it should any way lie in your way, doubt not but you would be ready to recommend and assist your

countryman,

"G. WALMESLEY."

How he employed himself upon his first coming to London is not particularly known. I never heard that he found any protection or encouragement by the means of Mr. Colson, to whose academy David Garrick went. Mrs. Lucy Porter told me, that Mr. Walmesley gave him a letter of introduction to Lintot' his bookseller, and that Johnson wrote some things for him; but I imagine this to be a mistake, for I have discovered no trace of it, and I am pretty sure he told me, that Mr. Cave was the first publisher by whom his pen was engaged in London.2

He had a little money when he came to town, and he knew how he could live in the cheapest manner. His first lodgings were at the house of Mr. Norris, a staymaker, in Exeter Street, adjoining Catherine Street, in the Strand. "I dined," said he, "very well for eight-pence, with very good company, at the Pine-Apple in New Street, just by. Several of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day; but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing."

He at this time, I believe, abstained entirely from fermented liquors: a practice to which he rigidly conformed for many years together, at different periods of his life. +

His Ofellus, in the Art of Living in London 5, I have heard him relate, was an Irish painter, whom he knew at Birmingham, and who had practised his own precepts of economy for several years in the British capital. He assured Johnson, who, I suppose, was then meditating to try his fortune in London, but was apprehensive of the expense, "that thirty

1 Mr. P. Cunningham observes, that this letter must have been to the son of the celebrated Bernard Lintot, the latter having died 3d Feb. 1736.-CROKER, 1846.

2 One curious anecdote was communicated by himself to Mr. John Nichols. Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that his intention was to get his livelihood as an author, eyed his robust frame attentively, and, with a significant look, said, "You had better buy a porter's knot." He, however, added, "Wilcox was one of my best friends." -BOSWELL. Perhaps he meant that Cave was the first to whom he was regularly and constantly engaged; but Wilcox and Lintot may have employed him occasionally; and Dodsley certainly printed his London before Cave had printed any thing of his but two or three trifles in the Gentleman's Magazine. CROKER.

3 But if we may trust Mr. Cumberland's recollection, he I was about this time, or very soon after, reduced still lower; "for, painful as it is to relate," (says that gentleman in his Memoirs, vol. i. p. 355.) "I have heard that illustrious scholar, Dr. Johnson, assert, and he never varied from the truth of fact, that he subsisted himself for a considerable space of time upon the scanty pittance of four-pence halfpenny per day." "CROKER. At this time his abstinence from wine may, perhaps, be attributed to poverty, but in his subsequent life he was restrained from that indulgence by, as it appears, moral, or rather medical considerations. He found by experience that wine, though it dissipated for a moment, yet eventually

pounds a year was enough to enable a man to live there without being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at eighteenpence a week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending three-pence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt-day he went abroad, and paid visits." 6 I have heard him more than once talk of his frugal friend, whom he recollected with esteem and kindness, and did not like to have one smile at the recital. "This man," said he, gravely, 66 was a very sensible man, who perfectly understood common affairs: a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books. He borrowed a horse and ten pounds at Birmingham. Finding himself master of so much money, he set off for West Chester, in order to get to Ireland. He returned the horse, and probably the ten pounds too, after he had got home."

Considering Johnson's narrow circumstances in the early part of his life, and particularly at the interesting era of his launching into the ocean of London, it is not to be wondered at, that an actual instance, proved by experience, of the possibility of enjoying the intellectual luxury of social life upon a very small income, should deeply engage his attention, and be ever recollected by him as a circumstance of much importance. He amused himself, I remember, by computing how much more expense was absolutely necessary to live upon the same scale with that which his friend described, when the value of money was diminished by the progress of commerce. It may be estimated that double the money might now with difficulty be sufficient.

Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant circumstance to cheer him; he was well acquainted with Mr. Henry Hervey7, one

aggravated the hereditary disease under which he suffered; and perhaps it may have been owing to a long course of abstinence, that his mental health seems to have been better in the latter than in the earlier portion of his life. He says, in his Prayers and Meditations, (17 Aug. 1767,)" By abstinence from wine and suppers, I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me; which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find any means of obtaining it." See also post, Sept. 16. 1773. These remarks are important, because depression of spirits is too often treated on a contrary system, from ignorance of, or inattention to, what may be its real cause. — CROKER. 5 Ofellus was a Roman rustic whom Horace introduces as giving precepts for frugal living. Boswell, therefore, calls this Irish professor of economy Johnson's Ofellus. - CROKER. 6 This species of economy was not confined to indigence. Swift, I think, talks of making visits on shaving-day and clean-shirt-day. - CROKER.

He

The Hon. Henry Hervey, third [fourth] son of the first Earl of Bristol, [born 1700,] quitted the army and took orders. married [in 1730, Catherine the eldest] sister of Sir Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the name and arms of that family. BOSWELL. Mr. Hervey's acquaintance and kindness Johnson owed, no doubt, to his friend Mr. Walmesley; who, it will be recollected, married Mrs. Hervey's sister, Margaret Aston. But I doubt whether Mr. Boswell does not antedate this intimacy with Hervey and Johnson's love of that name by a couple of years,- for the first

of the branches of the noble family of that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an officer of the army, and had at this time a house in London, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportunity of meeting genteel company. Not very long before his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars of his life, which he was kindly communicating to me; and he described this early friend "Harry Hervey," thus: "He was a vicious man', but very kind to me. If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him."

He told me he had now written only three acts of his IRENE, and that he retired for some time to lodgings at Greenwich, where he proceeded in it somewhat further, and used to compose, walking in the Park; but did not stay long enough at that place to finish it.

At this period we find the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave, which, as a link in the chain of his literary history, it is proper to insert : —

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

Greenwich, next door to the Golden Heart,

Church Street, July 12. 1737. SIR,- Having observed in your papers very uncommon offers of encouragement to men of let

ters, I have chosen, being a stranger in London, to communicate to you the following design, which, I hope, if you join in it, will be of advantage to both of us.

"The History of the Council of Trent having been lately translated into French, and published with large notes by Dr. Le Courayer, the reputation of that book is so much revived in England, that, it is presumed, a new translation of it from the Italian, together with Le Courayer's notes from the French, could not fail of a favourable reception. "If it be answered, that the History is already in English, it must be remembered that there was the same objection against Le Courayer's undertaking, with this disadvantage, that the French had a version by one of their best translators, whereas you cannot read three pages of the English history without discovering that the style is capable of great improvements; but whether those improvements are to be expected from this attempt, you must judge from the specimen, which, if you approve the proposal, I shall submit to your examination.

"Suppose the merit of the versions equal, we may hope that the addition of the notes will turn the balance in our favour, considering the repu

tation of the annotator.

scribed with his own name, that he had not yet been introduced to Mr. Cave. We shall presently see what was done in consequence of the proposal which it contains.

In the course of the summer he returned to Lichfield, where he had left Mrs. Johnson, and there he at last finished his tragedy, which was not executed with his rapidity of composition upon other occasions, but was slowly and painfully elaborated. A few days before his death, while burning a great mass of papers, he picked out from among them the original unformed sketch of this tragedy, in his own handwriting, and gave it to Mr. Langton, by whose favour a copy of it is now in my possession. It contains fragments of the intended plot, and speeches for the different persons of the drama, partly in the raw materials of prose, partly worked up into verse; as also a variety of hints for illustration, borrowed from the Greek, Roman, and modern writers. The handwriting is very difficult to be read, even by those who were best acquainted with Johnson's mode of penmanship, which at all times was very particular. The King having graciously accepted of this manuscript as a literary curiosity, Mr. Langton made a fair and distinct copy of it, which he ordered to be bound up with the original and the printed tragedy; and the volume is deposited in the King's library.3 His Majesty was pleased to permit Mr. Langton to take a copy of it for himself.

The whole of it is rich in thought and imagery, and happy expressions; and of the disjecta membra scattered throughout, and as yet unarranged, a good dramatic poet might avail himself with considerable advantage. I shall give my readers some specimens of different kinds, distinguishing them by the italic cha

racter.

"Nor think to say, here will I stop,

Here will I fix the limits of transgression,
Nor farther tempt the avenging rage of heaven.
When guilt like this once harbours in the breast,
Those holy beings, whose unseen direction
Guides through the maze of life the steps of man,
Fly the detested mansions of impiety,

And quit their charge to horror and to ruin.”

A small part only of this interesting admothink, not to advantage: nition is preserved in the play, and is varied, I

"The soul once tainted with so foul a crime,
No more shall glow with friendship's hallow'd
ardour,

Those holy beings whose superior care
Guides erring mortals to the paths of virtue,
Affrighted at impiety like thine,

Resign their charge to baseness and to ruin."

after (Oct. 1766), was also very clever but very mad. — CROKER.

2 or more probably to Edial, where it seems Mrs. Johnson had remained. CROKER.

3 The library of King George III. was given, as I always have thought, under very erroneous advice, by George IV., to the British Museum. Surely the Sovereign should not have been left without a private library.-CROKER.

"That power that kindly spreads
The clouds, a signal of impending showers,
To warn the wand'ring linnet to the shade,
Beheld, without concern, expiring Greece,
And not one prodigy foretold our fate.
DEMETRIUS.

"A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it;
A feeble government, eluded laws,
A factious populace, luxurious nobles,
And all the maladies of sinking states.
When public villany, too strong for justice,
Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin,
Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders,
Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard?
When some neglected fabric nods beneath
The weight of years, and totters to the tempest,
Must heaven despatch the messengers of light,
Or wake the dead, to warn us of its fall?"

MAHOMET (to IRENE). "I have tried thee, and joy to find that thou deservest to be loved by Mahomet, with a mind great as his own. Sure, thou art an error of nature, and an exception to the rest of thy

sex, and art immortal; for sentiments like thine were never to sink into nothing. I thought all the thoughts of the fair had been to select the graces of the day, dispose the colours of the flaunting (flowing) robe, tune the voice and roll the eye, place the gem, choose the dress, and add new roses to the fading cheek, but sparkling."

Thus in the tragedy:

"Illustrious maid, new wonders fix me thine;
Thy soul completes the triumphs of thy face;
I thought, forgive my fair, the noblest aim,
The strongest effort of a female soul
Was but to choose the graces of the day,
To tune the tongue, to teach the eyes to roll,
Dispose the colours of the flowing robe,
And add new roses to the faded cheek."

varieties of worship: but is answered, That variety cannot affect that Being, who, infinitely happy in his own perfections, wants no external gratifications; nor though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkcan infinite truth be delighted with falsehood; that ness, he abandons those who shut their eyes against the beams of day."

Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his return to it at this time, was only for three months; and as he had as yet seen but a small part of the wonders of the metropolis, he had little to tell his townsmen. He related to me [Sept. 20. 1773] the following minute anecdote of this period:-"In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute."

He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson; but her daughter, who had lived with them at Edial, was left with her relations in the country. His lodgings were for some time in Woodstock Street, near Hanover Square, and afterwards in Castle Street, near Cavendish Square. As there is something pleasingly interesting, to many, in tracing so great a man through all his different habitations, I shall [here]2 present my readers with an exact list of his lodgings and houses, in order of time, which, in placid condescension to my respectful cu. riosity, he one evening [Oct. 10. 1779] dictated to me, but without specifying how long he lived at each.

1. Exeter-street, Catherine-street, Strand [1797]. 2. Greenwich [1737] 3. Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square [1787]. 4. Castle-street, Cavendish-square, No. 6. (1738).

5. Boswell-court.

6. Strand.

15. Inner Temple-lane, No. 1. 16. Johnson-court, Fleet-street, No. 7. 17. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, No. 8.

1748].

[1748

[1758]

[1759]

[1760

[1765]

(1777).

In the progress of his life I shall have occasion to mention some of them as connected with particular incidents, or with the writing of par

discovered it, the year in which Johnson first appears in any

of these residences.- CROKER.

3 In a letter dated March 31. 1741, Johnson states that he has recently removed to the Black Boy in the Strand over against Durham Yard."- CROKER.

ticular parts of his works. To some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but when we consider the punctilious exactness with which the different houses in which Milton resided have been traced by the writers of his life, a similar enthusiasm may be pardoned in the biographer of Johnson.

His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterwards solicited Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury Lane theatre, to have it acted at his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it was not patronised by some man of high rank; and it was not acted till 1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre.

The Gentleman's Magazine, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave, under the name of Sylvanus Urban, had attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London as an adventurer in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he "beheld it with reverence." I suppose, indeed, that every young author has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him, and in which he has first had an opportunity to see himself in print, without the risk of exposing his name. I myself recollect such impressions from the Scots Magazine, which was begun at Edinburgh in the year 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgment, accuracy, and propriety.

I yet

cannot help thinking of it with an affectionate regard. Johnson has dignified the Gentleman's Magazine by the importance with which he invests the life of Cave; but he has given it still greater lustre by the various admirable essays which he wrote for it.

Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends to make a complete list of his writings, and talked of doing it, I believe with a serious intention that they should all be collected on

his own account, he put it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one in his own handwriting, which contains a certain number; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, partly from occasional information given by him to his friends, and partly from internal evidence.2

His first performance in the Gentleman's Magazine, which for many years was his principal source of employment and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March, 1738, addressed to the editor in so happy a style of compliment, that Cave must have been destitute both of taste and sensibility, had he not felt himself highly gratified.3

Ad URBANUM..

URBANE, nullis fesse laboribus, URBANE, nullis victe calumniis, Cui fronte sertum in erudità Perpetuò viret et virebit;

Quid moliatur gens imitantium, Quid et minetur, solicitus parùm, Vacare solis perge Musis,

Juxta animo studiisque felix.

Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, Fidens, superbo frange silentio; Victrix per obstantes catervas Sedulitas animosa tendet.

Intende nervos, fortis, inanibus Risurus olim nisibus æmuli; Intende jam nervos, habebis Participes operæ Camœnas.

Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere Novit, fatigatamque nugis Utilibus recreare mentem.

1 Johnson never could have said seriously that he looked at St. John's Gate as the printing-office of Cave, with reverence. The Gentleman's Magazine had been, at this time, but six years before the public, and its contents were, even when Johnsen himself had contributed to improve it, not much entitled to reverence: Johnson's reverence would have been more justly excited by the recollections connected with the ancient Gastelf, the last relic of the once extensive and magnificent Priory of the heroic knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, suppressed at the Dissolution, and destroyed by sucessive dilapidations? Its last prior, Sir William Weston, though compensated with the annual pension (enormous in those days) of 10007., died of a broken heart, on Ascensionday, 1540, the very day the house was suppressed. - CROKER, 1931. I learn with pleasure that this relique of antiquity, whhis much dilapidated, is about to be carefully restored. -CROKER, 1846.

While, in the course of my narrative, I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to warer in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with

regard to their authenticity, and for that purpose shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (†) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him I shall give my reasons. - BOSWELL.

3 Taste and sensibility were very certainly not the distinguishing qualities of Cave; but was this ode, indeed, "a happy style of compliment?" Are "fronte sertum in erudila" Linguæ plumbea spicula” — Victrix per obstantes catervas"- Lycoris and Iris-the rose-the violet-and the rainbow-in any way appropriate to the printer of St. John's Gate, his magazine, or his antagonists? How Johnson would in later life have derided, in another, such misapplied pedantry Mr. Murphy surmises that "this ode may have been suggested to the mind of Johnson, who had meditated a history of the modern Latin poets (see antè, p. 22.), by Casimir's ode to Pope Urban,

Urbane regum maxime, maxime Urbane vatum.'" CROKER.