ever, from that liberality which never failed, when called upon to assist other labourers in literature, found time to translate for Mrs. Lenox's English version of Brumoy, 'A Dissertation on the Greek Comedy," and "The General Conclusion of the Book."†

*

An inquiry into the state of foreign countries was an object that seems at all times to have interested Johnson. Hence Mr. Newbery found no great difficulty in persuading him to write the Introduction to a collection of voyages and travels published by him under the title of "The World Displayed": the first volume of which appeared this year, and the remaining volumes in subsequent years.

I would ascribe to this year the following letter to a son of one of his early friends at Lichfield, Mr. Joseph Simpson, Barrister, and author of a tract entitled "Reflections on the Study of the Law."

"TO JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ.

"DEAR SIR,

"YOUR father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me he is your father; he was always juries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much

better of money got by punishment than by

crimes. We shall therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame." ." B.

If you married imprudently, you miscarried at your own hazard, at an age when you had a right of choice. It would be hard if the man might not choose his own wife, who has a right to plead before the Judges of his country. If your imprudence has ended in difficulties and inconveniences, you are yourself to support

them; and, with the help of a little better health, you would support them and conquer them. Surely, that want which accident and sickness produces, is to be supported in every region of humanity, though there were neither friends nor fathers in the world. You have certainly from your father the highest claim of charity, though none of right and therefore I would counsel you to omit no decent nor manly degree of importunity. Your debts in the whole are not large, and of the whole but a small part is troublesome. Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger. You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure, with security, to struggle with the rest. Neither the great nor the little debts disgrace you. I am sure you have my esteem for the courage with which you contracted them, and the spirit with which you endure them. I wish my esteem could be cf more use. I have been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom; and will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her. I hope, in a few days, to be at leisure, and to make visits. Whither I shall fly is matter of no importance. A man unconnected is at home every where; unless he may be said to be at home no where. I am sorry, dear Sir, that where you have parents, a man of your merits should not have a home. I wish I could give it you. I am, my dear Sir, affectionately

yours,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

he has refused me. And I have clapped my hands till they are sore, at Dr. King's speech." 1

His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed as has been supposed, but with his own consent, it appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned" (Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides). And at another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company (Ibid). The letter was as

follows:

"I AM again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM 2 of literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the 'Stag' Frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says, the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you and I dare say you desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I

gave him

to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his

was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. B. He was Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, and Recorder of

Windsor.

1 Gentleman's Magazine, April 1785. B. The speech was delivered on the installation of the

Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University, July 7, 1759.

2 In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears in one of Mr. Wilkes's Miscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollett's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading for CHAM, the title of the sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature: and was an epithet familiar to Smollett. See Roderick Random, chap. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of TEMPLE, B.

117

interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be would be superfluous to say more on the subject, able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It

which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and athumble servant, tachment, dear Sir, your affectionate obliged "T. SMOLLETT.”

Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted, as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old master in chambers in the Inner Temple, and returned to his

service.

What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find "the change of outward things which I am now to make;" and, "Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour" (Prayers and Meditations). But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change.3

At this time there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars Bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design

offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne; and after being at

4

3 Early in this year he gave up his house in Gough Square, and removed first into chambers in Staple Inn, thence into Gray's Inn, and finally settled down in Inner Temple Lane, where he lived, says Murphy, "in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of literature."

4 Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of "Proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by Naturemasculine and feminine-in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal;" nor

considerable pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the "Gazetteer," in opposition to his plan. has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the Knight through all this, would be a useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement. He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring " From a person eminently skilled in mathematics and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches. Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains, that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanics. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastic father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch. It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars Bridge, calling it "An edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.' Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine, this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London? As to the stability of the fabric, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland Stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the public, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that Parliamentary interests, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars Bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expense. B.

If it should be remarked, that this was a controversy which lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered, that after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as quicquid agunt homines in the matter of law-suits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the Legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed themselves for the occasion.

In 1760 he wrote "an Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to the Throne of these Kingdoms," + which no monarch ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from his people.

Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a King, who gloried in being "born a Briton."1 He also wrote for Mr. Baretti the Dedication † of his Italian and English Dictionary, to the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the court of Great Britain.

Johnson was now either very idle, or very busy with his "Shakespeare"; for I can find no other public composition by him except an Introduction to the "Proceedings of the Committee for clothing the French Prisoners";* one of the many proofs that he was ever awake to the calls of humanity; and an account which he gave in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of The generosity Mary Queen of Scots.* of Johnson's feeling shines forth in the following sentence:

"It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the House of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet there remains still among us,

1 "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton." George the Third's first speech to Parliament.

not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion.'

In this year I have not discovered a single private letter written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, there is, "Send for books for Hist. of War" (Prayers and Meditations). How much is it to be regretted that this intention was not fulfilled! His majestic expression would have carried down to the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country, with the same fervent glow which they produced on the mind at the time. He would have been under no temptation to deviate in any degree from truth, which he held very sacred, or to take a licence, which a learned divine told me he once seemed in a conversation jocularly to allow to historians. 'There are," said he, "inexcusable lies, and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man eat his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was (smiling), may be reckoned a consecrated lie." This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated by the Reverend Dr. Franklin, who was one of the writers of "The Critical Review," published an indignant vindication in "A Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M.," in which he compliments Johnson in a just and elegant manner :

66

"Transcendant Genius! whose prolific vein
Ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain;
To whom APOLLO opens all his store,
And every Muse presents her sacred lore:
Say, pow'rful JOHNSON, whence thy verse is
fraught

With so much grace, such energy of thought;
Whether thy JUVENAL instructs the age
In chaster numbers, and new-points his rage;
Or fair IRENE sees, alas! too late

Her innocence exchang'd for guilty state;
Whate'er you write, in every golden line
Sublimity and elegance combine;

Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul,
While harmony gives rapture to the whole."

Again, towards the conclusion :

119

I take this opportunity to relate the manner in which an acquaintance first commenced between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Murphy. During the publication of "The Gray's Inn Journal, a periodical paper which was successfully carried on by Mr. Murphy alone when a very young man, he happened to be in the country with Mr. Foote; and having mentioned that he was obliged to go to London in order to get ready for the press one of the numbers of that Journal, Foote said to him, "You need not go on that account. Here is a French magazine, in which you will find a very pretty Oriental tale; translate that, and send it to your printer.' Mr. Murphy having read the tale, was highly pleased with it, and followed Foote's advice. When he returned to town, this tale was pointed out to him in the "Rambler," from whence it had been translated into the French magazine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson, to explain this curious incident. His talents, literature, and gentleman-like manners, were soon perceived by Johnson, and a friendship was formed which was never broken.1

1 Arthur Murphy (1730-1805), dramatic and miscellaneous writer, barrister, and actor. He seems to have had little, if any, practice at the bar, and on the stage he failed dismally; but many of his plays were successful, and with his other writings brought him a fair share of money and fame. But he was always in trouble till at the close of his life he was made a Commissioner in Bankruptcy and received a Government pension of £200. Previous to this he had, according to Rogers' Table-Talk, "Eaten himself out of every tavern from the other side of Temple Bar to the West end of the town." Besides his plays and miscellaneous journalism he edited Johnson's and Fielding's works, wrote a life of Garrick, and translated Tacitus and Sallust.