himself. To ordinary spectators, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, and fond of exhibiting Marriage. provincial airs and graces which were not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, 5 however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, graceful and accomplished of her sex. 10 That his admiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted; for she was as poor as himself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little honour, the addresses of a suitor who might have been her son.1 The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier 15 than might have been expected. The lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and of her manners; and, when, long after her de- 20 cease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature!" The 8. His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He 25 took a house in the neighbourhood of his native "Acad- town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen emy." months passed away; and only three pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance was so strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must have 30 1 Note, p. 60. resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted grandmother whom he called his Titty well qualified to make provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. David Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many 5 years later, to throw the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair. his 9. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of age, determined to seek his fortune in the capital as 10 a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of Irene in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. Migration to London 10. Never, since literature became a calling in Eng15 land, had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. Condition In the preceding generation a writer of eminent of letters, merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the 1737. government. The least that he could expect was a pen20 sion or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state.2 It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least suc25 cessful has received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to 30 flourish under the patronage of the public. One man of 3 Note, p. 60. 1 Note, p. 60. 2 Note, p. 60. 1 letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his pen what was II. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connexion from which he in London, 20 could expect more than bread for the day which Privations was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in 25 London, relieved his wants during this time of trial. Harry Hervey," said the old philosopher many years later, was a vicious man; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made 30 66 1 Index, "Gay, John." ΙΟ more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny worth of meat, and a pennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near Drury Lane.° 5 12. The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. His manners had and their never been courtly. They now became almost effects. savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it 15 affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and alamode° beef shops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he 20 gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead. The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him rude even to ferocity. 25 Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most 30 First em tary re rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library.° 13. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, he was fortunate enough to obtain regu- 5 ployment: lar employment from Cave, an enterprising and parliamenintelligent bookseller, who was proprietor and ports. editor of the "Gentleman's Magazine." That journal, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only periodical work in the kingdom 10 which then had what would now be called a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. It was not then safe, even during a recess, to publish an account of the proceedings of either House without some disguise.2 Cave, however, ventured to 15 entertain his readers with what he called " Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput. France was Blefuscu: London was Mildendo: pounds were sprugs: the Duke of Newcastle was the Nardac Secretary of State Lord Hardwicke was the Hurgo Hickrad: and 20 William Pulteney° was Wingul Pulnub. To write the speeches was, during several years, the business of Johnson. He was generally furnished with notes, meagre indeed, and inaccurate, of what had been said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the Their par ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a tisan bias. Tory, not from rational conviction for his serious opinion was that one form of government was just as 25 |