He had spent during the progress of the work the money for which he had contracted to write his Dictionary. We have seen that the reward of his labor was only fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds; and when the expense of amanuenses and paper, and other articles is deducted, his clear profit was very inconsiderable. I once said to him, "I am sorry, sir, you did not get more for your Dictionary." His answer was, "I am sorry too. But it was very well. The booksellers are generous, liberal-minded men." He upon all occasions did ample justice to their character in this respect. He considered them as the patrons of literature.-Boswell. E.: "From the experience which I have had-and I have had a great deal-I have learned to think better of mankind." Johnson: "From my experience, I have found them worse in commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat, than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another good than I had conceived." J.: "Less just, and more beneficent." Johnson: "And really it is wonderful, considering how much attention is necessary for men to take care of themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon them-it is wonderful how much they do for others. As it is said of the greatest liar that he tells more truth than falsehood, so it may be said of the worst man that he does more good than evil."-Boswell. GENEROSITY. On Friday, March 20th, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charitable purpose, Mrs. Desmoulins, and I think her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins her self told me he allowed her half a guinea a week. Let it be remembered that this was above a twelfth part of his pension. His liberality, indeed, was at all periods of his life very remarkable. Mr. Howard, of Lichfield, at whose father's house Johnson had in his early years been kindly received, told me that when he was a boy at the Charterhouse, his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to Mr. Samuel Johnson, which he accordingly did, and found him in an upper room of poor appearance. Johnson received him with much courteousness, and talked a great deal to him as to a school-boy, of the course of his education, and other particulars. When he afterward came to know and understand the high character of this great man, he recollected his condescension with wonder. He added, that when he was going away, Mr. Johnson presented him with half a guinea; and this, said Mr. Howard, was at a time when he probably had not another.-Boswell. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or, at most, fourscore pounds a year; and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents, out of doors as well as in, "who," as he expressed it, "did not like to see him latterly, unless he brought 'em money."-Mrs. Piozzi. The addition of three hundred pounds a year* to what Johnson was able to earn by the ordinary exercise of his talents raised him to a state of comparative affluence, and afforded him the means of assisting many whose real or pretended wants had formerly excited his compassion. He now practised a rule which he often recommended to his friends. * His pension. -always to go abroad with some loose money to give to beggars.-Sir John Hawkins. When visiting Lichfield, toward the latter part of his life, he was accustomed, on his arrival, to deposit with Miss Porter as much cash as would pay his expenses back to London. He could not trust himself with his own money, as he felt himself unable to resist the importunity of the numerous claimants on his benevolence.-Harwood. KINDNESS. THOUGH Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents in literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterward ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life at all times when he had a house.Boswell (1751). My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday, the 1st of July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped at the Mitre. I was before this time pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school. Goldsmith's respectful attachment to Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his great master. He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom he entertained under his roof, "He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;" and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson."-Boswell. On Saturday, May 9th, we fulfilled our purpose of dining by ourselves at the Mitre, according to old custom. There was on these occasions a little circumstance of kind attention to Mrs. Williams which must not be omitted. Before coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, ready dressed.-Boswell. Mrs. Williams was very peevish; and I wondered at Johnson's patience with her now, as I had often done on similar occasions. The truth is that his humane consideration of the forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by her father induced him to treat her with the utmost tenderness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement, so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by carrying her with him to their houses, where, from her manner of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not but offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations.-Boswell. We surely cannot but admire the benevolent exertions of this great and good man, especially when we consider how grievously he was afflicted with bad health, and how uncomfortable his home was made by the perpetual jarring of those whom he charitably accommodated under his roof. He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions. them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: "Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them."—Boswell. These connections exposed him to trouble and incessant solicitation, which he bore well enough; but his inmates were enemies to his peace, and occasioned him great disquiet. The jealousy that subsisted among them rendered his dwelling irksome to him, and he seldom approached it, after an evening's conversation abroad, but with the dread of finding it a scene of discord, and of having his ears filled with the complaints of Mrs. Williams of Frank's neglect of his duty, and of Frank against Mrs. Williams. Even those intruders who had taken shelter under his roof, and who, in his absence from home, brought thither their children, found cause to murmur; "their provision of food was scanty, or their dinners ill-dressed;" all which he chose to endure rather than put an end to their clamors by ridding his home of such thankless and troublesome guests. Nay, so insensible was he of the ingratitude of those whom he suffered thus to hang upon him, and among whom he may be said to have divided an income which was little more than sufficient for his own support, that he would submit to reproach and personal affront from some of them; even Levett would sometimes insult him; and Mrs. Williams, in her paroxysms of rage, has been known to drive him from her presence.-Sir John Hawkins. He nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence his little income could secure them; and, commonly spending the middle of the week at our house, he kept his numerous family in Fleet Street upon a settled allowance, but returned to them every Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came back to us on the Monday night-treating |