 Section 14 of the Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Read by Janice in Georgia. The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 by James Boswell. Section 14. The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the press must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated to be paid for of the copyright. I understand that nothing was allowed by the booksellers on that account, and I remember his telling me that a large portion of it having by mistake been written upon both sides of the paper so as to be inconvenient for the compositor, it cost him twenty pounds to have it transcribed upon one side only. He is now to be considered as tugging at his oar, as engaged in a steady continued course of occupation sufficient to employ all his time for some years, and which was the best preventive of that constitutional melancholy which was ever lurking about him ready to trouble his quiet. But his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more diversity of employment and the pleasure of animated relaxation. He therefore not only exerted his talents in occasional composition that was very different from lexicography, but formed a club in Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, with a view to enjoy literary discussion and amuse his evening hours. The members associated with him in this little society were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst, Mr. Hawksworth, afterwards well known by his writings, Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney, and a few others of different professions. In the Gentleman's Magazine for May of this year, he wrote a life of Roscommon with notes, which he afterward much improved, indented the notes into text, and inserted it among his Lives of the English Poets. Mr. Dotsley this year brought out his preceptor, one of the most valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language. And to this meritorious work, Johnson furnished the preface, containing a general sketch of the book with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article, as also the vision of Theodore the Hermit found in his cell a most beautiful allegory of human life under the figure of ascending the mountain of existence. The Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say that he thought this was the best thing he ever wrote. 1749, a tapped 40. In January 1749, he published The Vanity of Human Wishes being the tenth satire of juvenile imitated. He, I believe, composed it in the preceding year. Mrs. Johnson, for the sake of country air, had lodgings at Hampstead to which he resorted occasionally, and there the greatest part, if not the whole, of this imitation was written. The fervid rapidity with which it was produced is scarcely credible. I have heard him say that he composed 70 lines of it in one day without putting one of them upon paper till they were finished. I remember when I once regretted to him that he had not given us more of juvenile satires, he said he probably should give more, for he had them all in his head, by which I understood that he had the originals and correspondent allusions floating in his mind, which he could, when he pleased, embody and render permanent without much labor. Some of them, however, he observed were too gross for imitation. The prophets of a single poem, however excellent, appear to have been very small in the last reign, compared with what a publication of the same size has since been known to yield. I have mentioned upon Johnson's own authority that for his London he had only ten guineas. And now, after his fame was established, he got for his vanity of human wishes but five guineas more, as is proved by an authentic document in my possession. It will be observed that he reserves to himself the right of printing one edition of this satire, which was his practice upon occasion of the sale of all his writings, it being his fixed intention to publish, at some period for his own profits, a complete collection of his works. His vanity of human wishes has less of common life but more of a philosophic dignity than his London. More readers, therefore, will be delighted with the pointed spirit of London than with the profound reflection of the vanity of human wishes. Garrick, for instance, observed in his sprightly manner with more vivacity than regard to just discrimination, as is usual with wits. When Johnson lived much with the herbies and saw a great deal of what was passing in life, he wrote his London, which is lively and easy. When he became more retired, he gave us his vanity of human wishes, which was as hard as Greek. Had he gone on to imitate another satire, it would have been as hard as Hebrew. But the vanity of human wishes is, in the opinion of the best judges, as high an effort of ethic poetry as any language can show. The instances of variety of disappointment are chosen so judiciously and painted so strongly that the moment they are read they bring conviction to every thinking mind. That of the scholar must have depressed the two sanguine expectations of many an ambitious student. That of the warrior Charles of Sweden is, I think, as highly finished a picture as can possibly be conceived. Where all the other excellencies of this poem annihilated, it must ever have our grateful reverence from its noble conclusion, in which we are consoled with the assurance that happiness may be attained if we apply our hearts to piety. Where, then, shall hope and fear their objects find? Shall dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man in ignorance sedate roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? Shall no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, no cries attempt the mercy of the skies? Enthusiast cease. Petitions yet remain which heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. Still raise for good the supplicating voice, but leave to heaven the measure and the choice. Safe in his hands, whose eye discerns afar the secret ambush of a specious prayer, implore his aid in his decision's rest, secure what air he gives, he gives the best. Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires and strong devotion to the skies aspires, pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, obedient passions and a will resigned. For love which scarce collective man can fill, for patience sovereign or transmuted ill, for faith which panting for a happier seat counts death kind nature's signal for retreat. These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain, these goods he grants who grants the power to gain. With thee celestial wisdom calms the mind and makes the happiness she does not find. Garrick being now vested with theatrical power by being manager of Drury Lane Theatre, he kindly and generously made use of it to bring out Johnson's tragedy which had been long kept back for want of encouragement. But in this benevolent purpose he met with no small difficulty from the temper of Johnson which could not brook that a drama which he had formed with much study and had been obliged to keep more than the nine years of horrors should be revised and altered at the pleasure of an actor. Yet Garrick knew well that without some alterations it would not be fit for the stage. A violent dispute having ensued between them, Garrick applied to the Reverend Dr. Taylor to interpose. Johnson was at first very obstinate. Sir, said he, the fellow wants me to make Mohammed run mad that he may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking his heels. He was, however, at last, with difficulty prevailed on to comply with Garrick's wishes so as to allow of some changes. But still there were not enough. Dr. Adams was present the first night of the representation of Irene and gave me the following account. Before the curtain drew up there were catcalls whistling which alarmed Johnson's friends. The prologue which was written by himself in a manly strain soothed the audience and the play went off tolerably till it came to the conclusion when Mrs. Prichard, the heroine of the piece was to be strangled upon the stage and was to speak two lines with the bowstring round her neck. The audience cried out, murder, murder! She several times attempted to speak but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive. This passage was afterwards struck out and she was carried off to be put to death behind the scenes as the play now has it. The epilogue, as Johnson informed me, was written by Sir William Young. I know not how his play came to be thus graced by the pen of a person then so imminent in the political world. Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Garrick, Barry, Mrs. Sibber, Mrs. Prichard and every advantage of dress and decoration the tragedy of Irene did not please the public. Mr. Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights so that the author had his three nights' profits and from a receipt signed by him now in the hands of Mr. James Doddsley it appears that his friend Mr. Robert Doddsley gave him one hundred pounds for the copy with his usual reservation of the right of one addition. Irene, considered as a poem, is entitled to the praise of superior excellence. Analyzed into parts, it will furnish a rich store of noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language. But it is deficient in pathos in that delicate power of touching the human feelings which is the principal end of the drama. Indeed, Garrick has complained to me that Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing the impressions of tragedy but that he had not the sensibility to perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmsley's prediction that he would turn out a fine tragedy writer was therefore ill-founded. Johnson was wise enough to be convinced that he had not the talents necessary to write successfully for the stage and never made another attempt in that species of composition. When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, like the monument, meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be remembered as an admonition to the genus irritabile of dramatic writers that this great man, instead of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all occasions great deference for the general opinion. A man, said he, who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind. He supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions. On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that, as a dramatic author, his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore. He, therefore, appeared behind the scenes and even in one of the side-boxes in a scarlet waistcoat with rich gold lace and a gold-laced hat. He humorously observed to Mr. Langton that, when in that dress he could not treat people with the same ease as when in his usual plain clothes. Dress, indeed, we must allow, has more effect even upon strong minds than one should suppose without having had the experience of it. His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal and during its performance brought him acquainted with many of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more favorable opinion of their profession than he had harshly expressed in his life of savage. With some of them he kept up in acquaintances long as he and they lived and was ever ready to show them acts of kindness. He, for a considerable time, used to frequent the green room and seemed to take the light in dissipating his gloom by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement from considerations of rigid virtue, saying, I'll come no more behind your scenes, David, for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propincities. End of section 14. Section 15 of The Life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Read by Brendan Hodge. The Life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1. By James Boswell. Section 15. In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified. A majestic teacher of moral and religious wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper which he knew had been, upon former occasions, employed with great success. The Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian were the last of the kind published in England which had stood the test of a long trial. And such an interval had now passed since their publication as made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form of instruction would, in some degree, have the advantage of novelty. A few days before the first of his essays came out, there started another competitor for fame in the same form under the title of The Tatler Revived, which I believe was Born But to Die. Johnson was, I think, not very happy in the choice of his title, The Rambler, which certainly is not suited to a series of grave and moral discourses, which the Italians have literally, but ludicrously, translated by Il Vagabondo, and which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler's Magazine. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name. What must be done, sir? Will be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it. Note, I have heard Dr. Wharton mention that he was at Mr. Robert Dodd's Lace with the late Mr. Moore and several of his friends, considering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore had undertaken. Garrick proposed the salad, which by a curious coincidence was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith. Are Garrick's a salad? For in him we see oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltiness agree. At last, the company having separated without anything of which they approved having been offered, Doddsley himself thought of the world. End of note. What devout and conscientious sentiments this paper was undertaken is evidenced by the following prayer which he composed and offered up on the occasion. 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 withheld 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 first paper of the rambler was published on Tuesday the 20th of March, 1750, and its author was enabled to continue it without interruption every Tuesday and Friday till Saturday the 17th of March, 1752, on which day it closed. This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his which I have had occasion to quote elsewhere that a man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it. For notwithstanding his constitutional indolence, his depression of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his dictionary, he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from the stores of his mind during all that time, having received no assistance except four billets in number 10 by Miss Molso, now Mrs. Chappan, number 30 by Mrs. Catherine Talbot, number 97 by Mr. Samuel Richardson, whom he describes in an introductory note as an author who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue, and numbers 44 and 100 by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. Posterity will be astonished when they are told upon the authority of Johnson himself that many of these discourses, which we should suppose and labored with all slow attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed. It can be accounted for only in this way that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call in which he had constantly accustomed himself in the most apt and energetic expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained this extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company, to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in, and that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts at arranging them in the clearest manner, it had become habitual to him. Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a pre-article writer, for I have in my possession a small duedesimal volume in which he is written in the form of Mr. Locke's Common Place book, a variety of hints for essays on different subjects. He is marked upon the first blank leaf of it to the 128th page, Collections for the Rambler. And in another place, in 52, there were 17 provided, in 97, 21. In 190, 25. At a subsequent period, probably after the work was finished, he added, in all, taken of provided materials, 30. Sir John Hawkins, who is unlucky upon all occasions, tells us that this method of accumulating intelligence had been practiced by Mr. Addison, and is humorously 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 meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is Johnson's adversaria. But the truth is that there is no resemblance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction in which unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were purposely jumbled together in as odd a manner as he could in order to produce a laughable effect, whereas Johnson's abbreviations are all distinct and applicable to each subject of which the head is mentioned. For instance, there is the following specimen. Youth's entry, etc. Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his mind as he grew up. Oruminous. No wonder. If every man was to tell or mark on how many subjects he has changed, it would make volumes, but the change is not always observed by man's self, from pleasure to business to quiet, from thoughtfulness to reflection to piety, from dissipation to domestication, by imperceptible gradations, but the change is certain. Dea nonprogrendi progresse conspicumus. Look back, consider what is thought at some distant period. Hope, predominant in youth, mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies all enameled before him as a distant prospect, sun-guilt, inequalities only found by coming on it. Love is to be all joy, children excellent, famed to be constant, caresses of the great, applause of the learned, smiles of beauty. Fear of disgrace, bashfulness, finds things of less importance, miscarriages forgot like excellencies, if remembered of no import, danger of sinking into negligence of reputation, lest the fear of disgrace destroy activity. Confidence in himself, long tract of life before him, no thought of sickness, embarrassment of affairs, distraction of family, public calamities, no sense of the prevalence of bad habits, negligent of time, ready to undertake, careless to pursue, all changed by time. Confidence of others, unsuspecting as unexperienced, imagining himself secure against neglect, never imagines they will venture to treat him ill, ready to trust, expecting to be trusted, convinced by time of selfishness, the cowardice, the treachery of men. Youth ambitious as thinking honors easy to be had, different kinds of praise pursued at different periods, of the gay in youth, danger of hurt, etc. despised, of the fancy in manhood, ambitious, stalks, bargains, of the wise and sober in age, seriousness, formality, maxims, but general, only of the rich, otherwise, age is happy. But at last everything referred to riches, no having fame, honor, influence, without subjection to caprice. Chorus. Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views with which they leave it, or left it as they enter it. No hope, no undertaking, no regard to benevolence, no fear of disgrace, etc. Youth to be taught the piety of age, age to retain the honor of youth. This, it will be observed, is the sketch for number 196 of the Rambler. I shall gratify my readers with another specimen. Confederacy's difficult. Why? So do I mean war, a match for single persons, nor in peace. Therefore, kings make themselves absolute. Confederacy's in learning. Every great work, the work of one. Ray. Scholar's friendship like ladies. Scribbamos, etc. Marshall. The apple of discord. The laurel of discord. The poverty of criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses united. That union scarce possible. These remarks just. Man of social, not steady nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled by passions. Orb drawn by attraction. Repelled by centrifugal. Common danger unites by crushing other passions. But they return. Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces insolence and envy. Too much regard in each to private interest. Too little. The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies. The fitness of social attraction diffused through the whole. Mischiefs of too partial love of our country. Contradiction of moral duties. Rique. Oy filoi on filos. Each man moves upon his own center. And therefore repels others from too near a contact. Though he may comply with some general laws. Of confederacy with superiors. Everyone knows the inconvenience. With equals, no authority. Every man his own opinion. His own interest. Man and wife, hardly united. Scarce ever without children. Computation. If two to one against two. How many against five? If confederacies were easily useless. Many oppressors many. Possible only to some. Dangerous. Principium amichitias. Here we see the embryo of number 45 of the adventurer. And it is a confirmation of what I shall presently have occasion to mention. That the papers in that collection marked T were written by Johnson. This scanty preparation of materials will not, however, much diminish our wonder at the extraordinary fertility of his mind. But the proportion which they bear to the number of essays which he wrote is very small. And it is remarkable that those for which he had made no preparation are as rich and highly fashioned as those for which the hints were lying by him. It is also to be observed that the papers formed from his hints are worked up with such strength and elegance that we almost lose sight of the hints which become like drops in the bucket. Indeed in several instances he has made a very slender use of them so that many of them remain still unapplied. Note. Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of materials what he calls the rudiments of two of the papers of the rambler. But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. Thus he writes, page 266, Sailor's Fate Any Mansion, whereas the original is Sailor's Life, My Aversion. He has also transcribed the unappropriated hints on Writers for Bread in which he decipheres these notable passages, one in Latin, fatue non-famil, instead of fami non-famil. Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist Cylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty that he was supposed fami non-famil, and another in French. The manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand it is indeed very hard to read, but it would have been better to have left blanks than to write nonsense. End of note. As the rambler was entirely the work of one man, there was, of course, such a uniformity in its texture as very much to exclude the charmer variety, and the grave and often solemn cast of thinking, which distinguished it from other periodical papers, made it, for some time, not generally liked. So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve editions have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, that even in the closing number the author says, I have never been much a favourite of the public. Yet, very soon after its commencement, there were who felt and acknowledged its uncommon excellence, verses in its praise appeared in the newspapers, and the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine mentions in October his having received several letters to the same purpose from the learned. The student, or Oxford and Cambridge miscellany, in which Mr. Bonnell Thornton and Mr. Coleman, were the principal writers, describes it as, a work that exceeds anything of the kind ever published in his kingdom, some of the spectators accepted, if indeed they may be accepted, and afterwards, may the public favours crown his merits, and may not, the English, the suspicious reign of George II, neglect a man who, had he lived in the first century, would have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus. This flattery of the monarch had no effect. It is too well known that the second George never was an Augustus to learning, or genius. Johnson told me with an amiable fondness, a little pleasing circumstance relative to this work. Mrs. Johnson, in whose judgement and taste he had great confidence, said to him after a few numbers of the rambler had come out, I thought very well of you before, but I did not imagine you could have written anything equal to this. Distant praise from whatever quarter is not so delightful as that of a wife whom a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to come home to his bosom, and being so near, its effect is most sensible and permanent. Mr. James Elphinstone, who has since published various works and who was ever esteemed by Johnson as a worthy man, happened to be in Scotland while the rambler was coming out in single papers at London. With a laudable zeal at once for the improvement of his countrymen and the reputation of his friend, he suggested and took the charge of an edition of those essays at Edinburgh, which followed progressively the London publication. The following letter written at this time, though not dated, will show how much pleased Johnson was with this publication and what kindness and regard he had for Mr. Elphinstone. To Mr. James Elphinstone. No date. Dear sir, I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but hope the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often ill, and when I am well, I am obliged to work, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences when I forbear to reply to your kindness. For be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong in opposition to conviction, for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we shall be some time nearer to each other and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts. I am glad that you will find encouragement to proceed in your publication and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them me. Pleased to present a set in my name to Mr Ruderman, of whom I hear that his learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the motos and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many were very happily performed. Mr Cave has put the last in the magazine, number 631, in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon and to write often and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you, but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude that I think of you with regard, when I do not perhaps give the proofs which I ought of being, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, Samuel Johnson. This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter upon a mournful occasion. To Mr James Irphinston, September the 25th, 1750. Dear sir, you have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother, and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now 82 years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs Strahan, and I think I do my self-honour when I tell you that I read them with tears. But tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief and calls us to exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another is to guard and excite and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform if you diligently preserve the memory of her life and of her death, a life so far as I can learn useful, wise, and innocent, and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts, and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream or just an opinion of separate spirits is indeed of no great importance to us when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God. Yet surely there is something pleasing in the belief that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal, and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship if it can be made probable that that union which has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity. There is one expedient by which you may, to some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection when time shall remove her yet farther from you and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in that time to come. For all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, dear sir, your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant, Samuel Johnson. The Rambler has increased in fame as an age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodesimal volumes, and its author lived to see ten numerous editions of it in London, besides those of Ireland and Scotland. I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind which the Rambler exhibits. The Johnson had penetration enough to see, and seeing would not disguise, the general misery of man in this state of being may have given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence displayed every consolation which our state affords us. Not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be obtained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has everywhere inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shown, in a very odious light, a man whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others by perpetual complaints of evil and awakening those considerations of danger and distress which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirus, from which Goldsmith took that of Croker in his comedy of The Good Natured Man. As Johnson told me, he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very obvious. To point out the numerous subjects which the Rambler treats, with the dignity and perspicuity which are there united in a manner which we shall in vain look for anywhere else, would take up too large a portion of my bulk and would, I trust, be superfluous, considering how universally those volumes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly been selected under the name of beauties, are of considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe that the Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty of critical investigations and allegorical and oriental tales that no mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study and meditation, assimilated to itself all that may be found there. Number seven, written in Passion Week on Abstraction and Self-Examination, number 110 on Penitence and the Plaquability of the Divine Nature cannot be too often read. Number 54, on the effect which the death of a friend should have upon us, though rather too dispiriting, may be occasionally very medicinal to the mind. Everyone must suppose the writer to have been deeply impressed by a real scene, but he told me that was not the case, which shows how well his fancy could conduct him to the House of Morning. Some of these more solemn papers, I doubt not, particularly attracted the notice of Dr. Young, the author of The Night Thoughts, of whom my estimation is such as to reckon his applause and honour even to Johnson. I have seen some volumes of Dr. Young's copy of The Rambler, in which he has marked the passages which he thought particularly excellent by folding down a corner of the page, and such as he rated in a super-eminent degree, are marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased when told of the minute attention with which Young had signified the revelation of his essays. I will venture to say that in no writings whatever can be found, more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression, more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. Number 32 on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism as the sun of revelation is brighter than the twilight of pagan philosophy. I never read the following sentence without feeling my framed thrill. I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other, whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well-principled will not be sooner separated than subdued. Though instruction be the predominant purpose of the Brambler, yet it is enlivened with a considerable portion of amusement. Nothing could be more erroneous than the notion which some persons have entertained that Johnson was then a retired author, ignorant of the world, and of consequence that he wrote only from his imagination when he described characters and manners. He said to me that before he wrote that work he had been running about the world, as he expressed it, more than almost anybody, and I've heard him relate with much satisfaction that the characters in the Brambler are drawn so naturally that when it first circulated in numbers a club in one of the towns of Essex imagined themselves to be severely exhibited in it, and were much incensed against a person who, they suspected, had thus made them objects of public notice. Nor were they quieted till authentic assurance was given them that the Brambler was written by a person who had never heard of any one of them. Some of the characters are believed to have been actually drawn from life, particularly that of Prospero from Garrick, who never entirely forgave its pointed satire. For instances of fertility of fancy and accurate description of real life, I appeal to number 19, a man who wanders from one profession to another with most plausible reasons for every change. Number 34, female fastidiousness and timorous refinement. Number 82, a virtuoso with collected curiosities. Number 88, petty modes of entertaining a company and conciliating kindness. Number 182, fortune hunting. Number 194 to 195, a tutor's account of the follies of his pupil. Number 197 to 198, legacy hunting. He has given a specimen of his nice observation of the mere external appearances of life in the following passage in number 179, against affectation, that frequent and most disgusting quality. He that stands to contemplate the crowds that fill the streets of a popular city will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter. But, if he examine what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his visibility, he will find among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness of forgery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur, by the sprightly trip, the stately stock, the formal strut and the lofty mean, by gestures intended to catch the eye and by looks elaborately formed as evidence of importance. Every page of the Rambler shows a mind teeming with classical illusion and poetical imagery. The illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready and mingle so easily in his periods that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture. The style of this work has been censored by some shallow critics as involved and turgid and bounding with antiquated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of this objection that I will challenge all who may honour this book with a perusal to point out any English writer whose language conveys his meaning with equal force and perspicuity. It must indeed be allowed that the structure of his sentences is expanded and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin and that he delighted to express familiar thoughts in philosophical language being in this the reverse of Socrates who, it was said, reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend to what he himself says in his concluding paper. When common words were less pleasing to the ear or less distinct in their signification I have familiarised the terms of philosophy by applying them to popular ideas. And as to the second part of the subjection upon a late, careful revision of the work I can with confidence say that it is amazing how few of those words for which it has been unjustly characterised are actually to be found in it. I am sure not the proportion of one to each paper. This idle charge has been echoed from one babbleur to another who have confounded Johnson's essays with Johnson's dictionary and because he thought it right in a lexicon of our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse but were supported by great authorities it has been imagined that all of these have been interwoven into his own compositions that some of them have been adopted by him unnecessarily may perhaps be allowed but in general they are evidently an advantage for without them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning. He once told me that he had formed his style upon that of Sir William Temple and upon Chambers' proposal for his dictionary he certainly was mistaken or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple he was very unsuccessful for nothing can be more unlike than the simplicity of Temple and the richness of Johnson whereas plain cloth and brocade Temple indeed seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandease's view of the state of religion in the western parts of the world. End of Section 15 Section 16 of the life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information please visit LibriVox.org The Life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1 by James Boswell Section 16 The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly much formed upon that of the great writers in the last century Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Huckwell and others those giants as they were characterised by a great personage whose authority were I to name him the lamp of reverence on the opinion. We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that passage of Horus a part of which he is taken as the motto to his dictionary. Come tabulous, animum, sensorus, summit, honesty Audubit, kwaikamku, param, splunderous, habibant et sine, ponderer errant et honore, indiga, ferenter verba, mauver loco quamvas, envida, red sedent et versenter, ad hook, intra, penetrial, vesta obscurata, diu, populo, bonus, erut atkwa, profaret, in lucim, specioso, vocabularerum kwaiprisis, memerala, kalananobis, aqua, sethegis naksitas informus premit, et desserta belestis ad sissit nova quigenitor proderexit usis vehemens eliquidis puroximilimis omni fundin opus latinium et bibit divile lingua to so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various knowledges Johnson might have been allowed a liberal indulgence of that license, which Horus claims in another place siforte nesses est indikis monstrerre, recentibus abdida rerum fingere, singtutis non exaldida sethegis contiguit, deterbic, licentia, tempta, pedetre et nova fitat, nupur habibunt verba fedem si, greco falun cedent parsa de torta quid atom sicilio platuc davit romanus ademptum virgiglio verioc egocur ecqueria pausa sipalsum invidior cum lingua cattonis e ini ceremonium patrium dideverit and nova rerum namina protulerit lisibit signatum presente nota produsere nomen yet Johnson assured me that he had not taken upon him to add more than four or five words to the English language of his own formation and he was very much offended at the general license by no means modestly taken in his time not only to coin new words but to use many words and senses quite different from their established meaning and those frequently very fantastical. Sir Thomas Brown, whose life Johnson wrote, was remarkably fond of Anglo-Latin diction and to his example we are to ascribe Johnson's sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology. Johnson's comprehension of mind was the mold for his language. Had his conceptions been narrower his expression would have been easier. His sentences have a dignified march and it is certain that his example has given a general elevation to the language of his country for many of our best writers have approached very near to him and from the influence which he has had upon our composition scarcely anything is written now that is not better expressed than was usual before he appeared to lead the national taste. This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every critical reader has been so happily enforced by Mr. Courtney in his moral and literary character of Dr. Johnson that I cannot prevail on myself to withhold it notwithstanding his, perhaps, too great partiality for one of his friends. By nature's gifts ordained mankind to rule he, like a Titian, formed his brilliant school and taught congenial spirits to excel while from his lips impressive wisdom fell. Our boasted goldsmith felt the sovereign sway from him derived the sweet yet nervous lay. To fame's proud cliff he bat our Raphael rise hence Reynolds' pen with Reynolds' pencil-vise with Johnson's flame melodious Bernie glows while the grand strain in smoother cadence flows. And you, Malone, to critique learning, dear, correct and elegant, refined through clear by studying him acquired that classic taste which high in Shakespeare's fame thy statue placed. Near Johnson's Stevens stands on scenic ground acute, laborious, fertile and profound, ingenious hawksworth to this school we owe and scares the pupil from the tutor know. Here early parts accomplish Jones sublime's and science blends with Asia's lofty rhymes, harmonious Jones who in his splendid strains sings Camdeo's sports on Agra's flowery plains. In Hindu fictions, while we fondly trace love and the muses decked with attic grace amid these names can Boswell be forgot, scarce by North Britons now a seam to scot. Who to the sage devoted from his youth imbibed from him the sacred love of truth, the keen research, the exercise of art, the art to no mankind nor was his energy confined alone to friends around his philosophic throne its influence wide improved our lettered isle and lucid vigor marked the general style as Nile's proud waves swung from their oozy bed first over the neighboring mead's majestic spread till gathering force they more and more expand and with new virtue fertilize the land. Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too masculine for the delicate gentleness of female writing. His ladies, therefore, seem strangely formal, even to ridicule, and are well denominated by the names which he has given them as Missella, Zosima, Proparancia, Rodiclia. It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and Johnson, and I think very unjustly the style of Addison as nervous and feeble because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope. Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them so that he insinuates his sentiments and admirable influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academic chair. They attend with awe and admiration, and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but by degrees of humility of his periods so much do they captivate the ear and seize upon the attention that there is scarcely any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not aim in some degree at the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style which has pleasingly conveyed to us much instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigor, let us be positively feeble. Let us remember the character of his style as given by Johnson himself. What he attempted he performed. He is never feeble and he did not wish to be energetic. He is never rapid and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor effected brevity. His periods, though not diligently rounded, are valuable and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English level, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison. Though the rambler was not concluded till the year 1752, I shall under this year say all that I have to observe upon it. Some of the translations of the mottos by himself are admirably done. He acknowledges to have received elegant translations of many of them in Lofenston. And some are very happily translated by a Mr. F. Lewis, of whom I never heard more, except that Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone. Sir, he lived in London and hung loose upon society. The concluding paper of his rambler is at once dignified and pathetic. I cannot, however, but wish that he had not ended it with an unnecessary Greek verse translated also into it. It is too much like the conceit of those dramatic poets who used to conclude each act with a rhyme, and the expression in the first line of his couplet, Celestial Powers, though proper and pagan poetry, is ill-suited to Christianity, with a conformity to which he consoles himself. How much better would it have been to have ended with the prose sentence, I shall understand in any other cause if I can be numbered among the writers who have given order to virtue and confidence to truth? His friend, Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an edition of Raleigh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter to that gentleman. To Dr. Birch, Gauss-Square, May 12, 1750. Sir, knowing that you are now Raleigh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to send you a manuscript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of it, and the owner tells me that, as he has heard, the handwriting is, Sir Walters. If you should find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the owner, a blind person, to recommend it to the booksellers. I am, Sir, Sam Johnson. His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong, but this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustrious justice beyond all who have written upon the subject. And this year he not only wrote a prologue which was spoken by Mr. Garrick before the acting of Commis at Drury Lane Theatre for the benefit of Milton's work, but took a very zealous interest in the success of the charity. On the day proceeding the performance he published the following paper in the general advertiser addressed to the printer of that paper. Sir, that a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the works of genius and testifying a regard to the memory of authors is a truth too evident to be denied, and therefore to ensure a worthy poet many who would perhaps have contributed to starve him when alive have heaped expensive pageants upon his grave. It must indeed be confessed that this method of becoming known to posterity with honor is peculiar to the great or at least to the wealthy, but an opportunity now offers for almost every individual to secure the praise of paying a just regard to the illustrious dead, united with doing good to the living. To assist industrious indigence struggling with distress and debilitated by age is a display of virtue and an acquisition of happiness and honor. Whoever then would be thought capable of pleasure in reading the works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude as to refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant entertainment for the benefit of his living remains, for the own virtue the increase of their reputation and the pleasing consciousness of doing good should appear at Drury Lane Theatre tomorrow, April 5, when Commas will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, the granddaughter to the author, and the only surviving branch of his family. N. B. There will be a new prologue on the occasion written by the author of Irene and spoken by Mr. Garrick, and in particular desire there will be added to the mask a dramatic satire called Leth in which Mr. Garrick will perform. 1751 Atat 42 In 1751 we are to consider him as carrying on both his dictionary and rambler. But he also wrote the life of Chanel in the miscellany called the student, and the Reverend Dr. Douglas having, with uncommon acuteness, clearly a gross forgery and imposition upon the public by William Lauder, a Scotch schoolmaster, who had, with equal impudence and ingenuity, represented Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin poets. Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon as to furnish a preface and post-grip to his work, now dictated a letter for Lauder, addressed to Dr. Douglas acknowledging his fraud in terms of suitable contrition. This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years, and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his superiority in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To affect this he produced certain passages from Gauchus, Mycenaeus, and others which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the Paradise Lost. To these he interpolated some fragments of Hogg's Latin translation of that poem, alleging that mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine, and exulting in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet entitled, An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in His Paradise Lost. To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a preface in full persuasion of Lotter's honesty, and a postscript recommending, in the most persuasive terms, a subscription for the relief of a granddaughter of Milton, of whom he thus speaks. It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth. The poet whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated, to reward him not with pictures or with medals, which if he sees he sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he perhaps may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal spirit. Surely this is inconsistent with enmity towards Milton, which Sir John Hawkins imputes Johnson upon this occasion, adding, 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 may be inferred from the preface, which indubitably was written by one of clear judgment to suppose that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a postscript to this very discovery as he then supposed it, could at the same time exult in a persuasion that the great poet's reputation was likely to suffer by it? This is an inconsistency of which Johnson was incapable, nor can anything be more fairly inferred from the preface, then that Johnson, who was alike in all honesty and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were gratified. That he was actuated by these motives and certainly by no unworthy desire to deprecate our great epic poet is evident from his own words. For, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature to advance the honor and distinguish the beauties of Paradise Lost, he says, among the inquiries to which criticism has naturally given occasion, none is more obscure in itself or more worthy of rational curiosity than a retrospect of the progress of this mighty genius in the construction of his work, a view of the fabric gradually rising, perhaps from small beginnings till its foundation rests in the center and its turrets sparkle in the skies to trace back the structure through all its varieties to the simplicity of its first plan, to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected, whether its founder dug them from the quarries of nature or demolished other buildings to embellish his own. Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels of Milton? Though Johnson's circumstances were, at this time, far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house, while Mrs. Johnson lived, and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes, performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house. End of Section 16 Section 17 of the Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his dictionary. The last paper of his rambler was published March 2, this year, after which there was a cessation for some time of any exertion of his talents as an essayist. But in the same year, Dr. Hodges, the author of The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1, by James Boswell. Section 17 1752. Etat 43 In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his work, but in the same year Dr. Hawksworth, who was his warm admirer and a studious imitator of his style, and then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical paper entitled The Adventurer, in connection with other gentlemen, one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend Dr. Bathurst. And, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his conversation, most of his friends interested in the course of their works. That there should be a suspension of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752 will not seem strange when it is considered that soon after closing his rambler he suffered a loss which, there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepest distress. For on the 17th of March, O.S., his wife died. Why, Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled, meaning simulated or assumed, and to assert that if it was not the case it was a lesson he had learned by rote, I cannot conceive, unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd, love is not a subject of reasoning but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language. The following very solemn and affecting prayer was found after Dr. Johnson's release by his servant Mr. Francis Barber, who delivered it to my worthy friend the reverend Mr. Strahan, bicker of Islington, who at my earnest request has obligingly favored me with a copy of it, which he and I compared with the original. I present it to the world as an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of my illustrious friend, which, though some whose hard minds I shall never envy may attack as superstitious, will I am sure endear him more to numbers of good men. I have an additional and that a personal motive for presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained and am fond to indulge. April 26, 1752 being after twelve at night of the twenty-fifth. O Lord, Governor of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed spirits. If thou hast ordained the souls of the dead to minister to the living, and appointed my departed wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams, or in any other manner agreeable to thy government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed grant me the blessed influence of thy Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of devotion by Johnson we are not informed, but I, whom it has pleased God to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams, that his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind and during the long period of fifty years was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his prayers and meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which I select as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind. March twenty-eight, seventeen fifty-three. I kept this day as the anniversary of my death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful. April twenty-three, seventeen fifty-three. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection, but I hope they interdate my heart, and that when I die, like my teddy, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the future I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion. Her wedding ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters as follows. Eua. Elizabeth Johnson. July nine, seventeen-thirty-six. Mortua, a hill. March seventeenth, seventeen fifty-two. After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter, but she, having declined to accept of it, he had it enameled as a morning ring for his old master, and Mrs. Barber, who now has it. The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his Irene we find the following fervent and tender speech of Demetrius addressed to his aspagia. From those bright regions of eternal day, where now thou shinedest among life fellow saints, a raid in me, in pleasing visions and delusive dreams, o soothe my soul and teach me how to lose thee. I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. de Moulins, who before her marriage lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged herself in country air and nice living at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was dredging in the smoke of London, and that she, by no fancy, which is the most engaging quality in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a high opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much and took place in the night, and he immediately dispatched a letter to his friend, the Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told me, expressed grief in the strongest manner he had ever read, so that it is much to be regretted it has not been preserved. The letter was brought to Dr. Taylor at his house, in the Cloisters, Westminster, about three in the morning, and, as it signified an invitation to Johnson as soon as he was dressed, and found him in tears and in extreme agitation. After being a little while together, Johnson requested him to join with him in prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did Dr. Taylor, and thus by means of that piety which was ever his primary object, his troubled mind was, in some degree, soothed and composed. The next day he asked Dr. Taylor, Dear Sir, let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My distress is great. Pray desire, Mrs. Taylor, to inform me what morning I should buy for my mother and Ms. Porter, and bring a note in writing with you. Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. I am, Dear Sir, and etc., Sam Johnson, March 2. That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant, who came into his family about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were aggravated by the melancholy although he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was in the little disagreements which sometimes troubled his married state, during which he owned, to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more painful to him than ever. He might very naturally, after her death, be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and offenses, the sense of which he, year after her disease, that he thus addressed the supreme being. O Lord, who give us the grace of repentance, and hear us the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected, in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me. For the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation the kindness of his heart, not withstanding the impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his friends, and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for the following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins. 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. That he, in conformity with the people, learned and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions. And, O Lord, so far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife, beseeching thee to grant her whatever is the state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness. But this state has not been looked upon with horror, but only as less gracious. He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley, in Kent, to which he was probably led by the residents of his friend Hawksworth at that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never preached, but having since his death, is a performance of uncommon excellence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder. For Mr. Francis Barber I've had the following authentic and artless account of the situation which he found himself recently after its wife's death. He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, which was in Gal Square. He was busy with the dictionary. Mr. Shields, and some others of the gentlemen who had formerly written for him, used to come about him. He then had little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shields when in distress. The friends who were with Mr. Hathurst and Mr. Diamond, and Apothecary in Cork Street, Burlington Gardens with whom he and Mrs. Williams generally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland with him which would probably have happened had he lived. There were also Mr. Cave, Mr. Hotsworth, Mr. Ryland, merchant on Tower Hill, Mrs. Masters, the Poetess who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and Mrs. McCauley. Also Mrs. Gardner, wife of a tallow-chandler on Snow Hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good woman, Mr. now Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Miller, Mr. Doddsley, Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne of Paternoster Row, booksellers, Mr. Strahan, the printer, the Earl of Ororary, Lord Southwell, Mr. Garrick. Note, Dr. Wrorest, though a physician of no inconsiderable merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was therefore willing to accept of employment abroad, and to the great regret of all who knew him fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate in the expedition against the Havana. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnston to Mr. Beau Clerk. The Havana is VIX PREIMAS TATI TOTOK TODIA FRUIT. Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and in particular his humble friend, Mr. Robert Levitt, an obscure practicer in physics among the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever provision his patients could afford him, but of such extensive practice, in that way, that Mrs. Williams has told me, his walk was from houndstitch to merry-bone. It appears from Johnson's diary that their acquaintance commenced about the year 1746, and such was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians unless he had Mr. Levitt with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr. Levitt had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange, grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was present. The circle of his friends, indeed, at this time, was extensive and various, far beyond what has generally been imagined. To trace his acquaintance with each particular person, if it could be done, would be a task of which the labour would not be repaid by the advantage. But exceptions are to be made, one of which must be a friend so eminent as Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was truly his dulcet deus, and with whom he maintained an uninterrupted intimacy to the last hour of his life. When Johnson lived in Castle Street, Cavendish Square, he used frequently to visit two ladies who lived opposite to him, Miss Cotteralls, daughters of Admiral Cotterall. Reynolds used also to visit there, and thus they met. Mr. Reynolds, as I have observed above, had, from the first reading of his life of Savage, conceived a very high admiration of Johnson's powers of writing. His conversation no less delighted him, and he cultivated his acquaintance with the laudable zeal of one who was ambitious of general improvement. Sir Joshua, indeed, was lucky enough at their very first meeting to make a remark, which was so much above the commonplace style of conversation, that Johnson at once perceived that Reynolds had the habit of thinking for himself. The ladies were regretting the death of a friend to whom they owed great obligations, upon which Reynolds observed. You have, however, the comfort of being relieved from a burden of gratitude. They were shocked a little at this alleviating suggestion, as too selfish, but Johnson defended it in his clear and forcible manner, and was much pleased with the mind, the fair view of human nature, which it exhibited, like some of the reflections of Rochefakot. The consequence was that he went home with Reynolds and subbed with him. Sir Joshua told me a pleasant, characteristical anecdote of Johnson about the time of their first acquaintance. When they were one evening together at the miscoterals, the Duchess of Argyle and another lady of high rank came in. Johnson, thinking that the miscoterals were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friends were neglected as low company of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew angry, and resolving to shock their supposed pride by making their great visitors imagine that his friend and he were low indeed, he addressed himself in a loud tone to Mr. Reynolds, saying, How much do you think you and I could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we could, as if they had been common mechanics? His acquaintance with Bennett Langton, Esquire of Langton in Lincolnshire, was another much-valued friend, commenced soon after the conclusion of his rambler, which that gentleman, then a youth, had read with so much admiration that he came to London chiefly with the view of endeavoring to be introduced to its author. By a fortunate chance he happened to take lodgings in a house where Mr. Leavitt frequently visited, and having mentioned his wish to his landlady, she introduced him to Mr. Leavitt, who readily obtained Johnson's permission to bring Mr. Langton to him, as, indeed, Johnson during the whole course of his life had no shyness, real or affected, but was easy of access to all who were properly recommended, and even wished to see numbers at his levee, as his morning-circle of company might, with strict propriety be called. Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage first appeared. He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure, dress, or manner. From perusing his writings he fancied he should see a decent, well-dressed, in short, a remarkably decorous philosopher, instead of which, down from his bed-chamber about noon, came, as a newly risen, a huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and political notions so congenial with those in which Langton had been educated, that he conceived for him that veneration and attachment which he ever preserved. Langton was not the less ready to love Mr. Langton for his being of a very ancient family, for I have heard him say with pleasure, Langton, sir, has a great want of free warren from Henry II, and Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family. Mr. Langton afterwards went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with his fellow student Mr. Topham Bull Clerk, who, though their opinions and modes of life were so different that it seemed utterly improbable that they should at all agree, had so ardent a love of literature, so acute an understanding, such an elegance of manners, and so well discerned the excellent qualities of Mr. Langton, a gentleman eminent not only for worth and learning, but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation, that they became intimate friends. Johnson, soon after this acquaintance began, passed a considerable time at Oxford. He at first thought it strange that Langton should associate so much with one who had the character of being loose, both in his principles and practice, but by degrees he himself was fascinated. Mr. Bull Clerk's being of the St. Albans family, and having, in some particulars, a resemblance to Charles II, contributed in Johnson's imagination to throw a luster upon his other qualities, and in a short time the moral pious Johnson and the gay, dissipated Bull Clerk were companions. What a coalition! said Garrick, when he heard of this. I shall have my old friend to bail out of the roundhouse. But I can bear testimony that it was a very agreeable association. Bull Clerk was too polite and valued learning and wit too much, to offend Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentiousness, and Johnson delighted in the good qualities of Bull Clerk and hoped to correct the evil. Enumerable were the scenes in which Johnson was amused by these young men. Bull Clerk could take more liberty with him than anybody with whom I ever saw him, but on the other hand Bull Clerk was not spared by his respectable companion when reproof was proper. Bull Clerk had such a propensity to satire that at one time Johnson said to him, You never open your mouth but with intention to give pain, and you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you said, but from seeing your intention. At another time, applying to him, with a slight alteration, a line of pope, he said, Thy love of folly and Thy scorn of fools. Everything thou dost shows the one, and everything thou sayest the other. At another time he said to him, Thy body is all thy vice, and they mind all virtue. Bull Clerk, not seeming to relish the compliment, Johnson said, Nay, sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired to have more said to him. Johnson was, some time, with Bull Clerk at his house at Windsor, where he was entertained with experiments in natural philosophy. On Sunday, when the weather was very fine, Bull Clerk enticed him insensibly to saunter about all the morning. They went into a churchyard in the time of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of the tombstones. Now, sir, said Bull Clerk, you are like Hogarth's idol apprentice. When Johnson got his pension, Bull Clerk said to him, in the humorous phrase of Falstaff, I hope you'll now purge and live cleanly like a gentleman. One night when Bull Clerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a night-cap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. Then he discovered who they were, and was told they're errand, he smiled, and with great humor agreed to their proposal. What! Is it you, you dogs? I'll have a frisk with you. He was soon dressed, and they sallied forth together into Covent Garden, where the green grocers and fruiterers were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the country. Johnson made some attempts to help them, but the honest gardener stared so at his figure and manner, an odd interference, that he soon saw his services were not relished. They then repaired to one of the neighboring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked. While in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines. Short! O short, then, be thy reign, and give us to the world again! They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rode to Billingsgate. Bo Clark and Johnson were so well pleased with their amusement that they resolved to preserve in dissipation for the rest of the day, but Langton deserted them, being engaged to breakfast with some young ladies. Johnson scolded him for leaving his social friends to go and sit with a set of wretched, unidead girls. Garrick, being told of this ramble, said to him smartly, I heard of your frolic to other night. You'll be in the chronicle. Upon which Johnson afterwards observed, he durst not do such a thing, his wife would not let him. CHAPTER XVIII. He entered upon this year 1753 with his usual piety, as appears from the following prayer, which I transcribed from that part of his diary which he burnt a few days before his death. January 1, 1753, NS, which I shall use for the future. Almighty God, who has continued my life to this day, grant that by the assistance of thy Holy Spirit I may improve the time which thou shalt grant me, to my eternal salvation. Make me to remember to thy glory, thy judgments, and thy mercies. Make me so to consider the loss of my wife, whom thou has taken from me, that it may depose me by the grace to lead the residue of my life in thy fear. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake, amen. He now relieved the drudgery of his dictionary and the melancholy of his grief by taking an active part in the composition of the adventurer, in which he began to write April 10, marking his collections with the signature T, by which most of his papers in that collection are distinguished. Those, however, which have that signature, and also that of Miss Sargeras, were not written by him, but, as I supposed, by Dr. Bathurst. Indeed, Johnston's energy of thought and richness of language are still more decisive marks than any signature. As proof of this, my readers, I imagine, will not doubt that number 39, on sleep, is his, for it not only has the general texture and color of his style, but the authors with whom he has peculiarly conversant are readily introduced in it in cursory illusion. The translation of a passage in Stasias, quoted in that paper, and marked C. B., has been erroneously ascribed to Dr. Bathurst, whose Christian name was Richard. How much this amiable man actually contributed to the adventurer cannot be known. Let me add that Hawksworth's imitations of Johnston are sometimes so happy that it is extremely difficult to distinguish them, with certainty, from the compositions of his great archetype. Hawksworth was his closest imitator, a circumstance of which that writer would once have been proud to be told, though when he had become elated by having risen into some degree of consequence, he, in a conversation with me, had the provoking effrontery to say that he was not sensible of it. Johnston was truly zealous for the success of the adventurer, and very soon after his engraving in it he wrote the following letter. To the Reverend Dr. Joseph Wharton, dear sir, I ought to have written you before now, but I ought to do many things which I do not, nor can I, indeed, claim any merit from this letter, for being desirous by the authors and proprietor of the adventurer to look out for another hand, my thoughts necessarily fixed upon you, whose fund of literature will enable you to assist them, with very little interruption of your studies. They desire you to engage to furnish one paper a month at two guineas of paper, which you may very readily perform. We have considered that a paper should consist of pieces of imagination, pictures of life, and disquisitions of literature. The part which depends on the imagination is very well supplied, as you will find when you read the paper. For descriptions of life there is now a treaty almost made with an author and an authoress, and the province of criticism and literature they are very desirous to assign to the commentator on Virgil. I hope this proposal will not be rejected, and that the next post will bring us your compliance. I speak as one of the fraternity, though I have no part in the paper, beyond now and then a motto. But two of the writers are my particular friends, and I hope the pleasure of seeing a third united to them will not be denied to, dear sir, your most obedient and most tumble servant, Sam Johnson, March 8, 1753. The consequence of this letter was Dr. Wharton's enriching the collection with several admirable essays. Wharton's saying, I have no part in the paper beyond now and then a motto, may seem inconsistent with his being the author of the papers marked T. But he had at this time written only one number, and besides, even at any other after-period, he may have used the same expression, considering it as a point of honor not to own them. For Mrs. Williams told me that, as he had given those essays to Dr. Bathurst, who sold them at two guineas each, he never would own them. Today, he used to say, he did not write them, but the fact was that he dictated them while Bathurst wrote. I read to him Mrs. Williams' account, he smiled and said nothing. I am not quite satisfied with the causiest reap by which the productions of one person are thus passed upon the world for the productions of another. I allow that not only knowledge, but powers and qualities of mind may be communicated, but the actual effect of individual exertion never can be transferred, with truth, to any other than its own original cause. One person's child may be made the child of another person by adoption, as among the Romans, or by the ancient Jewish mode of a wife having children born to her upon her knees by her handmaid. But these were children in a different sense from that of nature. It was clearly understood that they were not of the blood of their nominal parents. So in literary children an author may give the prophets and fame of his composition to another man, but cannot make that other man the real author. A Highland gentleman, a younger branch of a family, once consulted me if he could not validly purchase the chieftainship of his family from the chief who was willing to sell it. I told him it was impossible for him to acquire by purchase a right to be a different person from that what he really was, for that the right of chieftainship attached to the blood of primogenitor and therefore was incapable of being transferred. I added that though Esau sold his birthright, or the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the firstborn of his parents, and that whatever agreement a chief might make with any of the clan the herald's office could not admit of the metamorphosis, or with any decency attest that the younger was the elder. But I did not convince the worthy gentleman. Johnson's papers in the adventurer are very similar to those of the rambler, but being rather more varied in their subjects and being mixed with essays by other writers upon topics more generally attractive than even the most elegant ethical discourses, the sale of the work at first was more extensive. Without meaning, however, to deprecate the adventurer, I must observe that as a value of the rambler came, in the progress of time, to be better known, it grew upon the public estimation, and that its sale has far exceeded that of any other periodical papers since the reign of Queen Anne. In one of the books of his diary I found the following entry, April 3, 1753. I began the second volume of my dictionary, room being left in the first for preface, grammar, and history, none of them yet begun. O God, who hath hitherto supported me, enable me to proceed in this labor, and in the whole task of my present state, that when I shall render up at the last day an account of the talent committed to me, I may receive pardon for the sake of Jesus Christ, amen. He this year favored Mrs. Lennox with a dedication to the Earl of Orory, of her Shakespeare Illustrated. 1754. Atat 45. In 1754 I can trace nothing published by him, except his numbers of the adventurer and the life of Edward Cave, in the gentleman's magazine for February. In biography there can be no question that he excelled beyond all who have attempted that species of composition, upon which indeed he set the highest value. To the minute selection of characteristical circumstances for which the ancients were remarkable, he added a philosophical research, and the most perspicuous and energetic language. Cave was certainly a man of estimable qualities, and was eminently diligent and successful in his own business, which doubtless entitled him to respect. But he was particularly fortunate in being recorded by Johnson, who, of the narrow life of a printer and publisher, without any digressions or adventurous circumstances, has made an interesting and agreeable narrative. The dictionary, we may believe, afforded Johnson full occupation this year. As it approached to its conclusion he probably worked with redoubled vigor, as seamen increased their exertion and alacrity when they have a near prospect of their haven. Lord Chesterton, to whom Johnson had paid the highest compliment of addressing to his lordship the plan of his dictionary, had behaved to him in such a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The world has been, for many years, amused with the story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been, one day, kept long and waiting at his lordship's antechamber, for which the reason assigned was that he had company with him, and that at last, when the door opened, outwalked Collie Gibber, and that Johnson was so violently provoked when he found out for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went away in a passion and never would return. I remember having mentioned this story to George Lord Littleton, who told me he was very intimate with Lord Chesterton, and holding it as a well-known truth, defended Lord Chesterfield by saying that Gibber, who had been introduced familiarly by the back stairs, had probably not been there above ten minutes. It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanctioned, by the authority which I have mentioned, but Johnson himself assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. He told me that there never was any particular incident which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterton and him, but that his lordship's continued neglect was the reason why he resolved to have no connection with him. When the dictionary was upon the eve of publication, Lord Chesterton, who it is said had flattered himself with expectations that Johnson would dedicate the work to him, attempted in a courtly manner to soothe, and insinuate himself with the sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which he had treated its learned author, and further attempted to conciliate him by writing two papers in the world in recommendation of the work, and it must be confessed that they contained some steadied compliments, so finely tuned that if there had been no previous offence it is probable that Johnson would have been highly delighted. Praise in general was pleasing to him, but by praise from a man of rank and elegant accomplishment he was peculiarly gratified. His lordship says, I think the public in general and the Republic of Letters in particular are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson for having undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be expected from man, but if we are to judge by the various works of Johnson already published, we have good reason to believe that he will bring this as near to perfection as any man could do. The plan of it, which he published some years ago, seems to me to be proof of it. Nothing can be more rationally imagined or more accurately and elegantly expressed. I therefore recommend the previous perusal of it to all those who intend to buy the dictionary, and who, I suppose, are all those who can afford it. It must be owned that our language is at present in a state of anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worst for it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been imported, adopted, and naturalized from other languages, which have greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve what real strength and beauty it may have borrowed from others, but let it not, like the tarpian made, be overwhelmed and crushed by unnecessary ornaments. The time for discrimination seems now to come. Toleration, adoption, and naturalization have run their lengths. Good order and authority are now necessary. But where shall we find them, and, at the same time, the obedience due to them? We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion and choose a dictator. On this principle I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language as a freeborn British subject to the said Mr. Johnson during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more I will not only obey him like an old Roman as my dictator, but like a modern Roman I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair, but no longer. More than this he cannot well require, for I presume that obedience can never be expected when there is neither terror to enforce nor interest to invite it. But a grammar, a dictionary, and a history of our language through at several stages were still wanting it home, and unfortunately called for from abroad. Mr. Johnson's labors will now, I dare say, very fully supply that want, and greatly contribute to the farther spreading of our language in other countries. Learners were discouraged by finding no standard to resort to, and consequently thought it incapable of any. They will now be undeceived and encouraged. This courtly device failed of its effect. Johnson, who thought that all was false and hollow, despised hundred words, and was even indignant that Lord Chesterfield should, for a moment, imagine that he could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning Lord Chesterfield upon this occasion was, Sir, after making great professions he had for many years taken no notice of me, but when my dictionary was coming out he fell as scribbling in the world about it. Upon which I wrote him a letter expressed in civil terms, that such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him. This is that celebrated letter of which so much has been said, and about which my curiosity has been so long excited without being gratified. I, for many years, solicited Johnson to favor me with a copy of it, that so excellent a composition might not be lost to posterity. He delayed from time to time to give it to me, till at last in 1781 when we were on a visit at Mr. Dilley's at South Hill in Bedfordshire he was pleased to dictate it to me from memory. He afterwards found among his papers a copy of it which he had dictated to Mr. Beretti, with its title and corrections in its own handwriting. This he gave to Mr. Langton, adding that if it were to come into print he wished it to be from that copy. By Mr. Langton's kindness I am enabled to enrich my work with the perfect transcript of what the world has so eagerly desired to see. To the right honorable, the Earl of Chesterfield. February 7, 1755. My lord. I have been lately informed by the proprietor of the world that two papers in which my dictionary is recommended to the public were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor, which being very little accustomed to favors from the great I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When upon some slight encouragement I first visited your lordship I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqueur de vainqueur de la terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending. But I found my attendance so little encouraged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could, and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected be it ever so little. Seven years my lord have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication. Without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind, but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it, till I am solitary, and cannot impart it, till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, if less be possible with less, for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation. My lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, Sam Johnson. While this was the talk of the town, says Dr. Adams, in a letter to me, I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who, finding that I was acquainted with Johnson, desired me earnestly to carry his compliments to him, and to tell him that he honoured him for his mainly behaviour in rejecting these condescensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the treatment he had received from him with a proper spirit. Johnson was visibly pleased with this compliment, for he had always a high opinion of Warburton. Indeed the force of mind which appeared in this letter was congenial with that which Warburton himself amply possessed. There is a curious, minute circumstance which struck me in comparing the various editions of Johnson's imitations of juvenile. In the tenth satire one of the couplets upon the vanity of wishes, even for literary distinction, stood thus. Yet think what ills the scholar's life as sail. Pride Envy Want the Garrett and the Jail. But after experiencing the uneasiness which Lord Chesterfield's fallacious patronage made him feel, he dismissed the word Garrett from the sad group, and in all the subsequent edition the line stands, Pride Envy Want the Patron and the Jail. That Lord Chesterfield must have been mortified by the lofty contempt, and polite yet keen satire with which Johnson exhibited him to himself in this letter. It is impossible to doubt. He however, with that glossy duplicity which was his constant study, affected to be quite unconcerned. Dr. Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert Doddsley that he was sorry Johnson had written his letter to Lord Chesterfield. Doddsley, with the true feelings of trade, said he was very sorry too, for that he had a property in the dictionary to which his lordship's patronage might have been consequence. He then told Dr. Adams that Lord Chesterfield had shown him the letter. I should have imagined, replied Dr. Adams, that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it. Poe, said Doddsley, do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield? Not at all, sir. It lay upon his table where anybody might see it. He read it to me, said, this man has great powers, pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were expressed. This air of indifference which imposed upon the worthy Doddsley was certainly nothing but a specimen of that dissimulation which Lord Chesterfield inculcated as one of the most essential lessons for the conduct of life. His lordship endeavored to justify himself to Doddsley from the charges brought against him by Johnson, but we may judge the flimsiness of his defense, from his having excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying that he had heard he had changed his lodgings and did not know where he lived. As if there could have been the smallest difficulty in to inform himself of that circumstance, by inquiring in the literary circle with which his lordship was well acquainted, and was indeed himself one of its ornaments. End of section 18 .