had com­mitted him, was unfit for the office. ‘'He is,' said he, 'an idiot, as aukward as a turnspit just put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.'’ Mr. Cruik­shank came into the room, and, looking on his scari­fied leg, saw no sign of a mortification.

11th. At noon, I found him dozing, and would not disturb him.

12th. Saw him again; found him very weak, and, as he said, unable to pray.

13th. At noon, I called at the house, but went not into his room, being told, that he was dozing. I was further informed by the servants, that his appetite was totally gone, and that he could take no sustenance. At eight in the evening, of the same day, word was brought me by Mr. Sastres, to whom, in his last moments, he uttered these words, ‘'Jam moriturus,'’ that, at a quarter past seven, he had, without a groan, or the least sign of pain or uneasiness, yielded his last breath.

[Page 588] At eleven, the same evening, Mr. Langton came to me, and, in an agony of mind, gave me to under­stand, that our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body. I was shocked at the news; but, upon being told that he had not touched any vital part, was easily able to account for an action, which would else have given us the deepest concern. The fact was, that conceiving himself to be full of water, he had done that, which he had often solicited his medical assistants to do, made two or three incisions in his lower limbs, vainly hoping for some relief from the flux that might follow.

Early the next morning, Frank came to me; and, being desirous of knowing all the particulars of this transaction, I interrogated him very strictly concerning it, and received from him answers to the following effect:

That, at eight in the morning of the preceding day, upon going into the bedchamber, his master, being in bed, ordered him to open a cabinet, and give him a drawer in it; that he did so, and that out of it his master took a case of lancets, and choosing one of them, would have conveyed it into the bed, which Frank, and a young man that sat up with him, seeing, they seized his hand, and intreated him not to do a rash action: he said he would not; but drawing his hand under the bed-clothes, they saw his arm move. Upon this, they turned down the clothes, and saw a great effusion of blood, which soon stopped—That soon after, he got at a pair of scissars that lay in a drawer by him, and plunged them deep in the calf of each leg—That immediately they sent for Mr. Cruikshank, and the apothecary, and they, or one of them, dressed the wounds—That he then fell into that dozing which [Page 589] carried him off.—That it was conjectured he lost eight or ten ounces of blood; and that this effusion brought on the dozing, though his pulse continued firm till three o'clock.

That this act was not done to hasten his end, but to discharge the water that he conceived to be in him, I have not the least doubt. A dropsy was his disease; he looked upon himself as a bloated carcase; and, to attain the power of easy respiration, would have un­dergone any degree of temporary pain. He dreaded neither punctures nor incisions, and, indeed, defied the trochar and the lancet: he had often reproached his physicians and surgeon with cowardice; and, when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his leg, he cried out— ‘'Deeper, deeper;—I will abide the consequence: you are afraid of your reputation, but that is no­thing to me.'—’To those about him, he said,— ‘'You all pretend to love me, but you do not love me so well as I myself do.'’

I have been thus minute in recording the parti­culars of his last moments, because I wished to attract attention to the conduct of this great man, under the most trying circumstances human nature is subject to. Many persons have appeared possessed of more serenity of mind in this awful scene; some have remained unmoved at the disso­lution of the vital union; and, it may be deemed a discouragement from the severe practice of religion, that Dr. Johnson, whose whole life was a preparation for his death, and a conflict with natural infirmity, was disturbed with terror at the prospect of the grave. Let not this relax the circumspection of any one. It is true, that natural firmness of spirit, or the [Page 90] confidence of hope, may buoy up the mind to the last; but, however heroic an undaunted death may appear, it is not what we should pray for. As Johnson lived the life of the righteous, his end was that of a Christian: he strictly fulfilled the injunction of the apostle, to work out his salvation with fear and trembling; and, though his doubts and scruples were certainly very distressing to himself, they give his friends a pious hope, that he, who added to almost all the virtues of Christianity, that religious humi­lity which its great Teacher inculcated, will, in the fullness of time, receive the reward promised to a patient continuance in well-doing.

A few days after his departure, Dr. Brocklesby and Mr. Cruikshank, who, with great assiduity and huma­nity, (and I must add, generosity, for neither they, nor Dr. Heberden, Dr. Warren, nor Dr. Butter, would accept any fees) had attended him, signified a wish, that his body might be opened. This was done, and the report made was to this effect:

• Two of the valves of the aorta oslified.
• The air-cells of the lungs unusually distended.
• One of the kidneys destroyed by the pressure of the water.
• The liver schirrous.
• A stone in the gall-bladder, of the size of a com­mon gooseberry.

On Monday the 20th of December, his funeral was celebrated and honoured by a numerous attendance of his friends, and among them, by particular invi­tation, of as many of the literary club as were then in town, and not prevented by engagements. The dean of Westminster, upon my application, would [Page 591] gladly have performed the ceremony of his interment, but, at the time, was much indisposed in his health; the office, therefore, devolved upon the senior pre­bendary, Dr. Taylor, who performed it with becoming gravity and seriousness. All the prebendaries, except such as were absent in the country, attended in their surplices and hoods: they met the corpse at the west door of their church, and performed, in the most res­pectful manner, all the honours due to the memory of so great a man.

His body, enclosed in a leaden coffin, is deposited in the south transept of the abbey, near the foot of Shakes­peare's monument, and close to the coffin of his friend Garrick. Agreeable to his request, a stone of black marble covers his grave, thus inscribed: ‘SAMUEL JOHNSON, L.L.D.
Obiit XIII die Decembris,
Anno Domini
M DCC LXXXIV,
Aetatis suae LXXV.’