Aetat. 29.] Johnson's letters to Cave. 141 poem. If you please to send it me by the post, with a note to Dodsley, I will go and read the lines to him, that we may have his consent to put his name in the title-page. As to the printing, if it can be set immediately about, I will be so much the authour's friend, as not to content myself with mere solicitations in his favour. I propose, if my calculation be near the truth, to engage for the reimbursement of all that you shall lose by an impression of 500; provided, as you very generously propose, that the profit, if any, be set aside for the authour's use, excepting the present you made, which, if he be a gainer, it is fit he should repay. I beg that you will let one of your servants write an exact account of the expense of such an impression, and send it with the poem, that I may know what I engage for. I am very sensible, from your generosity on this occasion, of your regard to learning, even in its unhappiest state, and cannot but think such a temper deserving of the gratitude of those who suffer so often from a contrary disposition. I am, Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'To MR. CAVE. [No date'] 'SIR, 'I waited on you to take the copy to Dodsley's: as I remember the number of lines which it contains, it will be no longer than Eugenio, with the quotations, which must be subjoined at the bottom of the page; part of the beauty of the performance (if any beauty be allowed it) consisting in adapting Juvenal's sentiments to modern facts and persons. It will, with those additions, very conveniently make five sheets. And since the expense will be no 'The original letter has the following additional paragraph:—'I beg that you will not delay your answer.' 'In later life Johnson strongly insisted on the importance of fully dating all letters. After giving the date in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he would add,' Now there is a date, look at it' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 109); or, Mark that you did not put the year to your last' (Ib. p. 112); or, 'Look at this and learn' (Ib. p. 138). She never did learn. The arrangement of the letters in the Piozzi Letters is often very faulty. For an omission of the date by Johnson in late life see post, under March 5, 1774. 3 A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 30, 1773. Boswell. more, 142 Mrs. Carter. [A.D. 1738. more, I shall contentedly insure it, as I mentioned in my last. If it be not therefore gone to Dodsley's, I beg it may be sent me by the penny-post, that I may have it in the evening. I have composed a Greek epigram to Eliza', and think she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand'. Pray send me word when you will begin upon the poem, for it is a long way to walk. I would leave my Epigram, but have not daylight to transcribe it'. I am, Sir, 'Your's, &c., 'SAM. JOHNSON'.' 'The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. BOSWELL. She was born Dec. 1717, and died Feb. 19, 1806. She never married. Her father gave her a learned education. Dr. Johnson, speaking of some celebrated scholar [perhaps Langton ], said, 'that he understood Greek better than any one whom he had ever known, except Elizabeth Carter.' Pennington's Carter, i. 13. Writing to her in 1756 he said, 'Poor dear Cave! I owed him much; for to him I owe that I have known you' (Ib. p. 40). Her father wrote to her on June 25, 1738:— 'You mention Johnson; but that is a name with which I am utterly unacquainted. Neither his scholastic, critical, or poetical character ever reached my ears. I a little suspect his judgment, if he is very fond of Martial' (Ib. p. 39). Since 1734 she had written verses for the Gent. Mag. under the name of Eliza (Ib. p. 37). They are very poor. Her Ode to Melancholy her biographer calls her best. How bad it is three lines will show : 'Here, cold to pleasure's airy forms, And mingle with the dead.' Gent. Mag. ix. 599. Hawkins records that Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for her learning, said :—' A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her with Hannah More and Fanny Burney, said :-'Three such women are not to be found.' Post, May 15, 1784. "See Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV, ch. xxv. At the end of his letter to Cave, quoted post, 1742, he says:-'The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not quite easily read yours.' A man who at times was forced to walk the streets, for want of money to pay for a lodging, was likely also at times to be condemned to idleness for want of a light. At the back of this letter is written :-'Sir, Please to publish the 'To 'I am extremely obliged by your kind letter, and will not fail to attend you to-morrow with Irene, who looks upon you as one of her best friends. 'I was to day with Mr. Dodsley, who declares very warmly in favour of the paper you sent him, which he desires to have a share in, it being, as he says, a creditable thing to be concerned in. I knew not what answer to make till I had consulted you, nor what to demand on the authour's part, but am very willing that, if you please, he should have a part in it, as he will undoubtedly be more diligent to disperse and promote it. If you can send me word to-morrow what I shall say to him, I will settle matters, and bring the poem with me for the press, which, as the town empties, we cannot be too quick with. I am, Sir, 'Your's, &c., 'SAM. JOHNSON.' To us who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, and masterly versification of this poem, it is a matter of curiosity to observe the diffidence with which its authour brought it forward into publick notice, while he is so cautious as not to avow it to be his own production; and with what humility he offers to allow the printer to 'alter any stroke of satire which he might dislike'.' That any such alteration was made, we do not know. If we did, we could not but feel an indignant regret; but how painful is it to see that a writer of such vigorous powers of mind was actually in such distress, that the small profit which so short a poem, however excellent, could yield, was courted as a 'relief.' It has been generally said, I know not with what truth, that Johnson offered his London to several booksellers, none enclosed in your paper of first, and place to acct of Mr. Edward Cave. For whom I am, Sir, your hum. sert J. Bland. St. John's Gate, April 6, 1738.' London therefore was written before April 6. 'Boswell misread the letter. Johnson does not offer to allow the printer to make alterations. He says:-'I will take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.' The law against libel was as unjust as it was severe, and printers ran a great risk. of 144 Payment for LONDON. [A.D. 1738. of whom would purchase it. To this circumstance Mr. Derrick alludes in the following lines of his Fortune, a Rhapsody: Will no kind patron JOHNSON Own? Shall JOHNSON friendless range the town? The offspring of his happy Muse'?' But we have seen that the worthy, modest, and ingenious Mr. Robert Dodsley' had taste enough to perceive its uncommon merit, and thought it creditable to have a share in it. The fact is, that, at a future conference, he bargained for the whole property of it, for which he gave Johnson ten guineas'; who told me, 'I might, perhaps, have accepted of less; but that Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten guineas for a poem and I would not take less than Paul Whitehead.' I may here observe, that Johnson appeared to me to undervalue Paul Whitehead upon every occasion when he was mentioned, and, in my opinion, did not do him justice; but when it is considered that Paul Whitehead was a member of a riotous and profane club', we may account for Johnson's having a prejudice against him. Paul Whitehead was, indeed, unfortunate in being not only slighted by 'Derrick was not merely a poet, but also Master of the Ceremonies at Bath; post, May 16, 1763. For Johnson's opinion of his 'Muse' see post, under March 30, 1783. Fortune, a Rhapsody, was published in Nov. 1751. Gent. Mag. xxi. 527. He is described in Humphrey Clinker in the letters of April 6 and May 6. See post, March 20, 1776. 'Six years later Johnson thus wrote of Savage's Wanderer:- From a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable advantage; nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Johnson's Works, viii. 131. Mrs. Piozzi sold in 1788 the copyright of her collection of Johnson's Letters for £500; post, Feb. 1767. The Monks of Medmenham Abbey. See Almon's Life of Wilkes, iii. 60, for Wilkes's account of this club. Horace Walpole (Letters, i. 92) calls Whitehead 'an infamous, but not despicable poet.' Johnson, Aetat. 29.] Paul Whitehead. 145 Johnson, but violently attacked by Churchill, who utters the following imprecation : 'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul'!' yet I shall never be persuaded to think meanly of the authour of so brilliant and pointed a satire as Manners'. Johnson's London was published in May 1738'; and it is From The Conference, Churchill's Poems, ii. 15. In the Life of Pope Johnson writes:- Paul Whitehead, a small poet, was summoned before the Lords for a poem called Manners, together with Dodsley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose upon society, sculked and escaped; but Dodsley's shop and family made his appearance necessary.' Johnson's Works, viii. 297. Manners was published in 1739. Dodsley was kept in custody for a week. Gent. Mag. ix. 104. The whole process was supposed to be intended rather to intimidate Pope [who in his Seventeen Hundred and ThirtyEight had given offence] than to punish Whitehead, and it answered that purpose.' CHALMERS, quoted in Parl. Hist. x. 1325. Sir John Hawkins, p. 86, tells us:- The event is antedated, in the poem of London; but in every particular, except the difference of a year, what is there said of the departure of Thales, must be understood of Savage, and looked upon as true history.' This conjecture is, I believe, entirely groundless. I have been assured, that Johnson said he was not so much as acquainted with Savage when he wrote his London. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen; for London was published in May 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second sight [see post, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty. BosWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state of his own knowledge that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he wrote London. The death of Queen Caroline in Nov. 1737 deprived Savage of her yearly bounty, and 'abandoned him again to fortune' (Johnson's Works, viii. 166). The elegy on her that he composed on her birth-day (March 1) brought him no reward. He was 'for some time in suspense,' but nothing was done. He was in a short time reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food' (Ib. p. 169). His friends formed a scheme that 'he should retire into Wales.' 'While this scheme was ripening,' he lodged 'in the liberties of the Fleet, that he might be secure from his remarkable, |