1 conveniently quarrel any more. 'Cleone' was well acted by all the characters, but Bellamy left nothing to be desired. I went the first night, and supported it as well as I might; for Doddy, you know, is my patron, and I would not desert him. The play was very well received. Doddy, after the danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, and cried at the distress of poor Cleone. "I have left off housekeeping, and therefore made presents of the game which you were pleased to send me. The pheasant I gave to Mr. Richardson,2 the bustard to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot I placed with Miss Williams, to be eaten by myself. She desires that her compliments and good wishes may be accepted by the family; and I make the same request for myself. 4 "Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his price to twenty guineas a head, and Miss is much employed in miniatures. I know not anybody [else] whose prosperity has increased since you left them. 'Murphy is to have his 'Orphan of China' acted next month; and is therefore, I suppose, happy. I wish I could tell you of any great good to which I was approaching, but at present my prospects do not much delight me; however, I am always pleased when I find that you, dear sir, remember your affectionate, humble servant, LETTER 56. TO MR. BURNEY. At Lynne, Norfolk. "SAM. JOHNSON." "LONDON, March 1, 1758. "SIR,-Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular regard from you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my sense of your favours ; but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus distinguished by you. "I am ashamed to tell you that my Shakspeare will not be out so soon as I promised my subscribers; but I did not promise them more than I promised myself. It will, however, be published before summer. "I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, and have 1 The well-known Miss George Ann Bellamy, who played the heroine.-C. [An Apology for her very irregular Life, written bo Herself, in six volumes, was published in 1785.] 2 The authoress of Clarissa. 3 Sir Joshua afterwards greatly advanced his price. I have been informed by Sir Thomas Lawrence, his admirer and rival, that in 1787 his prices were, two hundred guineas for the whole length, one hundred for the half-length, seventy for the kit-cat, and fifty for (what is called) the three-quarters. But even on these prices some increase must have been made, as Horace Walpole said, "Sir Joshua, in his old age, becomes avaricious. He had one thousand guineas for my picture of the three ladies Waldegrave."-Walpoliana. This picture are half-lengths of the three ladies on one canvas.-C. 4 Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua.-C. 5 This letter was written in answer to one, in which was enclosed a draft for the payment of some subscriptions to his Shakspeare. hitherto left very few passages unexplained; where I am quite at loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by commentators. "I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them with more importunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an opportunity. I once printed them at length in the Chronicle, and some of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the Gray's-Inn Journal) introduced them with a splendid encomium. "Since the Life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather all those that have anything of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me. “I am, Sir, your most obliged, and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum, which I take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style. I love to exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend by various eminent hands. "Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had an interview with him in Gough Square, where he dined and drank tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he there found 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. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams's history, and showed him some volumes of his Shakspeare already printed, to prove that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney's opening the first volume, at the Merchant of Venice, he observed to him that he seemed to be more severe on Warburton than Theobald. O poor Tib.! (said Johnson) he was ready knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him.' 'But, Sir, (said Mr. Burney,) you'll have Warburton upon your bones, won't you?' 'No, Sir; he'll not come out : he'll only growl in his den.' 'But you think, Sir, that Warburton is a superior critic to Theobald?''O, Sir, he'd made two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices! The worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there's nothing to be said.' Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet, addressed 'To the most impudent man alive.' He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's Philosophy? 'No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its confutation." " en On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, titled "THE IDLER," ," which came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper, called "The Universal Chronicle, or weekly Gazette," published by Newbery. These essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their total number, twelve were contributed by his friends; of which, Nos. 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas Warton; No. 67, by Mr. Langton; and Nos. 76, 79, and 82, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82,-"and pollute his canvas with deformity," being added by Johnson, as Sir Joshua informed me." -- 1 This is a slight mistake. The first number of "The Idler" appeared on the 15th of April, 1758, in No. 2 of the Universal Chronicle, &c., which was published by J. Payne, for whom also the Rambler had been printed. On the 29th of April this newspaper assumed the title of "Payne's Universal Chronicle," &c.-M. 2 About the year 1756, time had produced a change in the situation of many of Johnson's friends, who were used to meet him in Ivy Lane. Death had taken from them M'Ghie; Barker went to settle as a practising physician in Trowbridge; Dyer went abroad; Hawkesworth was busied in forming new connections: and I had lately made one that removed from me all temptations to pass my evenings from home. The consequence was, that our symposium at the King's Head broke up, and he who had first formed it into a society was left with fewer around him than were able to support it. All this while, the booksellers, who, by his own confession, were his best friends, had their eyes upon Johnson, and reflected with some concern on what seemed to them a misapplication of his talents. The furnishing magazines, reviews, and even newspapers, with literary intelligence, and the authors of books, who could not write them for themselves, with dedications and prefaces, they looked on as employments beneath him, who had attained to such eminence as a writer; they, therefore, in the year 1756, found out for him such a one as seemed to afford a prospect both of amusement and profit: this was an edition of Shakspeare's dramatic works, which, by a concurrence of circumstances, was now become necessary, to answer the increasing demand of the public. A stranger to Johnson's character and temper would have thought, that the study of an author, whose skill in the science of human life was so deep, and whose perfections were so many and various as to be above the reach of all praise, must have been the most pleasing employment that his imagination could suggest, but it was not so: in a visit that he one morning made to me, I congratulated him on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius, and that, requiring none of that severe application which his Dictionary had condemned him to, would, no doubt, be executed con amore. His answer was, "I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of."-And the event was evidence to me, that in this speech he declared his genuine sentiments; for neither did he set himself to collect early editions of his author, old plays, translations of histories, and of the classics, and other materials necessary for his purpose, nor could he be prevailed on to enter 12 VOL. I. into that course of reading, without which it seemed impossible to come at the sense of his author. It was provoking to all his friends to see him waste his days, his weeks, and his months so long, that they feared a mental lethargy had seized him, out of which he would never recover. In this, however, they were happily deceived, for, after two years' inactivity, they find him roused to action-and engaged, not in the prosecution of the work, for the completion whereof he stood doubly bound, but-in a new one, the furnishing a series of periodical essays, entitled, and it may be thought not improperly, "THE IDLER," as his motive to the employment was aversion to a labour he had undertaken, though in the execution, it must be owned, it merited a better name.-HAWKINS. CHAPTER XIII. 1758-1759. "The Idler-Letters to Warton-Letters to Bennet Langton-Illness of Johnson's MotherLetters to her, and to Miss Porter-His Mother's Death-" Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia " -Miscellanies-Excursion to Oxford-Francis Barber-John Wilkes-Smollett-Letter to Mrs. Montagu-Mrs. Ogle-Mylne the Architect. THE IDLER is evidently the work of the same mind which produced the Rambler, but has less body and more spirit. It has more variety of real life, and greater facility of language. He describes the miseries of idleness, with the lively sensations of one who has felt them; and in his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find "This year I hope to learn diligence." Many of these excellent essays were written as hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him one evening, how long it was till the post went out; and on being told about half an hour, he exclaimed, "then we shall do very well." He upon this instantly sat down and finished an Idler, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr. Langton having signified a wish to read it, "Sir, (said he) you shall not do more than I have done myself." He then folded it up, and sent it off. Yet there are in the Idler several papers which show as much profundity of thought, and labor of language, as any of this great man's writings. No. 14, "Robbery of Time;" No. 24, "Thinking;" No. 41, "Death of a Friend;" No. 43, "Flight of Time;" No. 51, "Domestic greatness unattainable;" No. 52, "Self-denial;" No. 58, "Actual, how short of fancied, excellence ;" No. 89, "Physical evil moral good ;" and his concluding paper on "The horror of the last," will prove this assertion. I know not why a 1 See Prayers and Meditations. |