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"I feel the soft infection Flush in my cheek, and wander in my veins. Teach me the Grecian arts of soft persuasion." “Sure this is love, which heretofore I conceived the dream of idle maids, and wanton poets."

"Though no comets or prodigies foretold the ruin of Greece, signs which heaven must by another miracle enable us to understand, yet might it be foreshown, by tokens no less certain, by the vices which always bring it on."

varieties of worship: but is answered, That variety cannot affect that Being, who, infinitely happy in his own perfections, wants no external gratifications ; nor though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkcan infinite truth be delighted with falsehood; that ness, he abandons those who shut their eyes against the beams of day."

Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his return to it at this time, was only for three months; and as he had as yet seen but a small part of the wonders of the metropolis, he had little to tell his townsmen. He related to me

This last passage is worked up in the tragedy [Sept. 20. 1773] the following minute anecdote

itself as follows:

LEONTIUS.

"That power that kindly spreads
The clouds, a signal of impending showers,
To warn the wand'ring linnet to the shade,
Beheld, without concern, expiring Greece,
And not one prodigy foretold our fate.
DEMETRIUS.

"A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it ;
A feeble government, eluded laws,
A factious populace, luxurious nobles,
And all the maladies of sinking states.
When public villany, too strong for justice,
Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin,
Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders,
Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard?
When some neglected fabric nods beneath
The weight of years, and totters to the tempest,
Must heaven despatch the messengers of light,
Or wake the dead, to warn us of its fall?"

MAHOMET (to IRENE). "I have tried thee, and joy to find that thou deservest to be loved by Mahomet,

with a mind great as his own. Sure, thou art an

error of nature, and an exception to the rest of thy sex, and art immortal; for sentiments like thine were never to sink into nothing. I thought all the thoughts of the fair had been to select the graces of the day, dispose the colours of the flaunting (flowing) robe, tune the voice and roll the eye, place the gem, choose the dress, and add new roses to the fading cheek, but sparkling."

Thus in the tragedy:

"Illustrious maid, new wonders fix me thine;
Thy soul completes the triumphs of thy face;
I thought, forgive my fair, the noblest aim,
The strongest effort of a female soul
Was but to choose the graces of the day,
To tune the tongue, to teach the eyes to roll,
Dispose the colours of the flowing robe,
And add new roses to the faded cheek."

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of this period:- "In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelWhen I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute."

He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson; but her daughter, who had lived with them at Edial, was left with her relations in the country. His lodgings were for some time in Woodstock Street, near Hanover Square, and afterwards in Castle Street, near Cavendish Square. As there is something pleasingly interesting, to many, in tracing so great a man through all his different habitations, I shall [here] present my readers with an exact list of his lodgings and houses, in order of time, which, in placid condescension to my respectful cu to me, but without specifying how long he riosity, he one evening [Oct. 10. 1779] dictated

lived at each.

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15. Inner Temple-lane, No. 1.
16. Johnson-court, Fleet-street, No. 7.
17. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, No. 8.

1748]

[1748].

[1758].

[1759].

[1760).

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In the progress of his life I shall have occasion to mention some of them as connected with particular incidents, or with the writing of par

discovered it, the year in which Johnson first appears in any of these residences.- CROKER.

3 In a letter dated March 31. 1741, Johnson states that he has recently removed to the Black Boy in the Strand, over against Durham Yard."— CROKER.

ticular parts of his works. To some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but when we consider the punctilious exactness with which the different houses in which Milton resided have been traced by the writers of his life, a similar enthusiasm may be pardoned in the biographer of Johnson.

His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterwards solicited Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury Lane theatre, to have it acted at his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it was not patronised by some man of high rank; and it was not acted till 1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre.

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 as an adventurer in literature. 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.' ." I suppose, indeed, that every young author has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him, and in which he has first had an opportunity to see himself in print, without the risk of exposing his name. I myself recollect such impressions from the Scots Magazine, which was begun at Edinburgh in the year 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgment, accuracy, and propriety. cannot help thinking of it with an affectionate regard. Johnson has dignified the Gentleman's Magazine by the importance with which he invests the life of Cave; but he has given it still greater lustre by the various admirable essays which he wrote for it.

I yet

Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends to make a complete list of his writings, and talked of doing it, I believe with a serious intention that they should all be collected on

his own account, he put it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one in his own handwriting, which contains a certain number; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, partly from occasional information given by him to his friends, and partly from internal evidence.2

His first performance in the Gentleman's Magazine, which for many years was his principal source of employment and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March, 1738, addressed to the editor in so happy a style of compliment, that Cave must have been destitute both of taste and sensibility, had he not felt himself highly gratified.3

Ad URBANUM.*

URBANE, nullis fesse laboribus, URBANE, nullis victe calumniis, Cui fronte sertum in eruditâ Perpetuò viret et virebit;

Quid moliatur gens imitantium, Quid et minetur, solicitus parùm, Vacare solis perge Musis,

Juxta animo studiisque felix.

Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, Fidens, superbo frange silentio ; Victrix per obstantes catervas Sedulitas animosa tendet.

Intende nervos, fortis, inanibus Risurus olim nisibus æmuli; Intende jam nervos, habebis Participes operæ Camœnas.

Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere Novit, fatigatamque nugis Utilibus recreare mentem.

1 Johnson never could have said seriously that he looked at St. John's Gate as the printing-office of Cave, with reverence. The Gentleman's Magazine had been, at this time, but six years before the public, and its contents were, even when Johnson himself had contributed to improve it, not much entitled to reverence: Johnson's reverence would have been more justly excited by the recollections connected with the ancient Gate itself, the last relic of the once extensive and magnificent Priory of the heroic knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, suppressed at the Dissolution, and destroyed by successive dilapidations? Its last prior, Sir William Weston, though compensated with the annual pension (enormous in those days) of 10004., died of a broken heart, on Ascensionday, 1540, the very day the house was suppressed. — CROKER, 1831. I learn with pleasure that this relique of antiquity, which is much dilapidated, is about to be carefully restored. -CHOKER, 1846.

While, in the course of my narrative, I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with

regard to their authenticity, and for that purpose shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (†) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him I shall give my reasons. BOSWELL.

3 Taste and sensibility were very certainly not the distinguishing qualities of Cave; but was this ode, indeed, "a happy style of compliment?" Are "fronte sertum in erudita"-" Linguæ plumbea spicula" — Victrix per obstantes catervas"- Lycoris and Iris - the rose-the violet-and the rainbow-in any way appropriate to the printer of St. John's Gate, his magazine, or his antagonists? How Johnson would in later life have derided, in another, such misapplied pedantry! Mr. Murphy surmises that "this ode may have been suggested to the mind of Johnson, who had meditated a history of the modern Latin poets (see antè, p. 22.), by Casimir's ode to Pope Urban,

'Urbane regum maxime, maxime
Urbane vatum.'"-CROKER.

Texente nymphis serta Lycoride,
Rosa ruborem sic viola adjuvat
Immista, sic Iris refulget

Æthereis variata fucis,'

S. J.

be respectably recorded in the literary annals of this country. He was descended of an ancient family in Scotland; but having a small patrimony, and being an adherent of the unIt appears that he was now enlisted by Mr. fortunate house of Stuart, he could not accept Cave as a regular coadjutor in his magazine, of any office in the State; he therefore came by which he probably obtained a tolerable to London, and employed his talents and livelihood. At what time, or by what means, learning as an "author by profession." His he had acquired a competent knowledge both writings in history, criticism, and politics, of French and Italian, I do not know2; but had considerable merit. He was the first he was so well skilled in them, as to be suf- English historian who had recourse to that ficiently qualified for a translator. That part authentic source of information, the Parliaof his labour which consisted in emendation mentary Journals; and such was the power of and improvement of the productions of other his political pen, that, at an early period, contributors, like that employed in levelling government thought it worth their while to ground, can be perceived only by those who keep it quiet by a pensions, which he enjoyed had an opportunity of comparing the original till his death. Johnson esteemed him enough with the altered copy. What we certainly to wish that his life should be written. The know to have been done by him in this way debates in Parliament, which were brought was the debates in both houses of Parliament, home and digested by Guthrie, whose memory, under the name of "The Senate of Lilliput," "3 though surpassed by others who have since sometimes with feigned denominations of the followed him in the same department, was yet several speakers, sometimes with denominations very quick and tenacious, were sent by Cave formed of the letters of their real names, in to Johnson for his revision; and, after some the manner of what is called anagram, so that time, when Guthrie had attained to greater they might easily be deciphered. Parliament variety of employment, and the speeches were then kept the press in a kind of mysterious more and more enriched by the accession of awe, which made it necessary to have re- Johnson's genius, it was resolved that he should course to such devices. In our time it has do the whole himself, from the scanty notes acquired an unrestrained freedom, so that the furnished by persons employed to attend in people in all parts of the kingdom have a fair, both houses of Parliament. Sometimes, howopen, and exact report of the actual proceed- ever, as he himself told me, he had nothing ings of their representatives and legislators, more communicated to him than the names of which in our constitution is highly to be valued; the several speakers, and the part which they though, unquestionably, there has of late been had taken in the debate. too much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most respectable character and situation.

This important article of the Gentleman's Magazine was, for several years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man who deserves to

1 A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following. "Hail, Urban! indefatigable man," &c. &c.— Boswell.

The following translation, attributed by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Jackson of Canterbury, is less vapid than that quoted by Boswell, and appeared in the year of Johnson's death, 1784:

"Urban, whom neither toil profound

Fatigues, nor calumnies o'erthrow ;-
The wreath, thy learned brows around,
Still grows, and will for ever grow.

Of rivals let no cares infest,

Of what they threaten or prepare;
Blest in thyself, thy projects blest,

Thy hours still let the muses share.
The leaden shafts which folly throws,
In silent dignity despise :
Superior o'er opposing foes,

Thy vigorous diligence shall rise.
Exert thy strength, each vain design,
Each rival soon shalt thou disdain;
Arise, for see thy task to join,

Approach the muses' fav'ring train.
How grateful to each muse the page,

Where grave with sprightly themes are join'd;
And useful levities engage,

And recreate the wearied mind.

CHAPTER VI. 1738-1741. "London, a Poem."— Letters to Cave. - Endeavours to obtain the Degree of M. A. · Recommended

Thus the pale violet to the rose

Adds beauty 'midst the garland's dyes!
And thus the changeful rainbow throws

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Its varied splendours o'er the skies."- CROKER.

As to

2 French it seems early, as he translated Lobo in 1733; but he certainly never attained ease and Ouency in speaking that language. We see by his communication with General Paoli (10th Oct. 1769), and by a letter to a French lady, (post under Nov. 1775), if indeed these specimens were not elaborated beforehand, that he could write it freely. Italian, we have just seen (p. 28.) that he proposed to translate Father Paul from the original, and in a letter to Cave, undated, but prior to 1744, he gave an opinion on some Italian production. His attention had, probably, been directed to that language by the volume of Petrarch mentioned antè, p. 12. CHOKER

3 They appeared under this title, for the first time, in June 1738; but as to Johnson's share in them, we shall see more presently. CROKER.

"The

4 How much poetry he wrote I know not; but he informed me that he was the author of the beautiful little piece, Eagle and Robin Redbreast," in the collection of poems entitled, "The Union," though it is there said to be written by Alexander Scott, before the year 1600.- BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham has seen a letter of Jos. Warton's, which states that this poem was written by his brother Tom, who edited the volume.-CROKER, 1846.

5 See, in D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, vol. i. p. 5., a letter from Guthrie to the minister, dated June 3. 1762. stating that a pension of 2007. a-year had been “regularly and quarterly" paid him ever since the year 1745-6. Guthrie was born at Brechin, in 1708, and died in 1770. CROKER.

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THUS was Johnson employed during some of the best years of his life, as a mere literary labourer "for gain, not glory," solely to obtain an honest support. He, however, indulged himself in occasional little sallies, which the French so happily express by the term jeux d'esprit, and which will be noticed in their order, in the progress of this work.

There are in Oldham's imitation, many prosaic verses and bad rhymes, and his poem sets out with a strange inadvertent blunder :

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Though much concern'd to leave my old dear
friend,

I must, however, his design commend
Of fixing in the country."

It is plain he was not going to leave his friend; his friend was going to leave him. A young lady at once corrected this with good critical sagacity, to

"Though much concern'd to lose my old dear friend."

There is one passage in the original better transfused by Oldham than by Johnson:

"Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,

Quàm quod ridiculos homines facit —”
which is an exquisite remark on the galling
meanness and contempt annexed to poverty.
Johnson's imitation is,-

"Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest."

But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and "gave the world assurance of the man," was his "London, a Poem, in imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal;" which came out in May this year, and burst forth with a splendour, the rays of which will for ever encircle his name. Boileau had imitated the same satire with great success, applying it to Paris; but an attentive comparison will satisfy every reader, that he is much excelled by the English Juvenal. Oldham had also imitated Oldham's, though less elegant, is more just,— it, and applied it to London; all which performances concur to prove, that great cities, in every age, and in every country, will furnish similar topics of satire. Whether Johnson had previously read Oldham's imitation I do not know; but it is not a little remarkable, that there is scarcely any coincidence found between the two performances, though upon the very same subject. The only instances are, in describing London as the sink of foreign

worthlessness:

-

"the common shore,

Where France does all her filth and ordure pour."
OLDHAM.

"The common shore of Paris and of Rome." JOHNSON.

And,

No calling or profession comes amiss,
A needy monsieur can be what he please."
OLDHAM,

"All sciences a fasting monsieur knows." JOHNSON.

The particulars which Oldham has collected, both as exhibiting the horrors of London, and of the times, contrasted with better days, are different from those of Johnson, and in general well chosen, and well expressed.2

1 It is hardly fair to compare the poems in this antagonist way: Boileau's was a mere badinage, complaining of, or rather laughing at, the personal dangers and inconveniences of Paris. Johnson's main object, like Juvenal's, was to satirise gravely the moral depravity of an overgrown city.CROKER.

I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners of the age in London, in the last century, to

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Nothing in poverty so ill is borne,
As its exposing men to grinning scorn."

Where or in what manner this poem was composed, I am sorry that I neglected to ascertain with precision from Johnson's own authority. He has marked upon his corrected copy of the first edition of it, "Written in 1738;" and, as it was published in the month of May in that year, it is evident that much time was not employed in preparing it for the press. The history of its publication I am enabled to give in a very satisfactory manner; and judging from myself, and many of my friends, I trust that it will not be uninteresting to my readers.

We may be certain, though it is not expressly named in the following letters to Mr. Cave, in 1738, that they all relate to it :

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

"Castle Street, Wednesday Morning. [March, 1738.] "SIR, - When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not expect a repetition of this same pleasure so soon; for a pleasure I shall always think it, to converse in any manner with an ingenious and candid man: but having the enclosed poem in my hands to dispose of for the benefit of the author (of whose abilities I shall say nothing, since I send you his performance), I believe I could not procure more advantageous terms from

shield from the sneer of English ridicule, what was, some
time ago, too common a practice in my native city of Edin-
burgh!

"If what I've said can't from the town affright,
Consider other dangers of the night;
When brickbats are from upper stories thrown,
And emptied chamberpots come pouring down
From garret windows."- BoSWELL.

D

any person than from you, who have so much distinguished yourself by your generous encouragement of poetry; and whose judgment of that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle' can give me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different manner from a mercenary bookseller, who counts the lines he is to purchase, and considers nothing but the bulk. I cannot help taking notice, that, besides what the author may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune. I beg, therefore, that you will favour me with a letter to-morrow, that I may know what you can afford to allow him, that he may either part with it to you, or find out (which I do not expect) some other way more to his satisfaction.

"I have only to add, that as I am sensible I have transcribed it very coarsely, which, after having altered it, I was obliged to do, I will, if you please to transmit the sheets from the press, correct it for you; and take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.

"By exerting on this occasion your usual generosity, you will not only encourage learning, and relieve distress, but (though it be in comparison of the other motives of very small account) oblige, in a very sensible manner, Sir, your very humble "SAM. JOHNSON."

servant,

2

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

'Monday, No. 6. Castle Street. [March, 1738.] "SIR, I am to return you thanks for the present you were so kind as to send by me, and to entreat that you will be pleased to inform me, by the penny-post, whether you resolve to print the poem. If you please to send it me by the post, with a note to Dodsley, I will go and read the lines to him, that we may have his consent to put his name in the title-page. As to the printing, if it can be set immediately about, I will be so much the author's friend, as not to content myself with mere solicitations in his favour. I propose, if my calculation be near the truth, to engage for the reimbursement of all that you shall lose by an impression of five hundred; provided, as you very generously propose, that the profit, if any, be set aside for the author's use, excepting the present you made, which, if he be a gainer, it is fit he should repay. I beg that you will let one of your servants write an exact account of the expense of such an impression, and send it with the poem, that I may know what I engage for. I am very

1 No doubt the Ode "Ad Urbanum," the publication of which, in March 1738, and that of London in May, fix the date of this and the following interesting letters.CROKER.

2 Though Cave hesitated about printing the poem, be seems to have relieved the pressing wants of the author by a present.CROKER.

3 A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account, post, under April 30. 1773.- BosWELL.

4 The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. This lady, of whom frequent mention will be found in these Memoirs, was daughter of Nicholas Carter, D.D. She [was born at Deal in 1717, and] died, in Clarges Street, February 19. 1806, in her eighty-ninth year.- MALONE. Her early acquaintance with Johnson is thus noticed by her nephew and biographer:

sensible, from your generosity on this occasion, of your regard to learning, even in its unha est state; and cannot but think such a temper deserving of the gratitude of those who suffer so often from a contrary disposition. I am, Sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

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JOHNSON TO CAVE.

[April, 1738.] "SIR, I waited on you to take the copy to Dodsley's: as I remember the number of lines which it contains, it will be no longer than Euge. nio, with the quotations, which must be subjoined at the bottom of the page; part of the beauty of the performance (if any beauty be allowed it) consisting in adapting Juvenal's sentiments to modern facts and persons. It will, with those additions, very conveniently make five sheets. And since the expense will be no more, I shall contentedly insure it, as I mentioned in my last. If it be not therefore gone to Dodsley's, I beg it may be sent me by the penny-post, that I may have it in the evening. I have composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand. Pray send me word when you will begin upon the poem, for it is a long way to walk. I would leave my Epigram, but have not daylight to transcribe it. I am, Sir, yours, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON."

JOHNSON TO CAVE.

[April, 1738.] "SIR,I am extremely obliged by your kind letter, and will not fail to attend you to-morrow with Irene, who looks upon you as one of her best friends.

"I was to-day with Mr. Dodsley, who declares very warmly in favour of the paper you sent him, which he desires to have a share in, it being, as he says, a creditable thing to be concerned in. I knew not what answer to make till I had consulted you, nor what to demand on the author's part; but am very willing that, if you please, he should have a part in it, as he will undoubtedly be more diligent to disperse and promote it. If you can send me word to-morrow what I shall say to him, I will settle matters, and bring the poem with me for the press, which, as the town empties, we cannot be too quick with. I am, Sir, yours, &c.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

To us who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, and masterly versification of this poem, it is a matter of curiosity to observe the diffidence with which its author brought it forward into public notice, while he is so cautious as not to avow it to be his own produc

"Mr. Cave was the means of introducing her to many author: and scholars of note; among those was Dr. Johnson. Thi was early in his life, and his name was then but beginning to be known, having just published his celebrated Imitation o the Third Satire of Juvenal, under the name of London Neither this work nor his general character were as yo much known in the country; for Dr. Carter, in a letter to hi daughter, dated June 25. 1738, says: You mention Johnson but that is a name with which I am utterly unacquainted Neither his scholastic, critical, nor poetical character eve reached my ears. I a little suspect his judgment, if he is ver fond of Martial. Their friendship continued as long a Johnson lived." Pennington's Life of Mrs. Carter, p. 39. CROKER.

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