attentive in the choice of the passages in which words are authorised, that one may read page after page of his Dictionary with improvement and pleasure: and it should not pass unobserved, that he has quoted no author whose writings had a tendency to hurt sound religion and morality.

The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the press must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated to be paid for the copyright. I understand that nothing was allowed by the booksellers on that account; and I remember his telling me that a large portion of it having, by mistake, been written upon both sides of the paper, so as to be inconvenient for the compositor, it cost him twenty pounds to have it transcribed upon one side only.

He is now to be considered as 'tugging at his oar,' as engaged in a steady continued course of occupation, sufficient to employ all his time for some years; and which was the best preventive of that constitutional melancholy which was ever lurking about him, ready to trouble his quiet. But his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more diversity of employment, and the pleasure of animated relaxation.1 He therefore not only exerted his talents in occasional composition, very different from lexicography, but formed a club in Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, with a

1 [For the sake of relaxation from his literary labours, and probably also for Mrs. Johnson's health, he this summer visited Tunbridge Wells, then a place of much greater resort than it is at present. Here he met Mr. Cibber, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Samuel Richardson, Mr. Whiston, Mr. Onslow (the Speaker), Mr. Pitt, Mr. Lyttelton, and several other distinguished persons. In a print representing some of the remarkable characters' who were at Tunbridge Wells in 1748 (see Richardson's Correspondence), Dr. Johnson stands the first figure.--M.]

view to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse his evening hours. The members associated with him in this little society were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst, Mr. Hawkesworth, afterwards well known by his writings, Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney,1 and a few others of different professions.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for May of this year he wrote a 'Life of Roscommon,' with Notes; which he afterwards much improved (indenting the notes into text), and inserted amongst his Lives of the English Poets.

Mr. Dodsley this year brought out his Preceptor, one of the most valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished the 'preface,' containing a general sketch of the book, with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article; as also 'The Vision of Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,' a most beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say that he thought this was the best thing he ever wrote.

In January 1749 he published The Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated. He, I believe, composed it the preceding year. Mrs.

1 He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middlesex Justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, accepted the usual offer of knighthood. He is author of A History of Music, in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance upon Johnson in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his executors: in consequence of which the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr. Johnson's works, and to write his life.

[This 'Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney,' is Boswell's retort cour. teous to the only reference Hawkins thought fit to make to him in his (Hawkins's) life of Johnson: 'Mr. James Boswell, a native of Scotland.' -A. B.J

2 Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of February following.

Johnson, for the sake of country air, had lodgings at Hampstead, to which he resorted occasionally, and there the greatest part, if not the whole, of this imitation was written. The fervid rapidity with which it was produced is scarcely credible. I have heard him say that he composed seventy lines of it in one day, without putting one of them upon paper till they were finished. I remember when I once regretted to him that he had not given us more of Juvenal's Satires, he said he probably should give more, for he had them all in his head; by which I understood that he had the originals and correspondent allusions floating in his mind, which he could, when he pleased, embody and render permanent without much labour. Some of them, however, he observed, were too gross for imitation.

The profits of a single poem, however excellent, appear to have been very small in the last reign, compared with what a publication of the same size has since been known to yield. I have mentioned upon Johnson's own authority, that for his London he had only ten guineas; and now, after his fame was established, he got for his Vanity of Human Wishes but five guineas more, as is proved by an authentic document in my possession.1

It will be observed that he reserves to himself the right of printing one edition of this satire, which was his practice upon occasion of the sale of all his writings; it being his fixed intention to publish at some

1 Nov. 24, 1784, I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which I assign to him the right of copy of an Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition. SAM. JOHNSON.'

'London, 29 June 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. Johnson's handwriting. JAS. DODSLEY.'