long life to the ftudy of the longitude, and was thought to have made great advances. towards that important difcovery. His letters to Lord Halifax, and the Lords of the Admiralty, partly corrected and partly written by Dr. Johnson, are still extant in the hands of Mr. Nichols *. We there find Dr, Williams, in the eighty-third year of his age, stating, that he had prepared an instrument, which might be called an epitome or miniature of the terraqueous globe, fhewing, with the affiftance of tables conftructed by himself, the variations of the magnetic needle, and ascertaining the longitude for the fafety of navigation. It appears that this fcheme had been referred to Sir Ifaac Newton; but that great philofopher excufing himself on account of his advanced age, allapplications were useless till 1751, when the fubject was referred, by order of Lord Anson, to Dr. Bradley, the celebrated profeffor of aftronomy. His report was unfavourable†, though it allows that a confiderable progress had been made. Dr. Williams, after all his labour and expence, died in a short time after, a melancholy inftance of unrewarded *See Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. and Dec. 1787. merit. His daughter poffeffed uncommon talents, and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her converfation agreeable, and even desirable. To relieve and appease melancholy reflections, Johnson took her home to his house in Gough-square. ' In 1755, Garrick gave her a benefit-play, which produced two hundred pounds. In 1766, the published, by fubfcription, a quarto volume of Mifcellanies, and increased her little stock to three hundred pounds. That fund, with Johnson's protection, fupported her through the remainder of her life. During the two years in which the Rambler was carried on, the Dictionary proceeded by flow degrees. In May 1752, having composed a prayer preparatory to his return from tears and forrow to the duties of life, he resumed his grand defign, and went on with vigour, giving, however, occafional affiftance to his friend Dr. Hawkefworth in the Adventurer, which began foon after the Rambler was laid afide. Some of the most valuable essays in that collection were from the pen of Johnfon. The Dictionary was completed towards the end of 1754; and, Cave being then no more, it was a mortification to the author of that noble addition to to our language, that his old friend did not live to see the triumph of his labours. In May 1755, that great work was published. Johnson was defirous that it should come from one who had obtained academical honours; and for that purpose his friend the Rev. Thomas Warton obtained for him, in the preceding month of February, a diploma for a master's degree from the University of Oxford. Garrick, on the publication of the Dictionary, wrote the following lines: "Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance, "That one English foldier can beat ten of France. "Would we alter the boaft from the fword to the pen, "Our odds are ftill greater, ftill greater our men. "In the deep mines of science though Frenchmen may toil, "Can their ftrength be compar'd to Locke, New "ton, or Boyle? "Let them rally their heroes, fend forth all their "pow'rs, "Their verfemen and profemen, then match them "with ours. "First Shakspeare and Milton, like Gods in the fight, "Have put their whole drama and epic to flight. "In fatires, epiftles, and odes would they cope? "Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope. "And "And Johnfon well arm'd, like a hero of yore, "Has beat Forty French, and will beat Forty more," It is, perhaps, needlefs to mention, that Forty was the number of the French Academy, at the time when their Dictionary. was published to settle their language. In the course of the winter preceding this grand publication, the late Earl of Chefterfield gave two effays in the periodical Paper, called THE WORLD, dated November 28, and December 5, 1754, to prepare the publick for fo important a work. The original plan, addressed to his Lordship in the year 1747, is there mentioned in terms of the highest praise; and this was understood, at the time, to be a courtly way of foliciting a dedication of the Dictionary to himfelf. Johnson treated this civility with difdain. He said to Garrick and others, "have failed a long and painful voyage "round the world of the English language; "and does he now fend out two cockboats "to tow me into harbour?" He had faid, in the last number of the Rambler, "that, 66 having laboured to maintain the dignity "of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the "meannefs of dedication." Such a man, when when he had finished his Dictionary, "not," as he fays himself, "in the foft obfcurities of "retirement, or under the shelter of acade"mic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and "distraction, in sickness and in forrow, and "without the patronage of the great," was not likely to be caught by the lure thrown out by lord Chesterfield. He had in vain fought the patronage of that nobleman; and his pride, exasperated by disappointment, drew from him the following letter, dated in the month of February, 1755. "To the Right Honourable the Earl of "CHESTERFIELD. "MY LORD, "I have been lately informed, by the proprietors of the World, that two papers, "in which my Dictionary is recommended "to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be fo diftinguished is an "honour which, being very little accuf"tomed to favours from the great, I know "not well how to receive, or in what terms "to acknowledge. "When upon fome flight encouragement, "I first visited your Lordship, I was over"powered, like the rest of mankind, by the " enchant 66 |