eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and
the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming 30
in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles,
one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving
pamphleteers and indexmakers. Among Johnson's associates
at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts
were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his
arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very
respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at
last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole,
surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending 5
to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the
board where he sate cross-legged; and the penitent impostor,
George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble
lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers,
indulged himself at night with literary and theological 10
conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable
of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted
was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice,
who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue
ribands in Saint James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' 15
weight of iron on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate.
This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last
into abject and hopeless poverty. His pen had failed him.
His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by
the riotous profusion with which he squandered their bounty, 20
and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their
advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison
and champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to
borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he
appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, 25
and lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Garden in
warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get
to the furnace of a glass house. Yet, in his misery, he was still
an agreeable companion. He had an inexhaustible store of
anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he 30
was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both
parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders
of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard
the prime 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 West of England, lived there as
he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743, died, penniless and 5
heart-broken, in Bristol gaol.
17. Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was
strongly excited about his extraordinary character, and his
not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him appeared
widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men 10
which were then a staple article of manufacture in Grub
Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety;
and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element
of our language. But the little work, with all its faults, was
a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed 15
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.
18. The life of Savage was anonymous; but it was well
known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During 20
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. Warburton
pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise
of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's 25
reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined
to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a
Dictionary of the English language, in two 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 30
of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task.
19. The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the
Earl of 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 speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently
governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent
firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since become
Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the 5
most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas,
bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no
means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London
mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over
the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, 10
by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and
uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate
like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to
call on his patron, but after being repeatedly told by the
porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and 15
ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door.
20. 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 seven years which he passed in the drudgery of 20
penning definitions and marking quotations for transcription,
he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more agreeable
kind. In 1749 he published the Vanity of Human Wishes,
an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is
in truth not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the 25
ancient or to the modern poet. The couplets in which the
fall of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble
when compared with the wonderful lines which bring before us
all Rome in tumult on the day of the fall of Sejanus, the laurels
on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, 30
the statues rolling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of
the disgraced minister running to see him dragged with a hook
through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before
it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in the
concluding passage the Christian moralist has not made the
most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of
the sublimity of his pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's
Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles; and Johnson's
vigorous and pathetic enumeration of the miseries of a literary 5
life must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentation
over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero.
21. For the copyright of the Vanity of Human Wishes
Johnson received only fifteen guineas.
22. A few days after the publication of this poem, his 10
tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage.
His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance
on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the
first place among actors, and was now, after several years of
almost uninterrupted success, manager of Drury Lane Theatre. 15
The relation between him and his old 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 clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the
natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned 20
Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's
temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great
a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which
the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and
gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely 25
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 30
common, and sympathised with each other on so many points
on which they sympathised with nobody else in the vast population
of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked
by the 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 audience.
The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with 5
much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After
nine representations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed,
altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in
the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had
not the slightest notion of what blank verse should be. A 10
change in the last syllable of every other line would make the
versification of the Vanity of Human Wishes closely resemble
the versification of Irene. The poet, however, cleared, by
his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his
tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in 15
his estimation.
23. About a year after the representation of Irene, he
began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners,
and literature. This species of composition had been brought
into fashion by the success of the Tatler, and by the still more 20
brilliant success of the Spectator. A crowd of small writers
had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The Lay Monastery,
the Censor, the Freethinker, the Plain Dealer, the Champion,
and other works of the same kind, had had their short day.
None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature; 25
and they are now to be found only in the libraries of
the curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in
which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year
after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator
appeared the first number of the Rambler. From March 30
1750 to March 1752, this paper continued to come out every
Tuesday and Saturday.
24. From the first the Rambler was enthusiastically admired
by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only five numbers
had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not superior, to the
Spectator. Young and Hartley expressed their approbation
not less warmly. Bubb Dodington, among whose many faults
indifference to the claims of genius and learning cannot be
reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In 5
consequence probably of the good offices of Dodington, who was
then the confidential adviser of Prince Frederic, two of His
Royal Highness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to
the printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester
House. But these overtures seem to have been very coldly 10
received. 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.
25. By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly
received. Though the price of a number was only twopence, 15
the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were
therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were
collected and reprinted they became popular. The author
lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England
alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch and 20
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 tongue. The best 25
critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too
obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity.
But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on
morals and manners, to the constant precision and frequent
brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent 30
eloquence of many serious passages, and to the solemn yet
pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers. On the question
of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question
which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has
pronounced a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir
Roger, his chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will
Honeycomb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired
Citizen, the Everlasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, the Loves
of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, and the 5
Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody. But many men
and women, even of highly cultivated minds, are unacquainted
with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus,
the Allegory of Wit and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions
of a Garret, and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut. 10
26. 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 husband almost
broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a
man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, 15
and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of
supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which
she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection
had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor
sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as 20
the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of his
writings was more important to him than the voice of the
pit of Drury Lane Theatre or the judgment of the Monthly
Review. The chief support which had sustained him through
the most arduous labour of his life was the hope that she would 25
enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his
Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast 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 30
years, the Dictionary was at length complete.
27. 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. He 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 pride which he had so cruelly wounded.
Since the Ramblers had ceased to appear, the town had been 5
entertained by a journal called The World, to which many men
of high 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 proposed that he should be invested 10
with the authority of a Dictator, 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 15
written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson
was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular
energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the
tardy advances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without
a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that 20
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, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.
28. The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, 25
and something more than justice. The best lexicographer
may well be content if his productions are received by the
world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary was hailed
with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited.
It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with 30
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 agreeably spent in turning over the
pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most
part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist.
He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language
except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a
Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy 5
of Junius and Skinner.
29. The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added
nothing 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 press. It is 10
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 spunging-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 formally saluted by the 15
highest authority as Dictator of the English language to supply
his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He
proposed to bring out an edition of Shakspeare 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 20
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 interest;
but among them was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a
masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the 25
review of Jenyns's Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil.
30. In the 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 30
were still in the 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.
31. 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 order to
defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which 5
she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent
off the sheets to the press without 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. 10
32. The success of Rasselas was great, though such ladies
as Miss Lydia Languish must have been grievously disappointed
when they found that the new volume from the circulating
library was little more than a dissertation on the author's
favourite theme, the Vanity of Human Wishes; that the Prince 15
of Abyssinia was without a mistress, and the Princess without a
lover; and that the story set the hero and the heroine down
exactly where it had taken them up. The style was the subject
of much eager controversy. The Monthly Review and the
Critical Review took different sides. Many readers pronounced 20
the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of
two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and
who could not make a waiting woman relate her adventures
without balancing every noun with another noun, and every
epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, 25
cited with delight numerous passages in which weighty meaning
was expressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendour.
And both the censure and the praise were merited.
33. About the plan of Rasselas little was said by the
critics; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite 30
severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakspeare
for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing
to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another.
Yet Shakspeare has not sinned in this way more grievously
than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are
evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth century:
for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the
eighteenth century; and the inmates of the Happy Valley
talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton 5
discovered, and which was not fully received even at Cambridge
till the eighteenth century. What a real company of Abyssinians
would have been may be learned from Bruce's Travels.
But Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant
of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living 10
cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened as himself
or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished as
Mrs. Lennox or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic
system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of
polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being 15
seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our
ballrooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce,
wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. "A youth
and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice,
exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream 20
of each other. Such," says Rasselas, "is the common process
of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still be, in
London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty
of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who
made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano 25
as flourishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi.
34. By such exertions as have been described, Johnson
supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great
change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child
been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices 30
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 bitter and contumelious reflections 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 Seal by name 5
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 stipend
to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these
definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time 10
of wonders. George the Third had ascended the 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 15
Wyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the
treasury was now Lord 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. 20
A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and
with very little hesitation accepted.
35. This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way
of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt
the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, 25
after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his
constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till two in the afternoon,
and to sit up talking till four in the morning, without fearing
either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer.