his life, and was not disposed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield.° 25. By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly received. Though the price of a number was only two5 pence, the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were collected and reprinted they became popular. The author lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions 10 were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused. 15 him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, 20 to the constant precision and frequent brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers. On the question of precedence between Addison° and Johnson, a and by 25 question which, seventy years ago, was much dis- posterity. puted, posterity has pronounced a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Ever30 lasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, the Loves of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, and the Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody.' But many men and women, even of highly cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, the Allegory of Wit and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions of a Garret, and the 5 sad fate of Aningait and Ajut.2 Death of son. 26. The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left her husband Mrs. John- almost broken-hearted. Many people had been 10 surprised to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection 15 had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary.3 Her opinion of his writings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Theatre or the 20 judgment of the Monthly Review. The chief support which had sustained him through the most arduous labour of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast labyrinth of streets, 25 peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length complete. 3 Index, "Montagu." 4 List of Periodicals, 9, p. xxx. 1 Note, p. 64. 2 Note, p. 64. 27. It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the prospectus had Letter to been addressed. He well knew the value of such Chesterfield. 5 a compliment; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Since the Ramblers had ceased to appear, 10 the town had been entertained by a journal called The World,' to which many men of high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers of The World the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with wonderful skill. The writings of Johnson were 15 warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the authority of a Dictator, nay, of a Pope, over our language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought by everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield.° But the just resentment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardy advances of his patron.2 The Dictionary came forth without a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, 1 List of Periodicals, 12, p. xxx. 2 Note, p. 64. 20 25 30 Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.1 28. The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and something more than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content if his productions are 5 received by the world with cold esteem. But tionary; its Johnson's Dictionary 2 was hailed with an enthumerits and siasm such as no similar work has ever excited. The Dic defects. It was indeed the first dictionary which could be 3 read with pleasure. The definitions show so much acute- 10 ness of thought and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines and philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, 15 into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius° and Skinner. 29. The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen Financial hundred guineas which the booksellers had agreed difficulties. to pay him had been advanced and spent before 20 the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to 25 1 Note, p. 65. It was still necessary for the man who had been formally saluted by the highest authority as Dictator of the English language to supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an 5 edition of Shakspeare by subscription; and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called To the Literary Magazine.1 Few of these papers have much interest; but among them was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns's Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. 15 30. In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays, entitled The Idler. During two years these essays continued to appear weekly. Periodical They were eagerly read, widely circulated, and, essays: indeed, impudently pirated, while they were still The Idler. 20 in the original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The Idler may be described as a second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part.3 31. While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his 25 mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he had seen her; Romance: but he had not failed to contribute largely, out of Rasselas; his small means, to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she 1 List of Periodicals, 14, p. xxx. 2 List of Periodicals, 15, p. xxx. 3 Note, p. 66. |