out.'

Let it, however, be remembered, that this indulgence does not display itself only in sarcasm towards others, but sometimes in playful allusion to the notions commonly entertained of his own laborious task. Thus: "Grub Street, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub Street."—" Lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."

At the time when he was concluding his very eloquent Preface, Johnson's mind appears to have been in such a state of depression, that we cannot contemplate without wonder the vigorous and splendid thoughts which so highly distinguish that performance.

"I (says he) may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave; and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise."

That this indifference was rather a temporary than an habitual feeling, appears, I think, from his letters to Mr. Warton; and however he may have been affected for the moment, certain it is that the honours which his great work procured him, both at home and abroad, were very grateful to him. His friend the Earl of Cork and Orrery, being at Florence, presented it to the Academia della Crusca. That Academy sent Johnson their Vocabulario, and the French Academy sent him their Dictionnaire, which Mr. Langton had the pleasure to convey to him.

It must undoubtedly seem strange, that the conclusion of his Preface should be expressed in terms so desponding, when it is considered that the author was then only in his forty-sixth

I suppose when Johnson attempted the pun he wrote the name (as pronounced) Go'er. He has Goer in his Dictionary in its obvious meaning, and also "in an ill sense,' as "a go-between." Lord Gower, after a long opposition to the Whig ministry (which was looked upon as equivalent to Jacobitism) accepted, in 1742, the office of Privy Seal, and was the object of much censure both with Whigs and Tories. Sir C.H. Williams ironically calls him" Hanoverian Gower."

miserable dejection of spirits to which he was constitutionally subject, and which was aggra vated by the death of his wife two years before. I have heard it ingeniously observed by a lady of rank and elegance, that "his melancholy was then at its meridian." It pleased God to grant him almost thirty years of life after this time; and once, when he was in a placid frame of mind, he was obliged to own to me that he had enjoyed happier days, and had many more friends, since that gloomy hour, than before.

It is a sad saying, that "most of those whom he wished to please had sunk into the grave;" and his case at forty-five was singularly unhappy, unless the circle of his friends was very narrow. I have often thought, that as longevity is generally desired, and I believe, generally expected, it would be wise to be continually adding to the number of our friends, that the loss of some may be supplied by others. Friendship, "the wine of life," should, like a wellstocked cellar, be thus continually renewed; and it is consolatory to think, that although we can seldom add what will equal the generous first-growths of our youth, yet friendship becomes insensibly old in much less time than is commonly imagined, and not many years are required to make it very mellow and pleasant. Warmth will, no doubt, make a considerable difference. Men of affectionate temper and bright fancy will coalesce a great deal sooner than those who are cold and dull.

The proposition which I have now endea voured to illustrate was, at a subsequent period of his life, the opinion of Johnson himself. He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair."

The celebrated Mr. Wilkes, whose notions and habits of life were very opposite to his, but who was ever eminent for literature and vivacity, sallied forth with a little Jeu d'Esprit upon the following passage in his Grammar of the English Tongue, prefixed to the Dictionary: "H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable." In an essay printed in "The Public Advertiser," this lively writer enumerated many instances in opposition to this remark: for example, "The author of this observation must be a man of a quick apprehension, and of a most compre-hensive genius." The position is undoubtedly expressed with too much latitude.

This light sally, we may suppose, made no great impression on our Lexicographer; for

But it is probable that Johnson's antipathy arose out of something more personal, perhaps the disappointment about the school, anté, p. 37. n. 3. - СROKER.

2 For which he gives no authority, and surely a writer of a Dictionary who should admit such reflections as those on • Excise,' 'Pension,' &c., could hardly hope to pass for a harmless drudge.-CROKER.

with ours!

First Shakspeare and Milton, like Gods in the fight,

Have put their whole drama and epic to flight; In satires, epistles, and odes would they cope, Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope; And Johnson, well arm'd like a hero of yore, Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more !" "

Johnson this year gave at once a proof of his benevolence, quickness of apprehension, and admirable art of composition, in the assistance which he gave to Mr. Zachariah Williams, father of the blind lady whom he had humanely received under his roof. Mr. Williams had followed the profession of physic in Wales; but, having a very strong propensity to the study of natural philosophy, had made many ingenious advances towards a discovery of the longitude, and repaired to London in hopes of obtaining the great parliamentary reward. He failed of success: but Johnson, having made himself master of his principles and experiments, wrote for him a pamphlet, published in quarto, with the following title: "An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle; with a Table of the Variations at the most remarkable Cities in Europe, from the

In the third edition, published in 1773, he left out the words perhaps never, and added the following paragraph :"It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, as block-head or derived from the Latin, as comprehended."- BOSWELL.

The number of the French Academy employed in settling their language, and editing the celebrated dictionary. — BOSWELL.

This is creditable to Garrick's placability, if we are to believe that be took to himself the character of Prospero in the Rambler (antè, p. 68. n. 3): but it surely is not a very happy effort of his wit. Well armed like a hero of yore,' and 'will brat forty more,' are awkward expletives, added, it would seem, because they rhymed. - CROKER.

Mr. Williams, as early as 1721, persuaded himself that he had discovered the means of ascertaining the longitude, and be seems to have passed a long life in that delusion. CROKER.

This pamphlet bore the name of Zachariah Williams, and Johnson, on presenting a copy of it in 1755 to the Bodleian, was careful to insert the title in his own handwriting in the great catalogue.. -WARTON.

year 1660 to 1680."† To diffuse it more extensively, it was accompanied with an Italian translation on the opposite page, which it is supposed was the work of Signor Baretti 6, an Italian of considerable literature, who having come to England a few years before, had been employed in the capacity both of a language master and an author, and formed an intimacy with Dr. Johnson. This pamphlet Johnson presented to the Bodleian Library. On a blank leaf of it is pasted a paragraph cut out of a newspaper, containing an account of the death and character of Williams, plainly written by Johnson."

In July this year he had formed some scheme of mental improvement, the particular purpose of which does not appear. But we find in his Prayers and Meditations, p. 25., a prayer entitled, "On the Study of Philosophy, as an instrument of living;" and after it follows a note, "This study was not pursued."

On the 13th of the same month he wrote in his Journal the following scheme of life, for Sunday: "Having lived" (as he with tenderness of conscience expresses himself) "not without an habitual reverence for the Sabbath, yet without that attention to its religious duties which Christianity requires;"

"1. To rise early, and in order to it, to go to sleep early on Saturday.

"2. To use some extraordinary devotion in the morning.

"3. To examine the tenor of my life, and particularly the last week; and to mark my advances in religion, or recession from it.

"4. To read the Scripture methodically with such helps as are at hand.

"5. To go to church twice.

"6. To read books of divinity, either speculative or practical.

7. To instruct my family. "8. To wear off by meditation any worldly soil contracted in the week."

In 1756 Johnson found that the great fame of his Dictionary had not set him above the necessity of "making provision for the day that was passing over him."9 No royal or noble patron extended a munificent hand to give in

6 This ingenious foreigner, who was a native of Piedmont, came to England about the year 1753, and died in London, May 5. 1789. A very candid and judicious account of him and his works, written, it is believed, by a distinguished dignitary in the church, [Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster,] may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for that year.- MALONE. 7" On Saturday the 12th, [July, 1755] about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal to ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of con versation inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, temperate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better fortune."- Boswell.

8 In 1755, Johnson seems to have written for Mrs. Lenox the dedication to the Duke of Newcastle of her Translation of Sully's Memoirs.- CROKER.

9 He was so far from being "set above the necessity of making provision for the day that was passing over him," that he appears to have been in this year in great pecuniary

JOHNSON TO DR. BIRCH.'

"Jan. 9. 1756.

"SIR, Having obtained from Mr. Garrick a benefit for a gentlewoman of [word illegible], distressed by blindness, almost the only casualty that could have distressed her, I beg leave to trouble you, among my other friends, with some of her tickets. Your benevolence is well known, and was, I believe, never exerted on a more laudable occasion. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, - Birch MSS.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

JOHNSON TO PAUL.

"Tuesday, 13th Jan. 1755. [1756.] "SIR, - I am much confused with an accident that has happened. When your papers were brought me, I broke open the first without reading the superscription, and when I had opened it, found it not to belong to me. I did not read it when I found my mistake. I see it is a very full paper, and will give you much trouble to copy again, but perhaps it will not be necessary, and you may mend the seal. I am sorry for the mischance. You will easily believe it was nothing more. If you send it me again, the child shall carry it. For bringing Mrs. Swynfen, I know not well how to attempt it. I am not sure that her husband will be pleased, and I think it would look too much like making myself a party, instead of acting the part of a common friend, which I shall be very ready to discharge. I should imagine that the best way would be to send her word when you will call on her, and perhaps the questions on which she is to resuscitate her remembrance, and come to her at her own house. I really know not how to ask ber husband to send her, and I certainly will not take her without asking him. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON."

JOHNSON TO MISS CARTER.

"Gough Square, 14th Jan. 1756.

"MADAM,- From the liberty of writing to you, if I have hitherto been deterred from the fear of your understanding, I am now encouraged to it from the confidence of your goodness.

"I am soliciting a benefit for Miss Williams, and beg that if you can by letters influence any in her favour (and who is there whom you cannot inAuence?) you will be pleased to patronise her on this occasion. Yet, for the time is short, and as you were not in town, I did not till this day remember that you might help us, and recollect how widely and how rapidly light is diffused.

To every joy is appended a sorrow. The name of Miss Carter introduces the memory of Cave. Poor dear Cave! I owed him much; for to him I owe that I have known you. He died, I am fraid, unexpectedly to himself, yet surely unburthened with any great crime, and for the positive duties of religion I have yet no right to condemn him for neglect.

In 1756, Mr. Garrick, ever disposed to help the afflicted, indulged Miss Williams with a benefit play, that produced her 30. - Hawkins. The night was the 22d January, 1756, and the play Aaron Hill's Merope, but Garrick did not play imself CROKER.

"SIR,

JOHNSON TO PAUL,

"Wednesday, [1756.]

I this morning found a letter, which as you sent when my eye was out of order, I had never read to this hour, and therefore, now I have read, I make haste to tell you that if I understand it right, that is, if Mr. Cave' be your landlord, I believe I can favour you, and, if the difficulty still continues, will endeavour it. They do not, I fancy, want the money, and then they may as well seize, if they must seize, for more or less, the property, suppose, being equivalent to much more, and in no danger of being removed. I am very sorry I did not read the letter among the first things that, upon recovery, I was able to read ; but having put it aside, it had the fate of other things for which the proper time has been neglected. Let me know what I shall do, or whether any thing at all is to be done.

"I am now thinking about Hitch." I am yet inclined to believe that he will rather lend money upon spindles, a security which he has found valid, than upon a property to be wrung by the law from Dr. James, who will not pay [Miss Williams] for three box tickets which he took. It is a strange fellow. Hitch has a dislike of James; perhaps another might think better of him, but where to find that other I know not. I can, I believe, by a third hand have Hitch sounded; but if it had not the appearance of declining the office, I should tell you, that your own negotiation would effect more than mine. However, in both these affairs, I am ready to do what you would have me. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON." Pocock MSS.

JOHNSON TO PAUL.

"March 12. 1756.

"SIR, — I am still of opinion that they will hear me at the Gate, and I have no difficulty to speak to them; but though I hope I can obtain a forbearance, I am confident that I shall get nothing more; nor would any attempt to borrow of them or sell to them have any other effect than that of disabling me from succeeding in my first request. You may easily believe that spindles are there in very little credit.

"I will propose to a friend to speak to Mr. Hitch. You well know it is impossible to guess what may be the answer when money is to be sought. If my friend refuses the errand, what shall we do? That must be considered. Will you then write to him by me, as a preparative, and then see him, if he gives any countenance to the affair? You are much more skilful in these transactions than I, and might much sooner find out a proper person to deal with, for my friends have not much money. "Would it be wrong if you wrote a short letter

2 This must have been Joseph Cave, the brother and successor of Edward, who had died in 1754.- CROKER.

3 Hitch was a bookseller and publisher of considerable note. CROKER.

for me, to show at Cave's as a kind of credential, containing only a few lines, to mention the value of the stock, the certainty of the security, and your desire of my interposition, that I may not seem to thrust myself needlessly between Cave and payment. Let the letter be without dejection, as if the delay was a thing rather convenient than necessary to you. Cave cannot, I think, want forty pounds, nor perhaps has he twice forty to spare.

"I will do my best for you in both negotiations; with Hitch my best can be very little, with Cave I expect to succeed, at least for so short a delay as to Midsummer, and think it would be as well in your letter to refer payment to Michaelmas or Christmas. If they will grant the whole of our request (for I shall make it mine too), they may more easily grant part. But, once more, you know all these things better than I. I am, Sir, your most humble SAM. JOHNSON."

servant,

Pocock MSS.

JOHNSON TO JOSEPH WARTON. "15th April, 1756.

"DEAR SIR, Though, when you and your brother were in town, you did not think my humble habitation worth a visit, yet I will not so far give way to sullenness as not to tell you that I have lately seen an octavo book which I suspect to be yours, though I have not yet read above ten pages. That way of publishing, without acquainting your friends, is a wicked trick. However, I will not so far depend upon a mere conjecture as to charge you with a fraud which I cannot prove you to have committed.

"I should be glad to hear that you are pleased with your new situation. You have now a kind of royalty, and are to be answerable for your conduct to posterity. I suppose you care not now to answer a letter, except there be a lucky concurrence of a post-day with a holiday. These restraints are troublesome for a time, but custom makes them easy, with the help of some honour, and a great deal of profit, and I doubt not but your abilities will obtain both.

"For my part, I have not lately done much. I have been ill in the winter, and my eye has been inflamed; but I please myself with the hopes of doing many things, with which I have long pleased and deceived myself.

"What becomes of poor dear Collins? I wrote him a letter which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change; that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.

"Let me not be long without a letter, and I will forgive you the omission of the visit; and if you can tell me that you are now more happy than before, you will give great pleasure to, dear Sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant, -Wooll's Life. "SAM. JOHNSON."

1 The first volume of the Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope appeared anonymously in 1756. - CROKER. 2 His appointment of second master of Winchester School took place in 1755. — CROKER.

"SIR, - I would not have it thought that if I sometimes transgressed the rules of civility, I would violate the laws of friendship. If I had heard any thing from the Gate I would have informed you, and I will send to them lest they should neglect to transmit any accounts that they receive. I have been inany times hindered from coming to you, but if by coming I could have been of any considerable use, I would not have been hindered. They are so cold at the Gate, both to the landlord and to you, that if I could think of any body else to apply to, I would trouble them no more. I am thinking of Dicey. I am, Sir, your humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON." Pocock MSS.

JOHNSON TO PAUL.

(No date.) "SIR, I am astonished at what you tell me. I cannot well come out to-night, but will wait on you on Monday evening. I have been very busy, but have now some leisure. I repeat again that I am astonished. Henry is just gone out of town, but I could send to him, if there was any likelihood of advantage from it. I am certain it is not done with his privity, for he has no interest in it, — and I am, he is too wise to do ill without interest! SAM. JOHNSON. Sir, your humble servant, "I am ready to do on this occasion any thing that can be done." Pocock MSS.