_Johnson's World_
On the title-page of _The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, by JAMES
BOSWELL, Esq., the work to which this little book is a stepping-stone,
Boswell claims that the story of Dr Johnson's life exhibits "a view of
literature and literary men in Great-Britain, for near half a century,
during which he flourished."
It is no idle claim. Indeed, Boswell might have gone a great deal
further, for his story is not merely concerned with books and bookish
men, but with men and women in every rank of society.
Kings and cottagers, statesmen and shopkeepers, bishops and
play-actors, rich brewers and penniless poets, dukes and innkeepers,
country parsons and gay young men of the town, street beggars and
fashionable ladies--all play their part in the story and shew us a
picture of the English world in the eighteenth century such as no
history-book can give.
Dr Johnson lived in four reigns--from 1709 to 1784. He could remember
seeing Queen Anne and had an audience of George III; a Jacobite as a
boy and a Tory always, he saw the '15 and the '45; he groaned under the
Whig domination of Walpole and rejoiced in the Tory triumph of the king
who gloried in the name of Briton; he saw the victories of our armies
in India and Canada and their failure in America; he saw the damage
done in the Gordon Riots and chatted to a South Sea islander brought
home by Captain Cook; he dined with John Wilkes and was a guest in the
house of Flora Macdonald.
In a tavern, a club, a drawing-room, or a post-chaise he would argue,
and have the best of the argument, on the institution of slavery or the
choice of books for babies; on the government of India or the poetry of
Gray; on the doctrine of free will or the points of a bull-dog; on the
management of a university press or the writing of a good cookery book.
In 1737 he came to London with twopence-halfpenny and a half-written
tragedy in his pocket and for nearly twenty years did the work of an
unknown literary drudge; for the last thirty years of his life he was
the dominant figure in the educated society of London, laying down the
law on politics to Edmund Burke, on literature to Oliver Goldsmith, on
painting to Sir Joshua Reynolds, on history to Edward Gibbon, on acting
to David Garrick, and on everything to James Boswell.
Let us see what Boswell has to tell us.
_School Days_
Johnson was not born into the world at which we have just glanced.
Indeed, had his character been less remarkable, he might have lived
and died a schoolmaster, or a bookseller, in a country town. For his
father, Michael Johnson, kept a bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire,
and here his son Samuel was born in 1709.
Of old Mr Johnson Boswell says that "he was a pretty good Latin
scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the
magistrates of Lichfield.... He was a zealous high-church man and
royalist and retained his attachment to the unfortunate house of
Stuart."
Now, according to a modern poet:
Every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
In those days men talked of Whig and Tory as we talk of Liberal and
Conservative, and if ever a man was born a Tory, that man was Samuel
Johnson.
To be a Tory in 1710 meant, generally speaking, to disapprove of the
Revolution of 1688, when James II was driven from his throne and
William III summoned to rule in his place; and great excitement had
been caused in the country by a sermon preached at St Paul's against
the principles of the Revolution by a certain Dr Sacheverell.
A visit of this preacher to Lichfield gave young Samuel Johnson the
opportunity to shew himself what Boswell calls "the infant Hercules of
Toryism." Here is the story told by a Lichfield lady:
"When Dr Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite three years
old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon
his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much celebrated
preacher. Mr Hammond asked Mr Johnson how he could possibly think of
bringing such an infant to church and in the midst of so great a croud.
He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young
as he was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for
Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied with
beholding him."
Nowadays it is difficult for us to imagine a three-year-old baby
insisting on hearing a sermon, say, by the Dean of St Paul's or even
a speech by the Prime Minister. But Johnson, as we shall see, was no
ordinary child; and to the end of his life he was no ordinary hater of
the Whigs.
Living, as he did, in the atmosphere of a bookshop, it was natural
that the boy should be more inclined than others towards learning. His
memory was wonderful:
"When he was a child in petticoats and had learnt to read, Mrs Johnson
one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to
the collect for the day, and said 'Sam, you must get this by heart.'
She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she
had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's
the matter?' said she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it
distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice."
[Illustration: JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE AT LICHFIELD
The birthplace, having been presented to the city of Lichfield by
the late Lieut.-Col. John Gilbert, was opened to the public as a
Johnson Museum and Library in 1901. In it are preserved various books,
manuscripts, portraits and other relics. A full account of Johnson's
association with Lichfield is given in _Dr Samuel Johnson and His
Birthplace: A Retrospect and Guide. Compiled by the Johnson House
Committee_ (Lichfield, 1915).]
He was first taught to read English by one Dame Oliver and "from his
earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem
to the end; ... he read Shakspeare at a period so early, that the
speech of the Ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone." At the
age of 10 he began to learn Latin with an under master at Lichfield
School, of which the headmaster, Mr Hunter, must have put terror into
the hearts of his pupils.
"He used" so Johnson afterwards told Boswell "to beat us unmercifully;
and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence; for he
would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as for neglecting to
know it. He would ask a boy a question; and if he did not answer it,
he would beat him, without considering whether he had an opportunity
of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he would call up a boy and
ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not expect to be
asked. Now, Sir, if a boy could answer every question, there would be
no need of a master to teach him."
"However ..." says Boswell "Johnson was very sensible how much he owed
to Mr Hunter. Mr Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so
accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded
by no man of his time; he said 'My master whipt me very well. Without
that, Sir, I should have done nothing.... A child is afraid of being
whipped and gets his task, and there's an end on't.'"
Boswell also gives us a picture of Johnson at school as drawn by a
schoolfellow--Mr Hector:
"He seemed to learn by intuition ... whenever he made an exertion he
did more than any one else.... He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his
memory was so tenacious, that he never forgot anything that he either
heard or read."
In the holidays Hector "could not oblige him more than by sauntering
away the hours of vacation in the fields, during which he was more
engaged in talking to himself than to his companion."
This sounds more like a gloomy young prig than a healthy 12-year-old
boy. But Johnson was far from healthy and his superior brains were
useful to others besides himself:
"His favourites used to receive very liberal assistance from him; and
such was the submission and deference with which he was treated, such
the desire to obtain his regard, that three of the boys, of whom Mr
Hector was sometimes one, used to come in the morning as his humble
attendants and carry him to school."
After a year at another school at Stourbridge, he returned home:
"The two years which he spent at home, after his return from
Stourbridge, he passed in what he thought idleness, and was scolded by
his father for his want of steady application. He had no settled plan
of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day.
Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of
study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him
through them. He used to mention one curious instance of his casual
reading, when but a boy. Having imagined that his brother had hid
some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's
shop, he climbed up to search for them. There were no apples; but the
large folio proved to be Petrarch, whom he had seen mentioned in some
preface, as one of the restorers of learning. His curiosity having been
thus excited, he sat down with avidity, and read a great part of the
book. What he read during these two years he told me, was not works of
mere amusement, 'not voyages and travels, but all literature, Sir, all
ancient writers, all manly.'"
Johnson's father at this time used to set up a bookstall on market-days
at neighbouring towns. One day he asked his son to go with him to
Uttoxeter. Samuel refused, being too proud to stand at the stall in the
market-place.
Again we feel inclined to think our hero rather a prig of a fellow--too
lazy to do regular work of his own, too proud to help his father. Why
couldn't he do a day's work and then spend his leisure in the open air,
fishing or playing games?
Here we must go back a little and look at the sadder side of Johnson's
boyhood. He was never healthy. From his father he inherited a "vile
melancholy" and he "had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the
scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally
well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much, that he did not see at
all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different
from that of the other."
At that time it was still believed that this disease could be cured by
a touch of the reigning king or queen. So Mrs Johnson "carried him to
London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne...." Being asked
if he could remember Queen Anne, "He had," he said, "a confused, but
somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long
black hood."
But it did Johnson no good. Neither then, nor in later life, was he
freed of the burden of ill-health and we can now better understand why
"he never joined with the other boys in their ordinary diversions: his
only amusement was in winter, when he took a pleasure in being drawn
upon the ice by a boy barefooted, who pulled him along by a garter
fixed round him; no very easy operation as his size was remarkably
large. His defective sight, indeed, prevented him from enjoying the
common sports."
Three habits, at least, Dr Johnson learned in boyhood which he
continued to practise as a man--to hate the Whigs, to love books, and
to endure pain.
_Oxford and after_
Two hundred years ago it was not easy for a poor country bookseller to
send his son to Oxford; and it is probable that it was only with the
help of friends that old Mr Johnson was able to pay his son's expenses
at the university.
However that may be, the name of Samuel Johnson was entered in the
books of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1728.
He had at least one parting gift, for good Dame Oliver, his first
teacher, hearing that he was about to go, "came to take leave of him
[and] brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present of
gingerbread, and said, he was the best scholar she ever had." Boswell
further tells us that Johnson "delighted in mentioning this early
compliment: adding, with a smile, that 'this was as high a proof of his
merit as he could conceive.'"
Besides his gingerbread, however, Johnson took with him a good
knowledge of books. "I had looked" he said "into a great many books,
which were not commonly known at the Universities, where they seldom
read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; so
that when I came to Oxford, Dr Adams told me I was the best qualified
for the University that he had ever known come there."
And indeed he quickly showed himself to be more learned than the
ordinary "freshman."
Nowadays, when a father takes his son for a first interview with
a college tutor, it is not usual for the boy to break into the
conversation with a quotation from one of the less-known Latin authors.
This is Boswell's story of Johnson's arrival at Oxford:
"His father, who had anxiously accompanied him, found means to have him
introduced to Mr Jorden, who was to be his tutor.... His father seemed
very full of the merits of his son, and told the company he was a good
scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner
appeared strange to them; but he behaved modestly, and sat silent,
till upon something which occurred in the course of conversation, he
suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius; and thus he gave the first
impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged
himself."
Johnson had no great opinion of Mr Jorden as a scholar:
"He was a very worthy man, but a heavy man, and I did not profit much
by his instructions. Indeed, I did not attend him much. The first day
after I came to college I waited upon him, and then stayed away four.
On the sixth, Mr Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered I
had been sliding in Christ Church meadow. And this I said with as much
_nonchalance_ as I am now talking to you. I had no notion I was wrong
or irreverent to my tutor."
Johnson's rooms were on the second floor over the gateway of Pembroke
College. The tower itself has been much altered, but the visitor
to Oxford can see the rooms pretty much as they were in Johnson's
day. Elsewhere in the college he may examine (or "contemplate with
veneration," as Boswell would have done) many Johnsonian relics--his
writing-desk and tea-pot among them.
From what we already know of Johnson's boyhood, we cannot picture him
as a lively undergraduate; for poverty and ill-health make it difficult
for a young man to enjoy life with his fellows, and Johnson suffered
from both.
A schoolfellow of Johnson, named Taylor, had come up to Christ Church,
where one of the tutors, Mr Bateman, had a high reputation:
"Mr Bateman's lectures were so excellent, that Johnson used to come and
get them at second-hand from Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme
that his shoes were worn out, and his feet appeared through them, he
saw that this humiliating circumstance was perceived by the Christ
Church men, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money,
and somebody having set a pair of new shoes at his door, he threw them
away with indignation."
"How must we feel" adds the faithful Boswell "when we read such an
anecdote of Samuel Johnson!"
Nor had his health improved. Here is an account of him at the end of
his first year at Oxford:
"While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729,
he felt himself overwhelmed with ... perpetual irritation, fretfulness
and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made
existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was
perfectly relieved ... he was sometimes so languid and inefficient,
that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock."
We are rather surprised, then, to read that he was at Oxford "caressed
and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicksome fellow, and
passed there the happiest part of his life."
"This" says Boswell "is a striking proof of the fallacy of appearances,
and how little any of us know of the real internal state even of
those whom we see most frequently; for the truth is, that he was then
depressed by poverty, and irritated by disease. When I mentioned to
him this account as given me by Dr Adams, he said 'Ah, Sir, I was mad
and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick. I was
miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my
wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority.'"
Johnson was too poor to complete his course of study and left Oxford
in 1731 without the degree of Bachelor of Arts. But though he had no
degree, he had gained much from the University. He had widened his
knowledge of books, reading mostly Greek and Latin authors.
"He had" says Boswell "a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was
valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of perusing it
from beginning to end."
He learnt, too, to love his college and the university. Later we shall
see how affectionately he talked of the days when "he was generally
seen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students
round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their
studies."
"O! Mr Edwards!" he exclaimed to an old friend about 50 years later
"I'll convince you that I recollect you. Do you remember our drinking
together at an alehouse near Pembroke gate?"--but we must go back and
see him as he came down from Oxford at the age of 22:
"And now (I had almost said _poor_) Samuel Johnson returned to his
native city, destitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a
decent livelihood. His father's misfortune in trade rendered him unable
to support his son; and for some time there appeared no means by which
he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father
died."
"I layed by" wrote Johnson in his diary (15 July 1732) "eleven guineas
on this day, when I received twenty pounds, being all that I have
reason to hope for out of my father's effects, previous to the death
of my mother; an event which I pray GOD may be very remote. I now
therefore see that I must make my own fortune."
How was this fortune to be made?
Like many another after him who has left the university with no
definite plan of life in view, Johnson turned inevitably to teaching,
accepting "an offer to be employed as usher in the school of
Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, to which it appears, from one of
his little fragments of a diary, that he went on foot."
Like many another, too, he soon complained that "this employment was
very irksome to him in every respect ... that it was unvaried as the
note of the cuckow; and that he did not know whether it was more
disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules."
A few months of this were enough for him, after which he went to live
with his friend Mr Hector at Birmingham and began to earn a little
money by his pen. For the translation of a French book of travel he
received five guineas.
In Birmingham Johnson fell in love with a widow--Mrs Porter. This lady
was twenty years older than her lover and, as we shall see in a moment,
no great beauty.
Nor was Johnson. When he was first introduced to her, "his appearance
was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense
structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of
the scrophula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was
straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he often had, seemingly,
convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at
once surprize and ridicule. Mrs Porter was so much engaged by his
conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages and
said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in
my life.'"
"I know not" Boswell goes on "for what reason the marriage ceremony
was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it
should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out
on horseback, I suppose in very good humour ... I have had from my
illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to
church upon the nuptial morn: 'Sir, she had read the old romances, and
had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit
should use her lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I
rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a
little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I
was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I
meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of
her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not
miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she
did, I observed her to be in tears.'"
This is what Boswell, who was a married man, calls "a manly firmness,"
though he admits that it was "a singular beginning."
"Sir," said Johnson to a friend years afterwards "it was a love
marriage on both sides."
"In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1736," says Boswell, "there is the
following advertisement:
'At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are
boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON.'
But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated
David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr Offely, a young
gentleman of good fortune who died early."
Boswell (though he has a kind word of patronage for successful
schoolmasters) evidently thought that his hero's brains were too good,
and his temper too bad, for the profession of teaching; moreover, David
Garrick was the kind of boy who is the despair of his teacher, the
delight of his schoolfellows, and the hero of school stories.
The truth about Johnson as a schoolmaster, according to Boswell, was
that "he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements
... as men of inferiour powers of mind.... The art of communicating
instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued; and I have ever
thought that those who devote themselves to this employment, and do
their duty with diligence and success, are entitled to very high
respect from the community, as Johnson himself often maintained. Yet I
am of opinion that the greatest abilities are not only not required for
this office, but render a man less fit for it. While we acknowledge the
justness of Thomson's beautiful remark,
'Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
And teach the young idea how to shoot!'
we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by 'a mind
at ease,' a mind at once calm and clear; but that a mind gloomy and
impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of
time in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by
unavoidable slowness and errour in the advances of scholars, as to
perform the duty, with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great
advantage to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential requisite in
a Preceptor.... From Mr Garrick's account he did not appear to have
been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner, and
uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment ...
and, in particular, the young rogues used to ... turn into ridicule his
tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name
... _Tetty_ or _Tetsey_ ... which seems to us ludicrous, when applied
to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr Garrick described her to me as
very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled
cheeks of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by
the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastick in her dress, and
affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. I have seen
Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimickry, so as to
excite the heartiest bursts of laughter."
The "exquisite talent of mimickry" is not popular amongst schoolmasters
and the academy for young gentlemen was closed after a year and a half.
Again, what was Johnson to do? He had tried teaching and failed; he had
written a little, but could not hope to get money or fame by selling
translations to country booksellers; he had married a wife. The next
step was the decisive one:
"Johnson now thought of trying his fortune in London."
_Johnson comes to London_
"I came to London" said Johnson in later years "with two-pence
half-penny in my pocket."
Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, "eh? what do you say? with
two-pence half-penny in your pocket?"
JOHNSON, "Why yes; when I came with two-pence half-penny in _my_
pocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in thine."
Master and pupil had travelled together; Garrick was to 'complete
his education' at an academy kept by a Mr Colson, but it was well
for Johnson that 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 six-pence, 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.'"
Johnson was, as Boswell says, "an adventurer in literature." What
kind of place was this London of 1737, this "great field of genius and
exertion, where" according to Boswell "talents of every kind have the
fullest scope, and the highest encouragement"?
Here are two pictures. The first is an account of an ordinary day's
doings by a stranger staying in Pall Mall:
"We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find
entertainment at them till eleven or go to tea-tables. About twelve the
_beau monde_ assembles in several coffee or chocolate houses ... all
so near to one another that in less than an hour you see the company
of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs, which are
here very cheap, a guinea a week, or one shilling per hour, and your
chair-men serve you for porters to run on errands.... If it is fine
weather we take a turn in the park till two, when we go for dinner....
Ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, but there are good French
ones in Suffolk Street. The general way here is to make a party at the
coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when
we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of some great
man. After the play the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's
coffee-houses near adjoining, where there is playing at picquet and
the best of conversation till midnight.... Or if you like rather the
company of ladies, there are assemblies at most people of quality's
houses."
The second is by an Irish painter whom Johnson had met 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 expence, 'that thirty
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 eighteen-pence a week; few people
would enquire 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."
It was this world of "Grub Street" (a street which became famous about
the end of the 16th century as the home of poor authors and whose name
was used generally to mean the world in which they lived[2]) which
Johnson had to face. He must try and make a living by his pen.
He had, of course, no "patron," no rich man who would help to pay for
the printing of his books, recommend them to his fashionable friends
and perhaps secure their author a government post which would bring
with it light duties and a comfortable income.
Except for Harry Hervey ("a vicious man, but very kind to me," he told
Boswell, "If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him") Johnson hardly
had a friend in London. What was he to write? Who was to buy his
manuscripts?
Newspapers, indeed, were everywhere. They consisted mostly of four
pages containing a little news, a little gossip, a little poetry, and
many advertisements. There was not much hope for Johnson here.
A journal founded in 1731 gave him a better opening.
"_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.... 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.'"
To Mr Cave, therefore, Johnson wrote, having observed in his paper
"very uncommon offers of encouragement to men of letters," and _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ was for many years "his principal source for
employment and support."
In the summer of 1737 he went back to Lichfield, where he finished a
tragedy called _Irene_, of which we shall hear something later. On his
return to London he brought his wife with him, and in London he lived
for the remaining 47 years of his life.
It was fitting, therefore, that the first of his writings which brought
him fame should be a poem called _London_. It was offered to, and
refused by, several booksellers, an incident afterwards commemorated in
these lines:
Will no kind patron JOHNSON own?
Shall JOHNSON friendless range the town?
And every publisher refuse
The offspring of his happy Muse?
However, the "worthy, modest, and ingenious Mr Robert Dodsley had taste
enough to perceive its uncommon merit, and thought it creditable to
have a share in it."
Now this poem may not attract us very much to-day. Boswell, of course,
thought it "one of the noblest productions in our language," but to
understand it properly we need to know something of the politics of the
time, especially of the Tory feeling against Sir Robert Walpole, the
prime minister who said that "every man had his price"; we need to know
something, too, of the poem by Juvenal, of which it is an imitation.
But a few lines are quoted here, because they bring out very clearly
the state of Johnson's mind at the time.
He is a bitter opponent of the corrupt government of the day and its
weak concessions to Spain:
Grant me, kind heaven, to find some happier place,
Where honesty and sense are no disgrace ...
Here let those reign, whom pensions can incite
To vote a patriot black, a courtier white;
Explain their country's dear-bought rights away,
And plead for pirates in the face of day.[3]
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF _The Gentleman's Magazine_, March, 1738]
He feels his own poverty keenly:
This mournful truth is ev'ry where confess'd
SLOW RISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESS'D.
"We may easily conceive" says Boswell "with what feeling a great mind
like this, cramped and galled by narrow circumstances, uttered this
last line, which he marked by capitals."
_London_ was a success.
"Everybody was delighted with it; and there being no name to it, the
first buz of the literary circles was 'here is an unknown poet, greater
even than Pope.' And it is recorded in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ of
that year [1738], that it 'got into the second edition in the course of
a week.'"
But Johnson got no more than ten guineas for his work.
Truly, as Boswell says, "he felt the hardships of writing for
bread." So poor, indeed, did his prospects seem, that he thought of
turning schoolmaster again or of entering the law. But he had no
university degree and there seemed no escape from "the drudgery of
authourship"--unless he should take the advice of Mr Wilcox.
"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.'"
Of his life during the first ten years after his arrival in London
we do not know many details. He was miserably poor, but not entirely
friendless. His intimate companion for some time was Richard Savage,
whom "misfortunes and misconduct had reduced to the lowest state of
wretchedness as a writer for bread."
Boswell finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and Savage were
sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for a
lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the
streets.... He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular,
when Savage and he walked round St James's-square for want of a
lodging, they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high
spirits and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several
hours, inveighed against the minister, and 'resolved they would _stand
by their country_.'"
A few years later Johnson wrote a _Life_ of his friend, sitting up all
night and writing forty-eight of the printed pages at a sitting.
"Soon after Savage's _Life_ was published, Mr Harte dined with Edward
Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, Cave said,
'You made a man very happy t'other day.'--'How could that be?' says
Harte; 'nobody was there but ourselves.' Cave answered, by reminding
him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to
Johnson, dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose to appear; but on
hearing the conversation, he was highly delighted with the encomiums on
his book."
For the copyright of the book Johnson received fifteen guineas.
Such money, indeed, as Johnson earned at this time came mostly from
Mr Cave. To _The Gentleman's Magazine_ he contributed poems, essays,
lives of famous men, translations of foreign works and accounts of
debates in Parliament, taking care, in these last, that "the WHIG DOGS
should not have the best of it."
Few of these writings would be remembered if their author had not
become famous for other reasons, and we maybe sure that Johnson was
dissatisfied with this kind of work. He was an adventurer in literature
and an adventurer likes to tackle a big task.
Before long he found one big enough.