FOOTNOTES:

Will no kind patronJohnsonown?ShallJohnsonfriendless range the town?And every publisher refuseThe 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 inciteTo 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]

The Gentleman's MagazineTitle-page ofThe Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1738

He feels his own poverty keenly:

This mournful truth is ev'ry where confess'dSlow 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."

Londonwas 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 inThe Gentleman's Magazineof 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 misconducthad 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 wouldstand by their country.'"

A few years later Johnson wrote aLifeof his friend, sitting up all night and writing forty-eight of the printed pages at a sitting.

"Soon after Savage'sLifewas 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. ToThe Gentleman's Magazinehe contributed poems, essays,lives of famous men, translations of foreign works and accounts of debates in Parliament, taking care, in these last, that "theWhig Dogsshould 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.

FOOTNOTES:[2]See pages33,95.[3]The Spaniards had abused the right of searching merchant vessels granted to them by the treaty of Commerce. In the following year, 1739, after the affair of "Jenkins's ear," Walpole was compelled to yield to the popular demand for war.

[2]See pages33,95.

[3]The Spaniards had abused the right of searching merchant vessels granted to them by the treaty of Commerce. In the following year, 1739, after the affair of "Jenkins's ear," Walpole was compelled to yield to the popular demand for war.

The title of this chapter sounds dull enough. A dictionary is not generally thought to be lively reading and perhaps we may feel that a man who deliberately set out to write one must have been a dry-as-dust old fellow who went out of his way to explain short and simple words by means of long and complicated phrases more difficult than the words themselves.

Well, there is no doubt that Johnson did use long words. He had been brought up on classical authors and, like other writers of the period, often used words of many syllables derived from the Greek or Latin, when simpler words would have done as well.

Boswell is the same. He does not say "many times in his later life" but "upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life." Or look back at page 24, where he finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and Savage were in such extreme indigence." Why couldn't he have found it "sad to think that they were so poor"?

Long words were the fashion of the time and to do Johnson justice, we must try to put ourselves back in his century.

Nowadays, we have no trouble in finding dictionaries, whether we want an exhaustive work of reference or a handy volume for the pocket.

But in Johnson's day it was different.

Such dictionaries as had previously appeared were vocabularies of "hard words" only, not of words in general. The only attempt to produce a dictionary containingallEnglish words was that compiled in 1721 by one Nathaniel Bailey, but it contained very little illustration of the use of words. There was, in fact, no dictionary which attempted either tofixthe language or to illustrate the different meanings of a word by quotations from English writers. Johnson began to consider whether he might not produce one himself.

"The year 1747" says Boswell "is distinguished as the epoch, when Johnson's arduous and important work, hisDictionary of the English Language, was announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan orProspectus. How long this immense undertaking had been the object of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had attained to that astonishingknowledge of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated difficulty. He told me, that 'it was not the effect of particular study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly.'"

Even Johnson had had some doubts at the beginning:

"I have been informed by Mr James Dodsley, that several years before this period, when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert's shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, 'I believe I shall not undertake it.'"

But he changed his mind. Half-a-dozen booksellers agreed between them to pay the author fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds for the work, and the "Plan" was addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield, "then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction."

England has always prided herself on the individual enterprise of her citizens and Johnson "the true-born Englishman" had now undertaken, "single and unaided ... a work which in other countries had not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many," but "he had a noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit."

Boswell gives us a few glimpses of his hero engaged on this great task:

"Dr Adams found him one day busy at hisDictionary, when the following dialogue ensued:Adams. This is a great work, Sir.... How can you do this in three years?Johnson.Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years.Adams.But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary.Johnson.Sir, thus it is: this is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."

"For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country.... To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness."

"While theDictionarywas going forward, Johnson lived part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an upper room fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which he gave to the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly taken from other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written down with spaces left between them, he delivered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the passages, with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be effaced. I have seen several of them, in which that trouble had not been taken, so that they were just as when used by the copyists."

Johnson's House in Gough SquareJohnson's House in Gough Square

No. 17 Gough Square, the house in which Johnson lived from 1748 to 1759, was bought in 1911 by Mr Cecil Harmsworth, who undertook such restoration as was necessary. The visitor will find it most easily by turning into Bolt Court, on the north side of Fleet Street, and will note with satisfaction that "almost every original feature of importance has survived."

A descriptive booklet, with a good coloured portrait, may be bought at the house, and a well-illustrated account is given inThe Architectural Reviewfor December, 1918. Carlyle's description of his visit (Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. IV) is well known and the reader may also be referred to Mr Austin Dobson'sA Garret in Gough Square (Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1st Series) and Miss Sophie Cole's novel,A London Posy.]

Though these pencil-marks do not remain for us to see, the house in Gough Square still stands. The literary adventurer of to-day may behold it with something of that reverence which St John's Gate inspired in Johnson when he first came to London.

The Dictionary employed Johnson for eight years.

"Mr Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge of conducting the publication.... When the messenger who carried the last sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him 'Well, what did he say?'—'Sir (answered the messenger) he said, ThankGodI have done with him.' 'I am glad (replied Johnson, with a smile) that he thanksGodfor anything.'"

Lord Chesterfield, to whom the "Plan" had been addressed, had taken no notice of Johnson during his years of toil. Johnson had waited in his "outward rooms" and been "repulsed from his door"—an incident which a famous picture has made familiar to many who otherwise, perhaps, would hardly have heard either of the rich nobleman or of the "uncourtly scholar."

On the eve of publication, however, Lord Chesterfield attempted to make amends by two complimentary notices in a paper calledThe World. This provoked Johnson to write one of the best known letters in English literature. Here is a part of it:

"Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have beenpushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before....

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself."

This fine piece of snubbing, written, as Johnson said, indefensivepride, became "the talk of the town." But Johnson did not wish it to be public property. When Lord Hardwicke expressed a wish to read it, he "declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile 'No, Sir; I have hurt the dog too much already.'"

"TheDictionary" says Boswell "with aGrammar and History of the English Languagebeing now at length published, in two volumes folio, the world contemplated with wonder so stupendous a work achieved by one man."

We, too, may do the same, though we may be frightened, rather than attracted, by the sentencewhich Boswell selects from thePrefaceas a model of clearness and choice of words:

"When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their own nature collateral?"

We shall do better to choose one or two of the passages which should move us even now, when we picture to ourselves the years of industry and poverty in the gloomy Gough Square house: "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature must be left to time."

"I deliver my book to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well.... In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that theEnglish Dictionarywas written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."

The Dictionary itself is not, of course, to be compared in fulness or accuracy with the latest monument of lexicography which we find on library shelves to-day—any more than Marlborough's artillery can be compared with a modern howitzer.

"The definitions" says Boswell "have always appeared to me such astonishing proofs of acuteness of intellect and precision of language, as indicate a genius of the highest rank. This it is which marks the superiour excellence of Johnson'sDictionaryover others."

But even Boswell has to admit, as Johnson did, that there are errors and obscurities, "inconsiderable specks" though they be.

"ThusWindwardandLeeward, though directly of opposite meaning, are defined identically the same way."

"A lady once asked him how he came to definePasternthekneeof a horse; instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, 'Ignorance, Madam,—pure ignorance.'"

"His definition ofNetworkhas been often quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain."

Boswell tantalises us by omitting this definition. But, to set curiosity at rest, here it is: "Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections."

A man of strong prejudices like Johnson could not refrain from letting his own views appear here and there throughout the work and it is these human touches which have most attraction for us to-day. We can imagine the grim smile which came over his scarred and rugged face when he defined:

Oatsas "A grain which in England is generallygiven to horses, but in Scotland supports the people[4]."

Whigas "The name of a faction."

Grub-streetas "the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories,dictionaries, and temporary poems."

Lexicographeras "a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge."

"Dictionaries," as Johnson himself wrote thirty years later, "are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go true."

But what we chiefly have to remember is that Johnson was a pioneer. There was no good English dictionary in 1747. Johnson set to work single-handed, and produced a book which made its author supreme amongst the literary men of the time and itself remained a standard work for generations.

FOOTNOTES:[4]The latter part of the definition was omitted by Johnson in the last edition which he passed for press.

[4]The latter part of the definition was omitted by Johnson in the last edition which he passed for press.

TheDictionarywas 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 trackof 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 yourDictionary," 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 calledThe Vanity of Human Wishesand received the sum of fifteen guineas.

It was written in imitation, asLondonhad 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 viewSurvey 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 tragedyIrene, 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 wasin 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 theGreen 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."

ButIrenewas 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 ofIrenedid 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 ofThe TatlerandThe 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: "Whatmustbe done, Sir," he afterwards told Sir Joshua Reynolds "willbe 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 Ramblerseemed the best that occurred, and I took it."

"The first paper of theRambler" 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."

LikeIrene,The Ramblerdid not really "please the publick." The matter was too solid for a two-penny paper, and less than 500 copies of eachnumber 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 theRamblerhad 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 tohear 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, hisDictionarypublished, his correspondence animated, his benevolence exercised." But in the following year "Johnson found that the great fame of hisDictionaryhad 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 toThe London Chronicle, an evening news-paper."

He tried his hand, too, at another series of essays which, under the name ofThe Idler, came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper. Boswell says that these essays have "less body and more spirit" thanThe Ramblerand 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 weshall do very well.' He upon this instantly sat down and finished anIdler, 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 wasRasselas, 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 asThe RamblerandThe 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 adventurerin 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 definedPensionin 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 hisDictionarywere 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. Hethen 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 ampénétréwith 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 tomen 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 ofLives 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.'

Johnson.'Sir, youmaywonder.'

FOOTNOTES:[5]This Saturday was in fact 14 March.[6]Johnson originally wrotegarret, but, after his treatment by Lord Chesterfield, altered it topatron.[7]This is now disputed, as it has been shown that there are in the second edition many variations from the original text.[8]This was omitted in later editions and the following version retained: "A slave of state hired by a stipend to obey his master." See also the lines quoted fromLondon, page 22.[9]The Prime Minister.[10]The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by the University of Dublin in 1765 and by the University of Oxford in 1775.

[5]This Saturday was in fact 14 March.

[6]Johnson originally wrotegarret, but, after his treatment by Lord Chesterfield, altered it topatron.

[7]This is now disputed, as it has been shown that there are in the second edition many variations from the original text.

[8]This was omitted in later editions and the following version retained: "A slave of state hired by a stipend to obey his master." See also the lines quoted fromLondon, page 22.

[9]The Prime Minister.

[10]The degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by the University of Dublin in 1765 and by the University of Oxford in 1775.

So far we have seen little of Johnson's domestic life. He was happiest in a club or a tavern and, in the early days of struggle, home was not much more for him than the place where he satdown to write for a living. In his garret, which he considered as his library, a visitor would find "about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs and one arm."

But the household which he gradually gathered round him was a remarkable one.

Of Mrs Johnson's life in London we do not know much; but Johnson, being slovenly in his habits and cantankerous about his food, was bound to have "little disagreements" with a tidy housewife.

"My wife" he told Mrs Thrale "had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber."

When asked whether he ever "huffed his wife about his dinner," he replied:

"So often that at last she called to me, and said, 'Nay, hold, Mr Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable.'"

Sometimes she would get tired of the dirt and poverty of Fleet Street and stay for a time at Hampstead; but she could appreciate her husband's work and of Johnson's fondness for "his dear Tetty" there can be no doubt.

She died in March 1752, when Johnson hadjust finished the last number ofThe Ramblerand was still in the middle of his labours on the Dictionary. Here is the letter he wrote on the following day to his friend, Dr Taylor:

"Dear Sir,Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My distress is great.Pray desire Mrs Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter[11], and bring a note in writing with you.Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man.I am, dear Sir, &c.,Sam. Johnson.March 18, 1752."

"Dear Sir,

Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My distress is great.

Pray desire Mrs Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter[11], and bring a note in writing with you.

Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man.

I am, dear Sir, &c.,Sam. Johnson.

March 18, 1752."

"'Sir,' he said twenty-six years later 'I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn tender faultering tone) I have known what it is tolose a wife.—It had almost broke my heart.'"

Long before the pension had given him security Johnson had begun to make his home a refuge for the poor and lonely:

"Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract inboth her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs Johnson lived; and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house."

From the accounts we have of Mrs Williams we cannot imagine her to have been an easy companion. Her blindness made her peevish and quarrelsome and we may wonder, with Boswell, at Johnson's patience with her. But she was a good talker and that was a great merit in Johnson's eyes. He made many efforts to brighten her life and increase her tiny income; Garrick was induced to give her a benefit performance and Mrs Montagu to provide her with a small pension.

"The truth is," says Boswell "that his humane consideration of the forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by her father, induced him to treat her with the utmost tenderness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement, so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by carrying her with him to their houses, where, from her manner of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not but offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations."

But Boswell was a proud man when he was first invited to drink tea with her after dining out with Johnson. He knew that it was a sign of real intimacy.

"We went home to his house to tea. MrsWilliams made it with sufficient dexterity, notwithstanding her blindness, though her manner of satisfying herself that the cups were full enough appeared to me a little aukward; for I fancied she put her finger down a certain way, till she felt the tea touch it[12]. In my first elation at being allowed the privilege of attending Dr Johnson at his late visits to this lady ..., I willingly drank cup after cup."

Nor was the lady's dinner forgotten when Boswell and Johnson went off to their tavern:

"There was, on these occasions, a little circumstance of kind attention to Mrs Williams, which must not be omitted. Before coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, ready-drest."

Her death left Johnson very desolate.

"I have lost a companion," he wrote "to whom I have had recourse for domestick amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted.... She left her little substance to a charity-school. She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow."

About 1746 Johnson had made the acquaintance of another "humble friend," Mr Robert Levet.

"He was" says Boswell "an obscure practiser inphysick amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs Williams has told me, his walk was from Hounsditch to Marybone.... Such was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians, unless he had Mr Levet with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr Johnson, and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr Levet had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a strange grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was present."

But this "odd old surgeon" was poor and honest; and that, as Goldsmith said, was recommendation enough to Johnson, who never treated him as a dependent and indeed declared that "Levet was indebted to him for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at breakfast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday." The greatest honour which Johnson paid his old friend were the "pathetick verses" which he wrote at his death. Here we will quote two stanzas:

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