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JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709-1784)
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See also: His See also:family could do nothing for him. His debts to See also:Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731 he was under the See also:necessity of quitting the university without a degree. In the following See also:winter his See also:father died. The old See also:man See also:left but a See also:pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The See also:property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. His See also:life, during the See also:thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no See also:aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound See also:body and an unsound mind. Before the See also:young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel See also:form. He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said See also:long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less See also:strange than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside See also:wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified See also:people who did not know him. At a See also:dinner table he would, in a See also:fit of See also:absence, stoop down and twitch off a See also:lady's See also:shoe. He would amaze a See also:drawing-See also:room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the See also:Lord's See also:Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular See also:alley, and perform a See also:great See also:circuit rather than see the hateful See also:place. He would set his See also:heart on touching every See also:post in the streets through which he walked. If by any See also:chance he missed a post, he would go back a See also:hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the See also:influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his See also:imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the See also:town See also:clock without being able to tell the See also:hour. At another he would distinctly hear his See also:mother, who was many See also:miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep See also:melancholy took See also:possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human See also:des-tiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit See also:suicide. He was sick of life; but he was afraid of See also:death; and he shuddered at every sight or See also:sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In See also:religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own See also:character. The See also:light from See also:heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a See also:direct See also:line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing See also:medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and, though they might be sufficiently clear to See also:guide him, were too dim to cheer him.
With such infirmities of body and of mind, he was left, at twoand-twenty, to fight his way through the See also:world. He remained during about five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birthplace and his early See also:home, he had inherited some See also:friends and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by See also: In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin See also:book about See also:Abyssinia. He then put forth proposals for See also:publishing by subscription the poems of See also:Politian, with notes containing a See also:history of See also:modern Latin verse; but subscriptions did not come in, and the See also:volume never appeared.
While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson See also:fell in love. The See also:object of his See also:passion was Mrs See also: He took a house at Edial near Lichfield and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passedaway,and only three pupils came to his See also:academy. The " faces " that Johnson habitually made (probably See also:nervous contortions due to his disorder) may well have alarmed parents. Good scholar though he was, these twitchings had lost him usher-See also:ships in 1735 and 1736. See also:David See also:Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best See also:company of See also:London into See also:convulsions of laughter by mimicking the See also:master and his lady. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his See also:age, determined to seek his See also:fortune in London as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of his tragedy of See also:Irene in See also:manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. Never since literature became a calling in See also:England had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his See also:residence in London. In the preceding See also:generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the See also:Government. The least that he could expect was a See also:pension or a See also:sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might See also:hope to be a member of See also:parliament, a lord of the See also:treasury, an See also:ambassador, a secretary of See also:state. But literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not yet begun to flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his See also:pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose See also:works were popular—such an author as See also:Thomson, whose Seasons was in every library, such an author as See also:Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a greater run than any See also:drama since The See also:Beggar's See also:Opera—was sometime s glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy See also:meal, on the back of a See also:Newfoundland See also:dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to See also:earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a scornful See also:eye that athletic though uncouth See also:frame, and exclaimed, " You had better get a porter's See also:knot and carry trunks." Nor was the See also:advice See also:bad, for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connexion from which he could expect more than See also:bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this time of trial. " Harry Hervey," said Johnson many years later, " was a vicious man; but he was very See also:kind to me. If you See also:call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in See also:general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny-See also:worth of See also:meat and a pennyworth of bread at an alehouse near See also:Drury See also:Lane. The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his See also:temper and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost See also:savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a See also:habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of See also:food affected him as it affects See also:wild beasts and birds of See also:prey. His See also:taste in See also:cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and d la mode See also:beef shops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a See also:hare that had been kept too long, or a meat See also:pie made with rancid See also:butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his See also:veins swelled and the moisture See also:broke out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and See also:low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him See also:rude even to ferocity. Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into See also:societies where he was treated with See also:courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him. All the sufferers, however, were See also:wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except See also:Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the huge See also:fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London he was fortunate enough to obtain See also:regular employment from See also:Edward See also:Cave (q. v.) on the Gentleman's See also:Magazine. That periodical, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only one in the See also:kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circulation. Johnson was engaged to write the speeches in the " Reports of the Debates of the See also:Senate of Lilliput " (see See also:REPORTING), under which thin disguise the proceedings of parliament were published. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre indeed and inaccurate, of what had been said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the See also:ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory, not from rational conviction—for his serious See also:opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another—but from See also:mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the See also:Roman See also:circus against the Greens. In his See also:infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the See also: He long had an aversion to the Scots, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose See also:judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine. But Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig See also:dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition. A few See also:weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labours, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his age. It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of the See also:satire in which See also:Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of See also:Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of See also:Horace's Satires and Epistles had recently appeared, were in every See also:hand, and were by many readers thought See also:superior to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. Johnson's London appeared without his name in May 1738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem; but the sale was rapid and the success See also:complete. A second edition was required within a See also:week. Those small critics who are always desirous to See also:lower established reputations ran about proclaiming that the See also:anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope's own See also:peculiar See also:department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, that he joined heartily in the See also:applause with which the See also:appearance of a See also:rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of London. Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed. The name was soon discovered; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet. The See also:attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack.
It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by See also:dukes and earls, the other by starving pamphleteers and See also:index-makers. Among Johnson's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in See also:bed with his arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very respectable sacred See also:poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a See also:hackney See also:coach when he was drunk; See also:Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his See also:measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the See also:board where he sat See also:cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, See also:George See also:Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and See also:Christian fathers, indulged himself at See also:night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the See also:City. But the most remark-able of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was See also:Richard Savage, an See also:earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice,
who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among See also:blue ribands in St James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds See also:weight of irons on his legs in the condemned See also: He now lived by begging. He dined on See also:venison and See also:champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to See also:borrow a See also:guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of See also:hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and See also:lay down to See also:rest under the piazza of Covent See also:Garden in warm See also:weather, and, in See also:cold weather, as near as he could get to the See also:furnace of a See also:glass house. Yet in his misery he was still an agreeable companion. He had an inexhaustible See also:store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both parties in See also:hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition without the See also:mask of patriotism, and had heard the See also:prime See also:minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over-decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the See also:west of England, lived there as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743 died, penniless and heartbroken, in See also:Bristol See also:Gaol. Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited about his extraordinary character and his not less extra-ordinary adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men which were then a See also:staple See also:article of manufacture in See also:Grub See also:Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin See also:element of our See also:language. But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary See also:biography existed in any language, living or dead; and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of English eloquence.
The Life of Savage was anonymous; but it was well known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During the three years which followed, he produced no important work; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The fame of his abilities and learning continued to grow. See also:Warburton pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a See also:Dictionary of the English Language, in two See also:folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task.
The See also:prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the earl of See also:Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknowledged to be the finest See also:speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently governed See also:Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, See also:wisdom and humanity; and he had since become secretary of state. He received See also: During some time Johnson continued to call on his See also:patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to See also:present himself at the inhospitable See also:door. Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his Dictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the sevenyears which he passed in the drudgery of penning See also:definitions and marking quotations for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more agreeable kind. In See also:January 1749 he published The Vanity of Human Wishes, an excellent See also:imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, for which he received fifteen guineas. A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy of Irene, begun many years before, was brought on the See also:stage by his old See also:pupil, David Garrick, now manager of Drury Lane See also:Theatre. The relation between him and his old See also:preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very different See also:clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's See also:head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the See also:villa, the See also:plate, the See also:china, the See also:Brussels See also:carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in See also:common, and sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody, else in the vast See also:population of the See also:capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the See also:monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by • death. Garrick now brought Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the See also:audience. After nine representations the See also:play was withdrawn. The poet however cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the See also:copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation.
About a year after the See also:representation of Irene, he began to publish a See also:series of short essays on morals, manners and literature. This See also:species of See also:composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the Taller, and by the still more brilliant success of the Spectator. A See also:crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival See also:Addison. The Lay Monastery, the See also:Censor, the Freethinker, the See also:Plain Dealer, the See also:Champion, and other works of the same kind had had their short day. At length Johnson undertook the See also:adventure in which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-See also:sixth year after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator appeared the first number of the Rambler. From See also: Young and See also:Hartley expressed their approbation not less warmly. In consequence probably of the good offices of Bubb Dodington, who was then the confidential adviser of See also:Prince See also:Frederick, two of his royal See also:highness's gentlemen carried a gracious See also:message to the See also:printing See also:office, and ordered seven copies for See also:Leicester House. But Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield. By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly received. Though the See also:price of a number was only twopence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were collected and re-printed they became popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. See also:Separate See also:editions were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused him of having corrupted the purity of the English See also:tongue. The best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did See also:justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, to the See also:constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to the See also:solemn yet pleasing See also:humour of some of the lighter papers. The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left her See also:husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a See also:silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his See also:affection had been concentrated on her. He had neither See also:brother nor See also:sister, neither son nor daughter. Her opinion of his writings was more important to him than the See also:voice of the See also:pit of Drury Lane Theatre, or the judgment of the Monthly See also:Review. The See also:chief support which had sustained him through the most arduous labour of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast See also:labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length complete. It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectus had been addressed. Lord Chesterfield well knew the value of such a compliment; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and judicious kindness, the See also:pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Since the Rambler had ceased to appear, the town had been entertained by a See also:journal called the World, to which many men of high See also:rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers of the World, the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings of Johnson were warmly praised. It was See also:pro-posed that he should be invested with the authority of a See also:dictator, See also:nay, of a pope, over our language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a See also:letter written with singular See also:energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardy advances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without a See also:dedication. In the See also:Preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, See also:Horne See also:Tooke, never could read that passage without tears. Johnson's Dictionary was hailed with an See also:enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines and philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always be very agree-ably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most See also:part, into one great See also:fault. John-son was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any See also:Teutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the See also:mercy of See also:Junius and See also:Skinner. The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added no-thing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheets issued from the See also:press. It is painful to relate that twice in the course of the year which followed the publication of this great work he was arrested and carried to sponging-houses, and that he was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary for the man who had been formerly saluted by the highest authorityas dictator of the English language to See also:supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edition of See also:Shakespeare by subscription, and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called the Literary Magazine. Few of these papers have much See also:interest; but among them was one of the best things that, he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of See also:Jenyns' Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. In the See also:spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled the Idler. During two years these essays continued to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and indeed impudently pirated, while they were still in the See also:original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be described as a second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part. While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he had seen her, but he had not failed to contribute largely out of his small means to her comfort. In See also:order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without See also:reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright, and the purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain, for the book was Rasselas, and it had a great success. The See also:plan of Rasselas might, however, have seemed to invite severe See also:criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakespeare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the 18th See also:century; for the See also:Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the 18th century, and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that See also:law of See also:gravitation which See also:Newton discovered and which was not fully received even at See also:Cambridge till the 18th century. Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened as himself or his friend See also:Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished as Mrs See also:Lennox or Mrs See also:Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic See also:system of England to See also:Egypt. Into a See also:land of harems, a land of See also:polygamy, a land where See also:women are married without ever being seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our See also:ball-rooms. In a land where there is See also:bound-less liberty of See also:divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. " A youth and See also:maiden See also:meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, See also:exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and See also:dream of each other. Such," says Rasselas, " is the common See also:process of marriage." A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who made See also:Hector quote See also:Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano as flourishing in the days of the See also:Oracle of See also:Delphi. By such exertions as have been described Johnson supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great See also:change in his circumstances took place. He had from a See also:child been an enemy of the reigning See also:dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been exhibited with little disguise both in his works and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate Dictionary he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted See also:bitter and contumelious reflexions on the Whig party. The excise, which was a favourite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding up the lord privy See also:seal by name as an example of the meaning of the word " renegade." A pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray his country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a See also:stipend to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would him-self be pensioned. But that was a time of wonders. George III. had ascended the See also:throne, and had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends, and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous; Oxford was becoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring; Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to See also:kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord See also:Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and with very little hesitation accepted. This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer See also:felt the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his constitutional indolence, to See also:lie in bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the See also:morning, without fearing either the printer's See also:devil or the See also:sheriff's officer. One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to perform. He had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakespeare; he had lived on those subscriptions during some years; and he could not without disgrace omit to perform his part of the See also:contract. His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort, and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, not-withstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, See also:month followed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idleness; he determined, as often as he received the See also:sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. Happily for his honour, the See also:charm which held him See also:captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to pay serious See also:attention to a See also:story about a See also:ghost which haunted a house in See also:Cock Lane, and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morning, to St John's Church, See also:Clerkenwell, in the hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making See also:fools of so many philosophers. See also:Churchill, who, confident in his See also:powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great moralist of See also:cheating. This terrible word proved effectual, and in See also:October 1765 appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition of Shakespeare. This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The Preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively he had during many years observed human life and human nature. The best specimen is the See also:note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of See also:Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic.' Johnson had, in his prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, be-cause he had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of his predecessors. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that very part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an editor of Shakespeare should be conversant. In the two folio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a single ' This famous dictum of See also:Macaulay, though endorsed by Lord See also:Rosebery, has been energetically rebutted by See also:Professor W. See also:Raleigh and others, who recognize both sagacity and scholarship in Johnson's ['reface and Notes. Johnson's wide grasp of the discourse and knowledge of human nature enable him in a hundred entangled passages to go straight to the dramatist's meaning.—(T. SE.)passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age except Shakespeare and See also:Ben See also:Jonson. Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might easily in a few months have made him-self well acquainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this was a necessary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. He would doubtless have admitted that it would be the height of absurdity in a man who was not See also:familiar with the works of See also:Aeschylus and See also:Euripides to publish an edition of See also:Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shakespeare, without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, read a single See also:scene of See also:Massinger, Ford, See also:Dekker, See also:Webster, See also:Marlow, See also:Beaumont or See also:Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. He had, however, acquitted himself of a See also:debt which had long lain heavy on his See also:conscience and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was honoured by the university of Oxford with a See also:doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a professor-ship, and by the See also: The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, See also:quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an See also:infinite store of curious anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every See also:sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the most nicely balanced See also:period of the Rambler. But in his talk there were no pompous triads, and little more than a See also:fair proportion of words in -osity and -ation. All was simplicity, ease and vigour. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed sentences with a See also:power of voice, and a justness and energy of emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than diminished by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally ended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling to sit down to his See also:desk prevent him from giving instruction or entertainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learning, of See also:casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to See also:fold his legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject: on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who sat at the same table with him in an eating-house. But his conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge enabled them, as h , gnce expressed it, to send him back every ball that he threw. ome of these, in 1764, formed themselves into a See also:club, which gradually became a formidable power in the common-See also:wealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this See also:conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunkmaker and the pastrycook. See also:Gold-See also: Indeed, the great man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion, in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every See also:quarrel, how-ever, was soon made up. During twenty years the See also:disciple continued to See also:worship the master; the master continued to See also:scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each other. Boswell practised in the Parliament House of See also:Edinburgh, and could pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits his chief business was to See also:watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say something remarkable, and to fill See also:quarto notebooks with minutes of what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered the materials out of which was afterwards constructed the most interesting See also:biographical work in the world. Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connexion less important indeed to his fame, but much more important to his happiness, than his connexion with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those See also:clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated preferred their house to any other in London. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in See also:Southwark, and a still more pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on See also:Streatham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the See also:dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian See also:tale called " the endearing elegance of See also:female friendship." Mrs Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most See also:tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could See also:purchase, no contrivance that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise, was wanting to his sick room. It would seem that a full half of Johnson's life during about sixteen years was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to See also:Bath, and sometimes to See also:Brighton, once to See also:Wales and once to See also:Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts on the See also:north of See also:Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and See also:miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On a lower See also:floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner—a veal pie, or a See also:leg of See also:lamb and See also:spinach, and a See also:rice See also:pudding. Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. • At the head of the See also:establishment Johnson had placed an old lady named See also:Williams, whose chief recommendations were her See also:blindness and her poverty. But,in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an See also:asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs See also:Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter of Mrs Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as See also:Miss See also:Carmichael, but whOm her generous See also:host called Polly. An old See also:quack doctor named Levett, who had a wide practice, but among the very poorest class, poured out Johnson's See also:tea in the morning and completed this strange See also:menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant See also:war with each other, and with Johnson's See also:negro servant See also:Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his See also:escape to Streatham or to the See also:Mitre See also:Tavern. And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which looked like a slight on the part of a See also:purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne and bidden See also:defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs Williams and Mrs Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him. The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early_read an See also:account of the See also:Hebrides, and had been much interested by learning that there was so near him a land peopled by a See also:race which was still as rude and See also:simple as in the See also:Middle Ages. A wish to become intimately acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen frequently crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would have over-come his habitual sluggishness, and his love of the See also:smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in See also:August 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous See also:wilderness. After wandering about two months through the See also:Celtic region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the See also:rain, and sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly See also:bear his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new theories. During the following year he employed himself in recording his adventures. About the beginning of 1775 his See also:Journey to the Hebrides was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. His See also:prejudice against the Scots had at length become little more than See also:matter of jest; and whatever remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of See also:Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian polity and See also:ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of See also:Berwickshire and See also:East See also:Lothian. But even in censure Johnson's See also:tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotsmen, with Lord See also:Mansfield at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scots-men were moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they See also:chose to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more dishonourable to their country than anything that he had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the See also:newspapers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny See also:pamphlets, five-See also:shilling books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed, another for being a pensioner; a third informed the world that one of the doctor's uncles had been convicted of See also:felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country one See also:tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishman. See also:Macpherson, whose Fingal had been treated in the Journey as an impudent See also:forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a See also:cane. The only effect of this See also:threat was that Johnson reiterated the See also:charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel. Of other assailants Johnson took no See also:notice whatever. He had early resolved never to be See also:drawn into controversy; and he adhered to his See also:resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stuff of which controversialists are made. In conversation he was a singularly eager, acute and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he had recourse to sophistry; and when heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of See also:sarcasm and invective. But when he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrepresented him and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even of a See also:retort. One Scotsman, See also:bent on vindicating the fame of Scots learning, defied him to the combat in a detest-able Latin See also:hexameter: " Maxime, si to vis, cupio contendere tecum." But Johnson took no notice of the See also:challenge. He always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine See also:apophthegm of See also:Bentley, that no man was ever written down but by himself. Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the Journey to the Hebrides, Johnson did what none of his envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent succeeded in See also:writing himself down. The disputes between England and her See also:American colonies had reached a point at which no amicable See also:adjustment was possible. War was evidently impending; and the ministers seem to have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with See also:advantage be employed to inflame the nation against the opposition at home, and against the rebels beyond the See also:Atlantic. He had already written two or three tracts in See also:defence of the See also:foreign and domestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though hardly worthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the counters of See also:Almon and Stockdale. But his See also:Taxation no Tyranny was a pitiable failure. Even Boswell was forced to own that in this unfortunate piece he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The general opinion was that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the Rambler were beginning to feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man would best consult his See also:credit by writing no more. But this was a great See also:mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners; but political history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between the colonies and the mother country was a question about which he had really nothing to say. Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. On See also:Easter See also:Eve 1777 some persons, deputed by a meeting which consisted of See also:forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing business at that See also:season, he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English poets, from See also:Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook the task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. His knowledge of the literary history of England since the Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from See also:sources which had long been closed: from old Grub Street traditions; from the talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers, who had long been lying in See also:parish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of See also:Button, See also:Cibber, who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists, See also:Orrery, who had been admitted tt the society of See also:Swift and Savage, whohad rendered services of no very honourable kind to Pope. The biographer therefore sat down to his task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only a See also:paragraph to every See also:minor poet, and only four or five pages to the greatest name. But the See also:flood of See also:anecdote and criticism overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into'ten volumes—small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. The Lives of the Poets are, on the whole, the best of Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and, even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be studied. Savage's Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had appeared in '744. Whoever, after reading that life, will turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circumstances he had wr'.tten little and had talked much. When therefore he, after the See also:lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly, and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had formerly wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a skilful critic in the Journey to the Hebrides, and in the Lives of the Poets is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of the most careless reader. Among the Lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley, See also:Dryden and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, that of See also: See also:Malone computed the gains of the publishers at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. The booksellers, when they saw how far his performance had surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. Indeed Johnson, though he did not despise or affect to despise money, and though his strong sense and long experience ought to have qualified him to protect his own interests, seems to have been singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains. He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time. Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, See also:Robertson received 4500 for the History of Charles V. Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the See also:shadow of death. The strange dependants to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he regretted even the See also:noise of their scolding matches. The kind and generous Thrale was no more; and it was soon plain that the old Streatham intimacy could not be maintained upon the same footing. Mrs Thrale herself confessed that without her husband's assistance she did not feel able to entertain Johnson as a constant inmate of her house. See also:Free from the yoke of the See also:brewer, she fell in love with a See also:music master, high in his profession, from See also:Brescia, named See also:Gabriel See also:Piozzi, in whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. The See also:secret of this See also:attachment was soon discovered by Fanny See also:Burney, but Johnson at most only suspected it. In See also:September 1782 the place at Streatham was from motives of See also:economy let to Lord Shelburne, and Mrs Thrale took a house at Brighton, whither Johnson accompanied her; they remained for six weeks on the old familiar footing. In March 1783 Boswell was glad to discover Johnson well looked after and staying with Mrs Thrale in See also:Argyll Street, but in a bad state of See also:health. Impatience of Johnson's criticisms and infirmities had been steadily growing with Mrs Thrale since 1774. She now went to Bath with her daughters, partly to escape his supervision. Johnson was very See also:ill in his lodgings during the summer, but he still corresponded affectionately with his " See also:mistress " and received many favours from her. He retained the full use of his senses during the paralytic attack, and in July he was sufficiently recovered to renew his old club life and to meditate further journeys. In See also:June 1784 he went with Boswell to Oxford for the last time. In September he was in Lichfield. On his return his health was rather worse; but he would submit to no See also:dietary regime. His See also:asthma tormented him day and night, and dropsical symptoms made their appearance. His wrath was excited in no measured terms against the re-marriage of his old friend Mrs Thrale, the See also:news of which he heard this summer. The whole dispute seems, to-day, entirely uncalled-for, but the marriage aroused some of Johnson's strongest prejudices. He wrote inconsiderately on the subject, but we must remember that he was at the time afflicted in body and mentally haunted by dread of impending change. Throughout all his troubles he had clung vehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily in a See also:southern See also:climate, and would probably have set out for Rome and See also:Naples but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laid up about two See also:thou-See also:sand pounds, the See also:fruit of labours which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of his friends hoped that the Government might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year, but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand one English winter more. That winter was his last. His legs See also:grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against See also:pain but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, and though Boswell was absent, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. See also:Windham sat much in the sick-room. Frances Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came See also:close, the dark See also:cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. Windham's servant, who sat up with him during his last night, declared that " no man could appear more collected, more devout or less terrified at the thoughts of the approaching See also:minute." At hour intervals, often of much pain, he was moved in bed and addressed himself vehemently to prayer. In the morning he was still able to give his blessing, but in the afternoon he became drowsy, and at a See also:quarter past seven in the evening on the 13th of See also:December 1784, in his seventy-sixth year, he passed away. He was laid, a week later, in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian—Cowley and See also:Denham, Dryden and See also:Congreve, Gay, See also:Prior and Addison. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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