it necessary; choosing rather to die upon the road, than be starved to death in translating for booksellers; which has been his only subsistence for some time past.

"I fear there is more difficulty in this affair than those good-natured gentlemen apprehend; especially as their election cannot be delayed longer than the eleventh of next month. If you see this matter in the same light that it appears to me, I hope you will burn this, and pardon me for giving you so much trouble about an impracticable thing; but, if you think there is a probability of obtaining the favour asked, I am sure your humanity, and propensity to relieve merit in distress, will incline you to serve the poor man, without my adding any more to the trouble I have already given you, than assuring you that I am, with great truth, Sir, your faithful servant, GOWER."

It was, perhaps, no small disappointment to Johnson that this respectable application had not the desired effect; yet how much reason has there been, both for himself and his country, to rejoice that it did not succeed, as he might probably have wasted in obscurity those hours in which he afterwards produced his incomparable works.

About this time he made one other effort to emancipate himself from the drudgery of authorship. He applied to Dr. Adams, to consult Dr. Smalbroke of the Commons, whether a person might be permitted to practise as an advocate there, without a doctor's degree in civil law. "I am," said he, "a total stranger to these studies; but whatever is a profession, and maintains numbers, must be within the reach of common abilities, and some degree of industry." Dr. Adams was much pleased with Johnson's design to employ his talents in that manner, being confident he would have attained to great eminence. And, indeed, I cannot conceive a man better qualified to make a distinguished figure as a lawyer; for he would have brought to his profession a rich store of various knowledge, an uncommon acuteness, and a command of language, in which few could have equalled, and none have surpassed him. He who could display eloquence and wit in defence of the decision of the House of Commons upon Mr. Wilkes's election for Middlesex, and of the unconstitutional taxation of our fellow-subjects in America, must have been a powerful advocate in any cause. But here, also, the want of a degree was an insurmountable bar.

He was, therefore, under the necessity of

1 Richard Smalbroke, LL.D., second son of Bishop Smalbroke, whose family were long connected with Lichfield, died the senior member of the College of Advocates. — CROKER.

2 In the Weekly Miscellany, Oct. 21. 1738, there appeared the following advertisement:

"Just published, Proposals for printing the History of the Council of Trent, translated from the Italian of Father Paul Sarpi; with the Author's Life, and Notes theological, historical, and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which are added, Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations from various Authors, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 1. The work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes in quarto,

persevering in that course, into which he had been forced; and we find that his proposal from Greenwich to Mr. Cave, for a translation of Father Paul Sarpi's History, was accepted.

Some sheets of this translation were printed off, but the design was dropped; for it happened oddly enough, that another person of the name of Samuel Johnson, librarian of St. Martin's in the Fields, and curate of that parish, engaged in the same undertaking, and was patronised by the clergy, particularly by Dr. Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. Several light skirmishes passed between the rival translators, in the newspapers of the day; and the consequence was that they destroyed each other, for neither of them went on with the work. It is much to be regretted, that the able performance of that celebrated genius Fra Paolo, lost the advantage of being incorporated into British literature by the masterly hand of Johnson.

I have in my possession, by the favour of Mr. John Nichols, a paper in Johnson's handwriting, entitled "Account between Mr. Edward Cave and Samuel Johnson, in relation to a version of Father Paul, &c., begun August the 2d, 1738;" by which it appears, that from that day to the 21st of April, 1739, Johnson received for this work 491.78. in sums of one, two, three, and sometimes four guineas at a time, most frequently two. And it is curious to observe the minute and scrupulous accuracy with which Johnson had pasted upon it a slip of paper, which he has entitled "Small account," and which contains one article, "Sept. 9th, Mr. Cave laid down 2s. 6d." There is subjoined to this account, a list of some subscribers to the work, partly in Johnson's handwriting, partly in that of another person; and there follows a leaf or two on which are written a number of characters which have the appearance of a short-hand, which, perhaps, Johnson was then trying to learn.

printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18s. each volume, to be paid, half a guinea at the delivery of the first volume, and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It may be had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three guineas; one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the delivery of the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. The work is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Subscriptions are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall Mall, Mr. Rivington in St. Paul's Church Yard, by E. Cave at St. John's gate, and the Translator, at No. 6. in Castle Street, by Cavendish Square."— Boswell.

pears to be, less need of alteration. The verses to Lady Firebrace may be had when you please, for you know that such a subject neither deserves much thought nor requires it.

"The Chinese Stories' may be had folded down when you please to send, in which I do not recollect that you desired any alterations to be made.

"An answer to another query I am very willing to write, and had consulted with you about it last night; if there had been time; for I think it the most proper way of inviting such a correspondence as may be an advantage to the paper, not a load upon it.

"As to the Prize Verses, a backwardness to determine their degrees of merit is not peculiar to me. You may, if you please, still have what I can say; but I shall engage with little spirit in an affair, which I shall hardly end to my own satisfaction, and certainly not to the satisfaction of the parties concerned. 3

“As to Father Paul, I have not yet been just to my proposal, but have met with impediments, which, I hope, are now at an end; and if you find the progress hereafter not such as you have a right to expect, you can easily stimulate a negligent

translator.

"If any or all of these have contributed to your discontent, I will endeavour to remove it; and desire you to propose the question to which you wish for an answer. I am, Sir, your humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

[Sept. 1738.]

SIR, I am pretty much of your opinion, that the Commentary cannot be prosecuted with any appearance of success; for as the names of the authors concerned are of more weight in the performance than its own intrinsic merit, the public will be soon satisfied with it. And I think the Examen should be pushed forward with the utmost expedition. Thus, This day, &c. an Examen of Mr. Pope's Essay, &c.; containing a succinct Account of the Philosophy of Mr. Leibnitz on the System of the Fatalists, with a Confutation of their Opinions, and an Illustration of the Doctrine of Free Will' (with what else you think proper).

"It will, above all, be necessary to take notice, that it is a thing distinct from the Commentary. "I was so far from imagining they stood still,

1 They appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine of Sept. 1738, with this title: "Verses to Lady F, at Bury Assizes."- BOSWELL.

It seems quite unintelligible how these six silly lines should be the production of Johnson; the last of them is"Thou seem'st at once, bright Nymph, a Muse and Grace!"

This "Nymph, Muse, and Grace" was a widow Evers, who, In the preceding November, had, at the age of 38, re-married Sir Cordell Firebrace. She subsequently married Mr. Campbell, uncle to the Duke of Argyle, and died in 1782. The Peerage, into which her alliance with Mr. Campbell has Introduced her, quotes Dr. Johnson as evidence of her beauty. Johnson, I suppose, never saw her; the lines (if bis at all) were made, we see, to order, and probably paid for. CROKER,

Du Halde's Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave, in weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the embellishment of the Magazine. — NICHOLS.

that I conceived them to have a good deal beforehand, and therefore was less anxious in providing them more. But if ever they stand still on my account, it must, doubtless, be charged to me; and whatever else shall be reasonable, I shall not oppose; but beg a suspense of judgment till morning, when I must entreat you to send me a dozen proposals, and you shall then have copy to spare. I am, Sir, yours, impransus, SAM. JOHNSON." Pray muster up the proposals if you can, or let the boy recall them from the booksellers."

But although he corresponded with Mr. Cave concerning a translation of Crousaz's Examen of Pope's "Essay on Man," and gave advice as one anxious for its success, I was long ago convinced by a perusal of the Preface, that this translation was erroneously ascribed to him; and I have found this point ascertained, beyond all doubt, by the following article in Dr. Birch's manuscripts in the British Museum:

"Elisa Carteræ, S. P. D. Thomas Birch. Versionem tuam Examinis Crousaziani jam perlegi. Summam styli et elegantiam, et in re difficillima proprietatem, admiratus. Dabam Novemb. 27°. 1738,"6

Indeed, Mrs. Carter has lately acknowledged to Mr. Seward, that she was the translator of the "Examen."

It is remarkable, that Johnson's last quoted letter to Mr. Cave concludes with a fair confession that he had not a dinner; and it is no less remarkable that, though in this state of want himself, his benevolent heart was not insensible to the necessities of an humble labourer in literature, as appears from the very next letter:

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

[No date.] "DEAR SIR, -You may remember I have formerly talked with you about a military Dictionary. The eldest Mr. Macbean', who was with Mr. Chambers, has very good materials for such a work, which I have seen, and will do it at a very low rate. I think the terms of war and navigation might be comprised, with good explanations, in one 8vo. pica, which he is willing to do for twelve shillings a sheet, to be made up a guinea at the

3 The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the Divine Attributes is here alluded to. NICHOLS. 4 The compositors in the printing-office, who waited for copy. NICHOLS.

As Johnson seems to ask for these proposals, as affording him a pecuniary resource, they must have been the proposals for the large paper of the translation of Father Paul, for which, as we have just seen, one guinea was payable at the time of subscribing.

CROKER.

6 Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323.- BosWELL. There is no doubt that Miss Carter was the translator of the Examen, but Johnson seems to have been busy with another work of the same author on the same subject—" a distinct thing," as he calls it-viz. Crousaz's Commentary on the Abbé Resnel's translation of the Essay on Man; an anonymous translation of which was published in 1741, and quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743.- CROKER. 7 See post, April 1781, and 26. June, 1738.-C. 8 This book was published.-BOSWELL.

make so much noise as was expected, and, therefore, had not a very extensive circulation. Sir John Hawkins relates, that "warrants were issued, and messengers employed to apprehend the author; who, though he had forborne to subscribe his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of those in pursuit of him had discovered:" and we are informed, that he lay concealed in Lambeth-marsh till the scent after him grew cold. This, however, is altogether without foundation; for Mr. Steele, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, who, amidst a variety of important business, politely obliged me with his attention to my enquiry, informed me, that "he directed every possible search to be made in the records of the Treasury and Secretary of State's Office, but could find no trace whatever of any warrant having been issued to apprehend the author of this pamphlet."

"Marmor Norfolciense" became exceedingly scarce, so that I, for many years, endeavoured in vain to procure a copy of it. At last I was indebted to the malice of one of Johnson's numerous petty adversaries, who, in 1775, published a new edition of it, "with Notes and a Dedication to Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by Tribunus;" in which some puny scribbler invidiously attempted to found upon it a charge of inconsistency against its author, because he had accepted of a pension from his present Majesty, and had written in support of the measures of government. As a mortification to such impotent malice, of which there are so many instances towards men of eminence, I am happy to relate, that this telum imbelle did not reach its exalted object, till about a year after it thus appeared, when I mentioned it to him, supposing that he knew of the republication. To my surprise, he had not yet heard of it. He requested me to go directly and get it for him, which I did. He looked at it and laughed, and seemed to be much diverted with the feeble efforts of his unknown adversary, who, I hope, is alive to read this account.

1 The inscription and the translation of it are preserved in the London Magazine for the year 1739, p. 244. — BOSWELL. * Of these two satirical pamphlets, Hawkins observes that "they display neither learning nor wit, nor, indeed, any ray of their author's genius; and were prompted by the principle which Johnson frequently declared to be the only true genuine motive to writing, namely, pecuniary profit. He was never greedy of money, but without money could not be stimulated to write. Yet was he not so indifferent to the subjects that he was requested to write on, as at any time to abandon either his religious or political principles. He would no more have put his name to an Arian or Socinian tract than to a defence of Atheism. At the time when Faction Detected came Gut, a pamphlet of which the late Lord Egmont is now generally understood to have been the author, Osborne, the bookseller, held out to him a strong temptation to answer it, which he refused, being convinced, as he assured me, that the charge contained in it was made good, and that the argument grounded thereon was unanswerable. The truth is, that Johnson's political prejudices were a mist that the eye of his judgment could not penetrate: in all the measures of Walpole's government, he could see nothing right; nor could he be convinced, in his invectives against a standing army, as the Jacobites affected to call it, that the peasantry of a country was not an adequate defence against an invasion of it by an armed force. He almost asserted in terms, that the succession to the crown had been illegally interrupted, and that from whig poties none of the benefits of government could be expected. From hence it appears, and to his honour be it said, his

“Now," said he, "here is somebody who thinks he has vexed me sadly; yet, if it had not been for you, you rogue, I should probably never have seen it." 2

As Mr. Pope's note concerning Johnson, alluded to in a former page, refers both to his "London," and his "Marmor Norfolciense," I have deferred inserting it till now. I am indebted for it to Dr. Percy, the bishop of Dromore, who permitted me to copy it from the original in his possession. It was presented to his lordship by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom it was given by the son of Mr. Richardson the painter, the person to whom it is addressed. I have transcribed it with minute exactness, that the peculiar mode of writing, and imperfect spelling of that celebrated poet, may be exhibited to the curious in literature. It justifies Swift's epithet of "paper-sparing Pope,' it is written on a slip no larger than a common message-card, and was sent to Mr. Richardson, along with the imitation of Juvenal.

"3 for

"This is imitated by one Johnson who put in for a Public-school in Shropshire, but was disappointed. He has an infirmity of the convulsive kind, that attacks him sometimes, so as to make This Work which was all the knowledge he had of Him a sad Spectacle. Mr. P. from the merit of

Him endeavour'd to serve Him without his own

application; & wrote to my L. gore, but he did not succeed. Mr. Johnson published afterwds another Poem in Latin with Notes the whole very Humerous call'd the Norfolk Prophecy.

P."

The original MS. of Pope's Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.NICHOLS.

4 It is clear that, as Johnson advanced in life, these convulsive infirmities, part no doubt of his hereditary disease, though never entirely absent, were so far subdued, that he could not be called a sad spectacle. We have seen that he was rejected from two schools on account of these distortions, which in his latter years were certainly not violent enough to excite disgust. CROKER.

5 This is hardly consistent with the story (antè, p. 13. n. 7.) of Pope's high approbation of Johnson's translation of his Messiah. - CROKER.

to be of the convulsive kind, and of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance; and in this opinion I am confirmed by the description which Sydenham gives of that disease. "This disorder is a kind of convulsion. It manifests itself by halting or unsteadiness of one of the legs, which the patient draws after him like an idiot. If the hand of the same side be applied to the breast, or any other part of the body, he cannot keep it a moment in the same posture, but it will be drawn into a different one by a convulsion, notwithstanding all his efforts to the contrary." Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, was of a different opinion, and favoured me with the following Paper.

"Those motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson are improperly called convulsions. He could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, as well as any other man. My opinion is, that it proceeded from a habit which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions; and those actions always appeared to me as if they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged in conversation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind; and, for this reason, any company, any employment whatever, he preferred to being alone. The great business of his life (he said) was to escape from himself. This disposition he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company.

"One instance of his absence and particularity, as it is characteristic of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a journey together into the West, we visited the late Mr. Bankes, of Dorsetshire; the conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right still The old gentleman, observing him, went up to him, and in a very courteous manner assured him, though it was not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The Doctor started

further on.

1 Sir Joshua Reynolds's notion on this subject is confirmed by what Johnson himself said to a young lady, the niece of his friend Christopher Smart. See a note by Mr. Boswell on some particulars communicated by Reynolds, under March 30. 1783.-MALONE.

2 Of Kingston Hall, near Corfe Castle. -- Croker.

3 See post, under April 22. 1764, and March 27. 1774, and in Miss Reynolds's Recollections, in the Appendix, notices of some strange antics which he used to perform on various occasions. CROKER.

4 Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. Johnson was, to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man; and his offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken, principle of duty. Being obliged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a physician, and to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of Colonel, both in the French and Spanish service. He was a son of the ancient and respectable family of Cameron of Lochiel; and his brother, who was the chief of that brave clan, distinguished himself by moderation and humanity, while the Highland army marched victorious through Scotland. It is remarkable of this chief, that though he had earnestly remonstrated against the attempt as hopeless, he was of too heroic a spirit not too venture his life and fortune in the cause, when personally asked by him whom he thought his prince. Boswell.

Sir Walter Scott states, in his Introduction to Redgauntlet (Waverley Novels, vol. xxxv. p. viii. &c.), that the govern

from his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a word."3

While we are on this subject, my readers may not be displeased with another anecdote, communicated to me by the same friend, from the relation of Mr. Hogarth.

Johnson used to be a pretty frequent visitor at the house of Mr. Richardson, author of Clarissa, and other novels of extensive reputation. Mr. Hogarth came one day to see Richardson, soon after the execution of Dr. Cameron for having taken arms for the house of Stuart in 1745-6; and being a warm partisan of George the Second, he observed to Richardson, that certainly there must have been some very unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particular case, which had induced the King to approve of an execution for rebellion so long after the time when it was committed, as this had the appearance of putting a man to death in cold blood*, and was very unlike his Majesty's usual clemency. While he was talking, he perceived a person standing at a window in the room, shaking his head, and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner. He concluded that he was an idiot, whom his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very good man. To his great surprise, however, this figure stalked forwards to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument, and burst out into an invective against George the Second, as one who, upon all occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous; mentioning many instances; particularly, that when an officer of high rank had been acquitted by a court martial, George the Second had, with his own hand, struck his name off the list.5 In short, he displayed such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that this idiot had been at the moment inspired. Neither Hogarth nor Johnson were made known to each other at this interview.G

ment of George II. were in possession of sufficient evidence that Dr. Cameron had returned to the Highlands, not, as he alleged on his trial, for family affairs merely, but as the secret agent of the Pretender in a new scheme of rebellion: the ministers, however, preferred trying this indefatigable partisan on the ground of his undeniable share in the insurrection of 1745, rather than rescuing themselves and their master from the charge of harshness, at the expense of making it universally known, that a fresh rebellion had been in agitation so late as 1752.-LOCKHART.

No

5 Dr. Cameron was executed on the 7th of June, 1753. instance can be traced in the War or Admiralty Offices, of any officer of high rank being struck out of the list about that period, after acquittal by a court martial. It may be surmised that Mr. Hogarth's statement, or Sir Joshua's report of it, was not quite accurate in details, and that Johnson might have alluded to the case of his friend General Oglethorpe, who, after acquittal by a court-martial, was (to use a vulgar but expressive phrase) put upon the shelf. — See antè, p. 35. n. 6. CROKER.

6 Mrs. Piozzi says, "Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me, was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, and, if possible, the friendship, of Dr. Johnson, whose conversation was (he said) to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared to Hudson's. Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and Hogarth were talking together about him one day, "That man,' said the latter, is not contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible.