[4] The latter part of the definition was omitted by Johnson in the
last edition which he passed for press.
_The Great Cham of Literature_
The _Dictionary_ was Johnson's biggest literary adventure, but it was
not the only one which occupied him in the years between 1747 and 1755.
Even the great Lexicographer would have found it hard to do nothing but
"beat the track of the alphabet" for eight years; for, as Boswell puts
it, "his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more
diversity of employment and the pleasure of animated relaxation."
There was another reason, too, which made it necessary for Johnson to
write something besides definitions. 1500 guineas was not much on which
to keep six assistants and himself for eight years. "When the expence
of amanuenses and paper, and other articles are deducted, his clear
profit was very inconsiderable." But Johnson, being a true adventurer,
did not grumble. When Boswell said to him "I am sorry, Sir, you did not
get more for your _Dictionary_," his answer was "I am sorry too. But it
was very well. The booksellers are generous, liberal-minded men."
So, in 1749, Johnson offered to one of these booksellers, Mr James
Dodsley, a poem called _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ and received the
sum of fifteen guineas.
It was written in imitation, as _London_ had been, of the Roman poet
Juvenal. The subject is a gloomy one and Garrick thought it "as hard
as Greek." But parts of the poem are still familiar to everyone--the
opening lines, for instance:
Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.
Various ambitious careers are described, such as those of Wolsey and
Charles XII of Sweden; and a bitter warning is given to the literary
adventurer, "the young enthusiast" who "quits his ease for fame."
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters, to be wise;
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron[5] and the jail.
David Garrick was by this time a famous actor. He was manager of Drury
Lane theatre, and, after a good deal of dispute, it was arranged
that Johnson's tragedy _Irene_, written some years before, should be
put upon the stage. It was a play dealing with an Oriental court and
Garrick was rehearsing the part of Mahomet.
"'Sir' said Johnson to a friend, 'the fellow wants me to make Mahomet
run mad, that he may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and
kicking his heels.'"
Here is an account of the first night:
"Before the curtain drew up, there were catcalls whistling, which
alarmed Johnson's friends. The Prologue, which was written by himself
in a manly strain, soothed the audience, and the play went off
tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs Pritchard, the
heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to
speak two lines with the bow-string round her neck. The audience cried
out '_Murder! Murder!_' She several times attempted to speak; but in
vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive."
This was Johnson's one adventure as a writer of plays and he no doubt
enjoyed it. Everyone loves to go "behind the scenes."
"His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and during
its performance, brought him acquainted with many of the performers of
both sexes.... With some of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as
he and they lived, and was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He
for a considerable time used to frequent the _Green Room_, and seemed
to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly
chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there."
He felt, too, that his own dress should be in keeping with the gay
clothes of those around him:
"On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a
fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress should be more gay than
what he ordinarily wore; he therefore appeared behind the scenes, and
even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold
lace, and a gold-laced hat."
But _Irene_ was not a success.
"Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Garrick, Barry,
Mrs Cibber, Mrs Pritchard, and every advantage of dress and decoration,
the tragedy of _Irene_ did not please the publick." However "Mr
Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights, so that the authour
had his three nights' profits."
These, together with the hundred pounds which Johnson received from Mr
Dodsley for the copyright, made it, at any rate, a profitable adventure
and "when asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he
replied, 'Like the Monument'; meaning that he continued firm and
unmoved as that column."
In the following year, 1750, he set out upon another adventure. It
was nearly forty years since the last numbers of _The Tatler_ and
_The Spectator_, written by the famous essayists of Queen Anne's
reign--Joseph Addison and Richard Steele--had appeared.
Johnson now embarked upon a similar periodical paper in which, as
Boswell says, "he came forth as a majestick teacher of moral and
religious wisdom."
The choice of a title gave him some trouble: "What _must_ be done,
Sir," he afterwards told Sir Joshua Reynolds "_will_ be done. When I
was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I
sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to
sleep till I had fixed its title. _The Rambler_ seemed the best that
occurred, and I took it."
"The first paper of the _Rambler_" Boswell tells us "was published on
Tuesday the 20th of March 1750; and its authour was enabled to continue
it, without interruption, every Tuesday and Friday, till Saturday[6]
the 17th of March, 1752, on which day it closed.... Many of these
discourses, which we should suppose had been laboured with all the slow
attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the moment
pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed."
Like _Irene_, _The Rambler_ did not really "please the publick." The
matter was too solid for a two-penny paper, and less than 500 copies of
each number were sold. Boswell speaks sadly of this lack of success:
"The grave and often solemn cast of thinking, which distinguished it
from other periodical papers, made it, for some time, not generally
liked. So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve editions
have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, that
even in the closing number the authour says, 'I have never been much a
favourite with the publick.'"
But from one source, at any rate, Johnson got honest praise:
"Mrs Johnson, in whose judgement and taste he had great confidence,
said to him, after a few numbers of the _Rambler_ had come out 'I
thought very well of you before; but I did not imagine you could have
written anything equal to this.'"
"Distant praise, from whatever quarter," adds Boswell "is not so
delightful as that of a wife whom a man loves and esteems."
Johnson was now emerging from the period of "cold obscurity." He had
begun to gather a circle of friends round him and had founded the
first of his clubs "in Ivy-lane, Paternoster-row, with a view to enjoy
literary discussion, and amuse his evening hours." His character,
though not his income, in the literary world was "deservedly high"
and one honour which came to him in 1754 was especially pleasing to
him--the conferment of the degree of Master of Arts by the University
of Oxford. We can see how much he looked forward to this by a phrase
in one of his letters at the time: "I shall be extremely glad to hear
from you again, to know if the affair [of the degree] proceeds. I have
mentioned it to none of my friends for fear of being laughed at for my
disappointment."
"In 1755 we behold him" says Boswell "to great advantage; his degree
of Master of Arts conferred upon him, his _Dictionary_ published,
his correspondence animated, his benevolence exercised." But in the
following year "Johnson found that the great fame of his _Dictionary_
had not set him above the necessity of 'making provision for the
day that was passing over him.' No royal or noble patron extended a
munificent hand to give independence to the man who had conferred
stability on the language of his country."
In other words, he must still write for a living. "Ten guineas" he
afterwards said "was to me at that time a great sum" and he did not
disdain to accept a guinea from Mr Robert Dodsley, "for writing the
introduction to _The London Chronicle_, an evening news-paper."
He tried his hand, too, at another series of essays which, under the
name of _The Idler_, came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper.
Boswell says that these essays have "less body and more spirit" than
_The Rambler_ and refers to one "in which conversation is assimilated
to a bowl of punch." Many of them were written "as hastily as an
ordinary letter."
"Mr Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him
one evening how long it was till the post went out; and on being told
about half an hour, he exclaimed, 'then we shall do very well.' He
upon this instantly sat down and finished an _Idler_, which it was
necessary should be in London the next day. Mr Langton having signified
a wish to read it, 'Sir, (said he) you shall not do more than I have
done myself.' He then folded it up and sent it off."
Johnson, at the age of 49, was still writing in the spirit of the
journalist.
A more ambitious work was _Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia_, a tale of
the East. This became very popular and was "translated into most, if
not all, of the modern languages." It was written in the same hurried
way as _The Rambler_ and _The Idler_:
"Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expence
of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left.
He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he had composed it in the evenings of
one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had
never since read it over[7]. Mr Strahan, Mr Johnston, and Mr Dodsley
purchased it for a hundred pounds, but afterwards paid him twenty-five
pounds more, when it came to a second edition."
Besides these works and an edition of Shakespeare which employed him
for many years, Johnson wrote a number of essays, reviews of books,
prefaces and dedications. From one of these, a defence of tea-drinking,
we must quote a sentence later, for Boswell gives it as his opinion
that "his chief Intention seems to have been to make Sport."
And now Johnson's career as "an adventurer in literature" is nearly at
an end. What is, in some ways, the most important event of his life is
thus described by Boswell:
"The accession of George the Third to the throne of these kingdoms,
opened a new and brighter prospect to men of literary merit, who had
been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign.
His present Majesty's education in this country, as well as his taste
and beneficence, prompted him to be patron of science and the arts;
and early this year Johnson, having been represented to him as a very
learned and good man, without any certain provision, his Majesty was
pleased to grant him a pension of three hundred pounds a year."
Johnson, being an honest man, had some qualms. In the two previous
reigns he had been bitterly opposed to the government and had not
hesitated to say so. Moreover, he had defined _Pension_ in his
Dictionary as "pay given to a state hireling for treason to his
country[8]"! Could he honestly take the money? He went off at once to
consult Sir Joshua Reynolds:
"Sir Joshua answered that ... there could be no objection to his
receiving from the King a reward for literary merit; and that certainly
the definitions in his _Dictionary_ were not applicable to him.
Johnson, it should seem, was satisfied, for he did not call again till
he had accepted the pension, and had waited on Lord Bute[9] to thank
him. He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute said to him expressly,
'It is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have
done.' His Lordship, he said, behaved in the handsomest manner. He
repeated the words twice, that he might be sure Johnson heard them, and
thus set his mind perfectly at ease."
No one was ever more fervently grateful than Johnson, who at the age of
53, had never known a day's good health or a year's steady income. He,
who had compiled the Dictionary, declared:
"The English language does not afford me terms adequate to my feelings
on this occasion. I must have recourse to the French. I am _pénétré_
with his Majesty's goodness."
Twenty years later his gratitude was still fresh:
"Sir, I have never complained of the world; nor do I think that I have
reason to complain. It is rather to be wondered at that I have so
much. My pension is more out of the usual course of things than any
instance that I have known. Here, Sir, was a man avowedly no friend to
Government at the time, who got a pension without asking for it."
A few years after the publication of the Dictionary Tobias Smollett,
the novelist, had referred to Johnson as "the great Cham of
literature." The title was adapted from that of the fierce chiefs of
the Tartars, and it suits Johnson well enough. He held the foremost
place in the literary society of his day and in taverns and great men's
halls alike could proclaim his opinions on literature and art, history
and politics, morality and religion to men who, though "eminent in
their departments," regarded it as an honour to be allowed to listen to
him.
Lord Chesterfield, half in jest and half in earnest, had conferred on
him the powers of a literary "dictator." The king's pension enabled
Johnson to use his powers in a way of which Chesterfield had not
dreamed.
Henceforward we know him not as a poet or essayist or even as "the
great Lexicographer," but simply as "Doctor Johnson[10]," the talker,
the traveller, the true-born Englishman.
With the exception of some political pamphlets, an account of his
Scottish tour, and a series of _Lives of the Poets_, he wrote little of
importance after 1762, comparing himself to a soldier who has fought a
good many campaigns and is not to be blamed for retiring to ease and
tranquillity.
BOSWELL. 'But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in writing than
in not writing.'