1761]

LITERARY FRAUDS

69

booksellers, was, as Johnson told me, a singular character. When Akenside's Pleasure of the Imagination first came out, he did not put his name to the poem. Rolt went over to

Dublin, published an edition of it, and put his own name to it. Upon the fame of this he lived for several months, being entertained at the best tables as "the ingenious Mr. Rolt." His conversation, indeed, did not discover much of the fire of a poet; but it was recollected that both Addison and Thomson were equally dull till excited by wine. Several instances of such literary fraud have been detected. Some years ago a little novel, entitled The Man of Feeling, was assumed by Mr. Eccles, a young Irish clergyman, who was afterwards drowned near Bath. He had been at the pains to transcribe the whole book, with blottings, interlineations, and corrections that it might be shown to several people as an original. It was, in truth, the production of Mr. Henry Mackenzie, an attorney in the Exchequer at Edinburgh; but the belief with regard to Mr. Eccles became so general that it was thought necessary to publish an advertisement in the newspapers, contradicting the report. I can conceive this kind of fraud to be very easily practiced with successful effrontery. The filiation of a literary performance is difficult of proof; seldom is there any witness present at its birth. A man, either in confidence or by improper means, obtains possession of a copy of it in manuscript, and boldly publishes it as his own. The true author, in many cases, may not be able to make his title clear.

[1762]. A lady having at this time solicited [Johnson] to obtain the Archbishop of Canterbury's patronage to have her son sent to the University, he wrote to her the following answer:

"MADAM: When you made your request to me, you should have considered, madam, what you were asking. You ask me to solicit a great man, to whom I never spoke, for a young person whom I had never seen, upon a supposition which I had no means of knowing to be true. There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I should choose to supplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all the possible objects of his bounty,

1. Drowned near Bath. In attempting to save a boy's life.

the Archbishop should choose your son. I know, madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted when interest opposes it; but surely, madam, you must allow that there is no reason why that should be done by me which every other man may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man can do properly without some very particular relation both to the Archbishop and to you. If I could help you in this exigence by any proper means, it would give me pleasure; but this proposal is so very remote from usual methods that I cannot comply with it but at the risk of such answer and suspicions as I believe you do not wish me to undergo.

"I have seen your son this morning; he seems a pretty youth, and will, perhaps, find some better friend than I can procure him; but though he should at last miss the University, he may still be wise, useful, and happy.

"I am, madam,

"Your most humble servant,

"June 8, 1762.”

"SAM. JOHNSON.

"To Mr. Joseph Baretti,1 at Milan.

"LONDON, July 20, 1762 "SIR: As you have now been long away, I suppose your curiosity may pant for some news of your old friends. Miss Williams and I live much as we did. Mr. Reynolds gets six thousands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much suspicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match." Mr. Richardson is dead of an apoplexy, and his second daughter has married a merchant.

1. Baretti. An Italian writer ardently devoted to London life and English literature. He has described himself as a fiery fellow who turns savage and whose hand turns to his sword. One night in London, attacked by three bullies, he mortally stabbed one in self-defense, and had difficulty in being acquitted of murder. Edmund Burke, Garrick, Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson testified in his behalf.

2. Cheated in his match. He was not long married before his wife ran away. Soon after, apparently much to his gratification, she was arrested for picking pockets.

1762]

GRANT OF A PENSION

71

"My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myself that you would rather hear of me than of those whom I have mentioned; but of myself I have very little which I care to tell. Last winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My playfellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter-in-law1 has lost the beauty and gayety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a diversity of good and evil that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart.

"Sir.

"Your most affectionate, humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

The accession of George the Third to the throne of these kingdoms opened a new and brighter prospect to men of literary merit. His present Majesty's education in this country, as well as his taste and beneficence, prompted him to be the 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 pension2 of three hundred pounds a year.

1. Daughter-in-law. In other words, step-daughter; Lucy Porter. Five years later Johnson speaks jocosely of her "hoary virginity." "Lucy is a philosopher; and considers me as one of the external and accidental things that are to be taken and left without emotion." Johnson, 1771. "When you complained for want of oysters, I ordered you a barrel weekly for a month; you sent me word sooner that you had enough, but I did not countermand the rest. If you could not eat them, could you not give them away?" Johnson in 1778 to Miss Porter. 2. Pension. Johnson's definition of pension in his Dictionary had included the following sentence: "In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country."

The Earl of Bute,' who was then Prime Minister, had the honor to announce this instance of his Sovereign's bounty, concerning which various stories have been propagated, maliciously representing it as a political bribe to Johnson to desert his avowed principles and become the tool of a government which he held to be founded in usurpation. I have taken care to have it in my power to refute them from the most authentic information. Lord Bute told me that Mr. Wedderburne,2 now Lord Loughborough, was the person who first mentioned this subject to him.

3

Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy, who then lived a good deal both with [Johnson] and Mr. Wedderburne, told me that it was perfectly understood by all parties that the pension was merely honorary. Sir Joshua Reynolds told me that Johnson called on him and said that he wished to consult his friends as to the propriety of his accepting this mark of the royal favor. Sir Joshua answered that there could be no objection to his receiving from the King a reward for literary merit. Johnson did not call again till he had accepted the pension and had waited on Lord Bute to thank him. He then 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.

1. Earl of Bute. So frightened by hostile mobs that he resigned in his first year.

2. Wedderburne. Very competent but unscrupulous. "He. hears himself despised, execrated, detested without fear and without anger." Junius.

3. Murphy. Arthur Murphy, a retired actor, author, and lawyer. Gentlemanly and quiet, he was well adapted to act as an intermediary on matters which required tact. At Lord Loughborough's request he first tendered the suggestion of a pension to Johnson. It was in the lexicographer's "wretched" rooms in Inner Temple Lane. Johnson made a long pause, fell into a deep meditation, recalled his definition of pensioner, and only on the following day "gave up all his scruples." For Murphy's biographical essay on Dr. Johnson, see Birkbeck Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies.

1762]

LETTER TO THE EARL OF BUTE

73

Mr. Murphy and the late Mr. Sheridan severally contended for the distinction of having been the first who mentioned to Mr. Wedderburne that Johnson ought to have a pension. When I spoke of this to Lord Loughborough, he said, "All his friends assisted"; and when I told him that Mr. Sheridan strenuously asserted his claim to it, his Lordship said, "He rang the bell."

But I shall not detain my readers longer by any words of my own, on a subject on which I am happily enabled to present them with the following letter:

"To the Right Honorable the Earl of Bute.

"MY LORD: When the bills* were yesterday delivered to me by Mr. Wedderburne, I was informed by him of the future favors which his Majesty has, by your Lordship's recommendation, been induced to intend for me.

"Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed; your Lordship's kindness includes every circumstance that can gratify delicacy or enforce obligation. You have conferred your favors on a man who has neither alliance nor interest, who has not merited them by services nor courted them by officiousness; you have spared him the shame of solicitation, and the anxiety of suspense.

"What has been thus elegantly given, will, I hope, not be reproachfully enjoyed; I shall endeavor to give your Lordship the only recompense which generosity desires-the gratification of finding that your benefits are not improperly bestowed. I am, my Lord,

"July 20, 1762."

"Your Lordship's most obliged,

"Most obedient, and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON.

This year his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds paid a visit of some weeks to his native country, Devonshire, in which he was accompanied by Johnson, who was much pleased with this jaunt.

Sir Joshua mentions a very characteristical anecdote of