Considering Johnson's narrow circumstances in the early part of his life, and particularly at the interesting era of his launching into the ocean of London, it is not to be wondered at, that an actual instance, proved by experience, of the possibility of enjoying the intellectual luxury of social life upon a very small income, should deeply engage his attention, and be ever recollected by him as a circumstance of much importance. He amused himself, I remember, by computing how much more expense was absolutely necessary to live upon the same scale with that which his friend described, when the value of money was diminished by the progress of commerce. It may be estimated that double the money might now with difficulty be sufficient. Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant circumstance to cheer him; he was well acquainted with Mr. Henry Hervey, one of the branches of the noble family of that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an officer of the army, and had at this time a house in London, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportunity of meeting genteel company. Not very long before his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars of his life, which he was kindly communicating to me; and he described this early friend, 66 Harry Hervey," thus: "He was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him." He told me he had now written only three acts of his IRENE, and that he retired for some time to lodgings at Greenwich, where he proceeded in it somewhat farther, and used to compose, walking in the Park; but did not stay long enough at that place to finish it. At this period we find the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave, which, as a link in the chain of his literary history, it is proper to insert: TO MR. CAVE. "Greenwich, next door to the Golden Heart, Church-Street, July 12,1737. SIR," Having observed in your papers very uncommon offers of encouragement to men of letters, I have chosen, being a stranger in London, to communicate to you the following design, which, I hope, if you The Honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bristol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston estate, and assumed the name and arms of that family. Vide Collins's Peerage. [Tre Hon. Henry Hervey was nearly of the same age with Johnson, having been born about nine months before him, in the year 1709. He married Catharine, the sister of Sir Thomas Aston, in 1739; and as that lady had seven sisters, she probably succeeded to the Aston Estate on the death of her brother under his will. Mr. Hervey took the degree of Master of Arts at Cambridge, at the late age of thirty-five, in 1744; join in it, will be of advantage to both of us. "The History of the Council of Trent having been lately translated into French and published with large Notes by Dr. Le Courayer, the reputation of that book is so much revived in England, that, it is presumed, a new translation of it from the Italian, together with Le Courayer's Notes from the French, could not fail of a favourable reception. "If it be answered, that the History is already in English, it must be remembered, that there was the same objection against Le Courayer's undertaking, with this disadvantage, that the French had a version by one of their best translators, whereas you cannot read three pages of the English History without discovering that the style is capable of great improvements; but whether those improvements are to be expected from the attempt, you must judge from the specimen, which, if you approve the proposal, I shall submit to your examination. "Suppose the merit of the versions equal, we may hope that the addition of the Notes will turn the balance in our favour, considering the reputation of the Annotator. "Be pleased to favour me with a speedy answer, if you are not willing to engage in this scheme; and appoint me a day to wait upon you, if you are. "I am, Sir, your humble servant, It should seem from this letter, though subscribed with his own name, that he had not yet been introduced to Mr. Cave. We shall presently see what was done in consequence of the proposal which it contains. In the course of the summer he returned to Lichfield, where he had left Mrs. Johnson, and there he at last finished his tragedy, which was not executed with his rapidity of composition upon other occasions, but was slowly and painfully elaborated. A few days before his death, while burning a great mass of papers, he picked out from among them the original unformed sketch of this tragedy, in his own hand-writing, and gave of it is now in my possession. It contains it to Mr. Langton, by whose favour a copy fragments of the intended plot, and speeches in the raw materials of prose, partly worked for the different persons of the drama, partly up into verse; as also a variety of hints for illustration, borrowed from the Greek, Ro man, and modern writers. The hand-wri. ting is very difficult to be read, even by those who are best acquainted with Johnson's mode of penmanship, which at all times was very particular. The King having graciously accepted of this manuscript as a literary curiosity, Mr. Langton made a fair and distinct copy of it, which he ordered to be bound up with the original and the printed about which time, it is believed, he entered into holy tragedy; and the volume is deposited in the orders. M.J King's library. His Majesty was pleased to | permit Mr. Langton to take a copy of it for himself. The whole of it is rich in thought, and imagery, and happy expressions; and of the disjecta membra scattered throughout, and as yet unarranged, a good dramatic poet might avail himself with considerable advantage. I shall give my readers some specimens of different kinds, distinguishing them by the Italic character. "Nor think to say, here will I stop, And quit their charge to horror and to ruin." A small part only of this interesting admonition is preserved in the play, and is varied, I think, not to advantage : "The soul, once tainted with so foul a crime, Thus in the tragedy: "Illustrious maid, new wonders fix me thine; I shall select one other passage, on account of the doctrine which it illustrates. IRENE observes, "that the Supreme Being will accept of virtue, whatever outward circumstances it may be accompanied with, and may be delighted with varieties of worship; but is answered; That variety cannot affect that Being, who, infinitely happy in his own perfections, wants no external gratifications; nor can infinite truth be delighted with falsehood; that, though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkness, he abandons those who shut their eyes against the beams of day." Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his No more shall glow with friendship's hallow'd ardour: return to it at this time, was only for three Those holy beings, whose superior care Guides erring mortals to the paths of virtue, Resign their charge to baseness and to ruin." " I feel the soft infection: Flush in my cheek, and wander in my veins. "Sure this is love, which heretofore I conceived the dream of idle maids and wanton poets." "Though no comets or prodigies foretold the ruin of Greece, signs which heaven must by another miracle enable us to understand, yet might it be foreshewn, by tokens no less certain, by the vices which always bring it on." This last passage is worked up in the tragedy itself, as follows: A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it; MAHOMET. (to IRENE.) "I have tried thee, and joy to find that thou deservest to be loved by Mahomet,—with a mind great as his own. Sure, thou art an error of nature, and an exception to the rest of thy sex, and art immortal; for sentiments like thine were never to sink into nothing. I thought all the thoughts of the fair had been to select the graces of the day, dispose the colours of the flaunting (flowing) robe, tune the voice and roll the eye, place the gem, choose the dress, and add new roses to the fading cheek, but--sparkling." months; and as he had as yet seen but a small part of the wonders of the metropolis, he had little to tell his townsmen. He related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, and it is never a dispute." if one is taking the wall, another yields it; He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson; but her daughter, who had lived with them at Edial, was left with her relations in the country. His lodgings were for some time in Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square, and afterwards in Castlestreet, near Cavendish-square. As there is something pleasingly interesting, to many, in tracing so great a man through all his different habitations, I shall, before this work is concluded, present my readers with an exact list of his lodgings and houses, in order of time, which, in placid condescension to my respectful curiosity, he one evening dictated to me, but without specifying how long he lived at each. In the progress of his life, I shall have occasion to mention some of them as connected with particular incidents, or with the writing of particular parts of his works. To some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but when we consider the punctilious exactness with which the different houses in which Milton resided have been traced by the writers of his life, a similar enthusiasm may be pardoned in the biographer of Johnson. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 232. E His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterward solicited Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury-lane theatre, to have it acted at his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it was not patronised by some man of high rank; and it was not acted till 1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre. The GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave, under the name of SYLVANUS URBAN, had attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London, as an adventurer in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he beheld it with reverence." I suppose, indeed, that every young author has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him, and in which he has first had an opportunity to see himself in print, without the risk of exposing his name. I myself recollect such impressions from "The Scoтs MAGAZINE," which was begun at Edinburgh in the year 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgement, accuracy, and propriety. I yet cannot help thinking of it with an affectionate regard. Johnson has dignified the Gentleman's Magazine, by the importance with which he invests the life of Cave; but he has given it still greater lustre by the various adinirable Essays which he wrote for it. Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends, to make a complete list of his writings, and talked of doing it, I believe with a serious intention that they should all be collected on his own account, he put it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one in his own hand-writing, which contains a certain number; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, partly from occasional inforination given by him to his friends, and partly from internal evidence."* While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; and, for that purpose, shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (†) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evi His first performance in the Gentleman's Magazine, which for many years was his principal source for employment and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March, 1738, addressed to the editor in so happy a style of compliment, that Cave must have been destitute both of taste and sensibility. had he not felt himself highly gratified. Ad URBANUM. URBANE, nullis fesse laboribus, URBANE, nullis victe calumniis, Cui fronte sertum in erudita Perpetuo viret et virebit; Quid moliatur gens imitantium, Quid et minetur, solicitus parum, Vacare solis perge Musis, Juxta animo studiisque felix. Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, Fidens, superbo frange silentio; Victrix per obstantes catervas Sedulitas animosa tendet. Intende nervos, fortis, inanibus Risurus olim nisibus æmuli; Intende jam nervos, habebis Participes operæ Camanas. Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Quam que severis ludicra jungere Novit, fatigatamque nugis Utilibus recreare mentem. Texente Nymphis serta Lycoride, Rosa ruborem sic viola adjuvat Immista, sic Iris refulget Ethereis variata fucis. † S. J. Mr. Cave, as a regular coadjutor in his ma It appears that he was now enlisted by gazine, by which he probably obtained a to shall give my reasons. dence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, 1 † A translation of this ode, by an unknown corres pondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following: "Hail, URBAN! indefatigable man; Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil! Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain; The senseless sneerings of a haughty tongue, Unheeded pass: and though they mean thee wrong, Exert thy powers nor slacken in the course, Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant ragad. lerable livelihood. At what time, or by what means, he had acquired a competent knowledge both of French and Italian, I do not know; but he was so well skilled in them, as to be sufficiently qualified for a translator. That part of his labour which consisted in emendation and improvement of the productions of other contributors, like that employed in levelling ground, can be perceived only by those who had an opportunity of comparing the original with the altered copy. What we certainly know to have been done by him in this way, was the Debates in both houses of parliament, under the name of "The Senate of Lilliput," sometimes with feigned denominations of the several speakers, sometimes with denominations formed of the letters of their real names, in the manner of what is called anagram, so that they might easily be deciphered. Parliament then kept the press in a kind of mysterious awe, which made it necessary to have recourse to such devices. In our time it has acquired an unrestrained freedom, so that the people in all parts of the kingdom have a fair, open, and exact report of the actual proceedings of their representatives and legislators, which in our constitution is highly to be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been too much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most respectable character and situation. Cave to Johnson for his revision; and after some time, when Guthrie had attained to greater variety of employment, and the speeches were more and more enriched by the accession of Johnson's genius, it was resolved that he should do the whole himself, from the scanty notes furnished by persons employed to attend in both houses of Parliament. Sometimes, however, as he himself told me, he had nothing more communicated to him than the names of the several speakers, and the part which they had taken in the debate. Thus was Johnson employed during some of the best years of his life, as a mere literary labourer "for gain not glory," solely to obtain an honest support. He, however, indulged himself in occasional little sallies, which the French so happily express by the term jeux d'esprit, and which will be noticed in their order, in the progress of this work. But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and " gave the world assurance of the MAN," was his "LONDON, a poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal;" which came out in May this year, and burst forth with splendour, the rays of which will for ever encircle his name. Boileau had imitated the same satire with great success, applying it to Paris: but an attentive comparison will satisfy every reader, that he is much excelled by the English Juvenal. Oldham had also imitated it, and applied it to London: all which performances concur to prove, that great cities, in every age, and in every country, will furnish similar topics of satire. Whether Johnson had previously read Oldham's imitation, I do not know; but it is not a little remarkable, that there is scarcely any coincidence found between the two performances, though upon the very same subject. The only instances are, in describing London as the sink of foreign worthlessness: the common shore, Where France does all her filth and ordure pour." This important article of the Gentleman's Magazine was, for several years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man who deserves to be respectably recorded in the liteterary annals of this country. He was descended of an ancient family in Scotland; but having a small patrimony, and being an adherent of the unfortunate house of Stuart, he could not accept of any office in the state; he therefore came to London, and employed his talents and learning as an "Author by profession." His writings in history, criticism, and politics, had considerable merit. He was the first English historian who had recourse to that authentic source of information, the Parliamentary Journals; and such was the power of his political pen, that, at an early period, government thought it worth their while to keep it quiet by a pension, which he enjoyed till his death. Johnson esteemed him enough to wish that his life should be written. The debates in Parliament, which were brought home and The particulars which Oldham has collectdigested by Guthrie, whose memory, though surpassed by others who have since followed, both as exhibiting the horrors of Loned him in the same department, was yet very quick and tenacious, were sent by How much poetry he wrote, I know not: but he informed me, that he was the author of the beautiful little piece," The Eagle and Robin Redbreast," in the collection of poems entitled, "THE UNION," though it is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600. and, "The common shore of Paris and of Rome. JOHNSON. "No calling or profession comes amiss: "All sciences a fasting monsieur knows." OLDHAM. JOHNSON. don, and of the times, contrasted with bet ter days, are different from those of Johnson, and in general well chosen and well expressed.t There are in Oldham's imitation, many + I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners of the age in London, in the last cen prosaic verses and bad rhymes, and his "Tho' much concern'd to leave my dear old friend, It is plain he was not going to leave his friend; his friend was going to leave him. A young lady at once corrected this with good critical sagacity, to "Though much concerned to lose my dear old friend." There is one passage in the original, better transfused by Oldham than by Johnson: "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, which is an exquisite remark on the galling "Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.' OLDHAM'S, though less elegant, is more just: "Nothing in poverty so ill is borne, As its exposing men to grinning scorn." Where, or in what manner, this poem was composed, I am sorry that I neglected to ascertain with precision, from Johnson's own authority. He has marked upon his corrected copy of the first edition of it, "Written in 1738;" and, as it was published in the month of May in that year, it is evident that much time was not employed in preparing it for the press. The history of its publication I am enabled to give in a very satisfactory manner; and judging from myself, and many of my friends, I trust that it will not be uninteresting to my readers. We may be certain, though it is not expressly named in the following letters to Mr. Cave, in 1738, that they all relate to it : "SIR, "TO MR. CAVE. and whose judgement of that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle" can give me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different manner from a mercenary booksel ler, who counts the lines he is to purchase, and considers nothing but the bulk. I can not help taking notice, that, besides what the author may hope for on account of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune. I beg, therefore, that you will favour me with a letter to-morrow, that I may know what you can afford to allow him, that he (which I do not expect) some other way may either part with it to you, or find out more to his satisfaction. "I have only to add, that as I am sensi ble I have transcribed it very coarsely, which, after having altered it, I was obliged to do, I will, if you please to transmit the sheets from the press, correct it for you; and take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike. 66 By exerting on this occasion your usual generosity, you will not only encourage learning, and relieve distress, but (though it be in comparison of the other motives of very small account) oblige, in a very sensible manner, Sir, your very humble servant, "SIR, "SAM. JOHNSON." "TO MR. CAVE. "Monday, No. 6, Castle-street. "I AM to return you thanks for the present you were so kind as to send by me, and to intreat that you will be pleased to inform me, by the penny-post, whether you resolve to print the poem. If you please to send it me by the post, with a note to Dodsley, I will go and read the lines to him, that we "Castle-street, Wednesday morning. may have his consent to put his name in the title-page. As to the printing, if it can be set immediately about, I will be so much the author's friend, as not to content myself with mere solicitations in his favour. I propose, if my calculation be near the truth, to engage for the reimbursement of all that you shall lose by an impression of five hun dred; provided, as you very generously propose, that the profit, if any, be set aside for the author's use, excepting the present you made, which, if he be a gainer, it is fit he should repay. I beg that you will let one of your servants write an exact account of the expense of such an impression, and send it with the poem, that I may know what I engage for. I am very sensible, from your (No date. 1738.) "WHEN I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon; for a pleasure 1 shall always think it, to converse in any manner with an ingenious and candid man; but having the inclosed poem in my hands to dispose of for the benefit of the author, (of whose abilities I shall say nothing, since I send you his performance,) I believed I could not procure more advantageous terms from any person than from you, who have so much distinguished yourself by your generous encouragement of poetry; tury, to shield from the sneer of English ridicule, what was some time ago too common a practice in my native generosity on this occasion, of your regard city of Edinburgh! "If what I've said can't from the town affright, When brickbats are from upper stories thrown, to learning, even in its unhappiest state; and cannot but think such a temper deserv His Ode Ad Urbanum," probably. N. |