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ation of the work: and it must be confessed,
that they contain some studied compliments,
so finely turned, that if there had been no
previous offence, it is probable that Johnson
would have been highly delighted. Praise, in
general, was pleasing to him; but by praise
from a man of rank and elegant accomplish-
ments, he was peculiarly gratified.
ship says,

dare say, very fully supply that want, and greatly
contribute to the farther spreading of our language
in other countries. Learners were discouraged, by
finding no standard to resort to; and, consequently,
thought it incapable of any. They will now be
undeceived and encouraged."

This courtly device'
His Lord-

"I think the public in general, and the republic of letters in particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson for having undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various works of Johnson already published, we have good reason to believe, that he will bring this as near to perfection as any man could do. The Plan of it, which he published some years ago, seems to me to be a proof of it. Nothing can be more rationally imagined, or more accurately and elegantly expressed. I therefore recommend the previous perusal of it to all those who intend to buy the Dictionary, and who, I suppose, are all those who can afford it."

.....

failed of its effect. Johnson, who thought that "all was false and hollow," despised the honied words, and was even indignant that Lord Chesterfield should, for a moment, imagine that he could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning Lord Chesterfield, upon this occasion, was, "Sir, after making great professions, he had, for many years, taken no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling in 'The World' about it. Upon which, I wrote him a letter, expressed in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him."

favour me with a copy of it, that so excellent a composition might not be lost to posterity. He delayed from time to time to give it me2; till at last, in 1781, when we were on a visit at Mr. Dilley's, at Southhill in Bedfordshire, he was pleased to dictate it to me from memory. He afterwards found among his papers a copy of it, which he had dictated to Mr. Baretti, with its title and corrections, in his own handwriting. This he gave to Mr. Langton; adding, that if it were to come into print, he wished it to be from that copy. By Mr. Langton's kindness, I am enabled to enrich my work with a perfect transcript of what the world has so eagerly desired to see.

This is that celebrated letter of which so much has been said, and about which curiosity "It must be owned, that our language is, at has been so long excited, without being gratipresent, in a state of anarchy, and hitherto, per-fied. I for many years solicited Johnson to haps, it may not have been the worse for it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been imported, adopted, and natural ized from other languages, which have greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve what real strength and beauty it may have borrowed from others; but let it not, like the Tarpeian maid, be overwhelmed and crushed by unnecessary ornaments. The time for discrimination seems to be now come. Toleration, adoption, and naturalisation have run their length. Good order and authority are now necessary. But where shall we find them, and, at the same time, the obedience due to them? We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this principle, I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare, that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay, more; I will not only obey him like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my Pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair, but no longer. More than this he cannot well require; for, I presume that obedience can never be expected, when there is neither terror to enforce, nor interest to invite it."

"But a Grammar, a Dictionary, and a History of our language through its several stages, were still wanting at home, and importunately called for from abroad. Mr. Johnson's labours will now, I

1 It does not appear that there was any thing like “device” or "artifice" in the affair.-CROKER.

* Dr. Johnson appeared to have had a remarkable delicacy with respect to the circulation of this letter; for Dr.Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, informs me, that having many years ago pressed him to be allowed to read it to the second Lord Hardwicke, who was very desirous to hear it (promising, at the same time, that no copy of it should be taken), Johnson seemed much pleased that it had attracted the attention of a nobleman of such a respectable character; but after pausing some

TO THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. "February 7. 1755.

"MY LORD, — I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World,' that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

"When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre3;

or

time, declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile," No, Sir; I have hurt the dog too much already; words to that purpose. BosWELL. This admission favours my opinion that Johnson, when the first ebullition of temper had subsided, felt that he had been unreasonably violent. — CROKER.

3 No very moderate expectation for "a retired and uncourtly scholar." Johnson's personal manners and habits, even at a later and more polished period of his life, would probably not have been much to Lord Chesterfield's taste; but it must be

that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

"Seven years, my lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance', one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for 1 never had a patron before.

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the

rocks.

“Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

"Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation. My Lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, SAM. JOHNSON." "15

"While this was the talk of the town (says Dr. Adams in a letter to me), I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who, finding that I was acquainted with Johnson, desired me earnestly to carry his compliments to him, and to tell him, that he honoured him for his manly behaviour in rejecting these condescensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the treatment he had received from him with a proper spirit. Johnson was visibly pleased with this compliment, for he had always a high opinion of Warburton." Indeed, the force of mind which appeared in this letter, was congenial with that which Warburton himself amply possessed.

There is a curious minute circumstance which

struck me, in comparing the various editions

of Johnson's Imitations of Juvenal. In the tenth Satire one of the couplets upon the vanity of wishes even for literary distinction stood thus:

"Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the garret, and the jail." But after experiencing the uneasiness which

remembered, that Johnson's introduction to Lord Chesterfield did not take place till his lordship was past fifty, and he was just then attacked by a disease which gradually estranged him from all society. The neglect lasted, it is charged, from 1748 to 1755: now, his private letters to his most intimate friends will prove that during that period Lord Chesterfield may be excused for not cultivating Johnson's society:-e. g. 20th Jan. 1749. My old disorder in my head hinderet me from acknowledging your former letters." 30th June, 1752. "I am here in my hermitage, very deaf, and, consequently, alone; but I am less dejected than most people in my situation would be." 10th Oct. 1753. "I belong no more to social life." 16th Nov. 1753. "I know my place, and form my plan accordingly, for I strike society out of it." 10th July, 1755. "My deafness is extremely increased, and daily increasing, and cuts me wholly off from the society of others, and my other complaints deny me the society of myself." &c. &c. Johnson, perhaps, knew nothing of all this, and imagined that Lord Chesterfield declined his acquaintance on some opinion derogatory to his personal pretensions. Mr. Tyers, however, suggests a more precise and probable ground for Johnson's animosity than Boswell gives, by hinting that Johnson expected some pecuniary assistance from Lord Chesterfield. He says, "It does not appear that Lord Chesterfield showed any substantial proofs of approbation to our philologer. A small present Johnson would have disdained, and he was not of a temper to put up with the affront of a disappointment. He revenged himself in a letter to his lordship written with great acrimony Lord Chesterfield indeed commends and recommends Mr. Johnson's Dictionary in two or three numbers of The World: ' but not words

alone please him.'"' Biog. Sketch, p. 7.- CROKER.

The following note is subjoined by Mr. Langton: -" Dr. Johnson, when he gave me this copy of his letter, desired that I would annex to it his information to me, that whereas it is said in the letter that no assistance has been received,' he did once receive from Lord Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds; but as that was so inconsiderable a sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find a place in a letter of the kind that this was."-BOSWELL.

But this surely is an unsatisfactory excuse; for the sum, though so inconsiderable, was one which Johnson tells us, that Paul Whitehead, then a fashionable poet, received for a new work: it was as much as Johnson himself had received for the copyright of his best poetical production; and when Dr. Madden, some years after, gave him the same sum for

revising a work of his, Johnson said the Doctor "was very generous: for ten gnineas was to me, at that time, a great sum," (see post, 1756); and, as I suppose it was given when the Plan was submitted to Lord Chesterfield, it really was a not illiberal return. At all events, when Johnson alleged against him such a trifle as the waiting in his anteroom, he ought not to have omitted the pecuniary obligat on, even if it had been more inconsiderable. — CROKER,

2 I confess I do not see the object, nor indeed the meaning, of this allusion. - CROKER.

3 The notice could not, for any useful purpose, have been earlier. Johnson may have felt, as Mr. Tyers intimates, that some other kind of notice was not taken, but "the notice his lordship was pleased to take" was peculiarly well timed, and could not have come sooner.-CROKER.

4 In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently alludes to the loss of his wife. We find the same tender recollection recurring to his mind upon innumerable occasions; and, perhaps, no man ever more forcibly felt the truth of the sentiment so elegantly expressed by my friend Mr. Malone, in his prologue to Mr. Jephson's tragedy of " Julia: "

"Vain wealth, and fame, and fortune's fostering care,
If no fond breast the splendid blessings share ;
And, each day's bustling pageantry once past,
There, only there, our bliss is found at last."-BOSWELL.

5 Upon comparing this copy with that which Dr. Johnson dictated to me from recollection, the variations are found to be so slight, that this must be added to the many other proofs which he gave of the wonderful extent and accuracy of his memory. To gratify the curious in composition, I have deposited both the copies in the British Museum. - BoswELL. 6 Soon after Edwards's" Canons of Criticism" came out, Johnson was dining at Tonson the bookseller's, with Hayman the painter and some more company. Hayman related to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that the conversation having turned upon Edwards's book, the gentlemen praised it much, and Johnson allowed its merit. But when they went farther, and appeared to put that author upon a level with Warburton, "Nay, (said Johnson) he has given him some smart hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men ; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."- BosWELL. See the fine passage in his preface to Shakspeare on Warburton and his antagonists.-P. CUNNINGHAM.

ET. 45.

Lord Chesterfield's fallacious patronage made him feel, he dismissed the word garret from the sad group, and in all the subsequent editions the line stands

"Toil, envy, want, the Patron, and the jail.”

That Lord Chesterfield must have been mortified by the lofty contempt, and polite, yet keen, satire with which Johnson exhibited him to himself in this letter, it is impossible to doubt. He, however, with that glossy duplicity which was his constant study, affected to be quite unconcerned. Dr. Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert Dodsley that he was sorry Johnson had written his letter to Lord Chesterfield. Dodsley, with the true feelings of trade, said "he was very sorry too; for that he had a property in the Dictionary, to which his lordship's patronage might have been of consequence." He then told Dr. Adams, that Lord Chesterfield had shown him the letter. "I should have imagined (replied Dr. Adams) that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.”—“Poh! (said Dodsley), do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord Chesterfield? Not at all, sir. It lay upon his table, where any body might see it. He read it to me; said, "This man has great powers,' pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were expressed." This air of indifference, which imposed upon the worthy Dodsley, was certainly nothing but a specimen of that dissimulation which Lord Chesterfield inculcated as one of the most essential lessons for the conduct of life. His lordship endeavoured to justify himself to Dodsley from the charges brought against him by Johnson; but we may judge from the flimsiness of his defence, from his having excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying, that "he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did not know where he lived;" as if there could have been the smallest difficulty to inform himself of that circumstance, by inquiring in the literary circle

with which his lordship was well acquainted,
and was, indeed, himself, one of its ornaments.

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Dr. Adams expostulated with Johnson, and suggested, that his not being admitted when he called on him, was probably not to be imputed to Lord Chesterfield; for his lordship had declared to Dodsley, that "he would have turned off the best servant he ever had, if he had known that he denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome; and in confirmation of this, he insisted on Lord Sir, (said Chesterfield's general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men. Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man this day existing." — "No, (said Dr. Adams) there is one person, at least, as proud; I think, by your own account, you are the prouder man of the two."-"But mine (replied Johnson instantly) was defensive pride." This, as Dr. Adams well observed, was one of those happy turns for which he was so remarkably ready.

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Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This man, (said lords! he) I thought, had been a lord among wits: but, I find, he is only a wit among And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed, that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master." 3

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The character of a "respectable Hottentot," in Lord Chesterfield's Letters, has been geneBut I remember rally understood to be meant for Johnson, and I have no doubt that it was. when the Literary Property of those letters was contested in the court of session in Scotland, and Mr. Henry Dundas, one of the counsel for the proprietors, read this character as an exhibition of Johnson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, one of the judges, maintained, with some warmth, that it was not intended as a portrait of Johnson, but of a

1 Why? If, as may have been the case, Lord Chesterfield felt that Johnson was unjust towards him, he would not have been mortified - Il n'y a que la vérité qui blesse. By Mr. Boswell's own confession, it appears that Johnson did not give copies of this letter; that for many years Boswell had in vain solicited him to do so, and that he, after the lapse of twenty years, did so reluctantly. With all these admissions, how can Mr. Boswell attribute to any thing but the magnanimity (if I may so say) of good taste and conscious rectitude, Lord Chesterfield's exposure of a letter which the relenting, if not repenting, author was so willing to bury in oblivion?-CROKER.

2 This, like all the rest of the affair, seems discoloured by prejudice. Lord Chesterfield made no attack on Johnson, who certainly acted on the offensive, and not the defensive. - CROKER.

3 That collection of Letters cannot be vindicated from the serious charge of encouraging, in some passages, one of the vices most destructive to the good order and comfort of society, which his lordship represents as mere fashionable gallantry; and, in others, of inculcating the base practice of dissimulation, and recommending, with disproportionate anxiety, a perpetual attention to external elegance of manners. But it mus, at the same time, be allowed, that they contain many good precepts of conduct, and much genuine information upon life and manners, very happily expressed; and that there was considerable merit in paying so much atten

tion to the improvement of one who was dependent upon his lordship's protection: it has, probably, been exceeded in no instance by the most exemplary parent: and though I can by no means approve of confounding the distinction between lawful and illicit offspring, which is, in effect, insulting the civil establishment of our country, to look no higher; I cannot help thinking it laudable to be kindly attentive to those, of whose existence we have, in any way, been the cause. Mr. Stanhope's character has been unjustly represented as diametrically opposite to what Lord Chesterfield wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, and awkward: but I knew him at Dresden, when he was envoy to that court; and though he could not boast of the graces, he was, in truth, a sensible, civil, well-behaved man. Boswell.

In judging of Lord Chesterfield's Letters, it should be recollected that they were never intended for publication, and were written only to meet a private, particular, and somewhat extraordinary case: and that it is hard that Lord Chesterfield should be held responsible for a publication which he never could have anticipated - but see (post, May, 1776,) Johnson's more favourable and just opinion of these letters, which, bating their lax morality not to be palliated even by the peculiar circumstances under which they were writtenare, I will venture to say, masterpieces of good taste, good writing, and good sense.-CROKER, 1846.

4 Afterwards Viscount Melville. CROKER.

G 4

He died in 1811.

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