"When you made your request to me, you should have confidered, Madam, what you were asking. You ask me to folicit a great man to whom I never spoke, for a young perfon whom I had never seen, upon a fuppofition which I had no means of knowing to be true. There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I should chufe to fupplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all the poffible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop should chuse your fon. I know, Madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted, when intereft opposes it; but furely, Madam, you must allow, that there is no reason why that should be done by me, which every other man may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man can do properly, without fome very particular relation both to the Archbishop and to you.. If I could help you in this exigence by any proper means, it would give me pleasure; but this propofal is so very remote from all usual methods, that I cannot comply with it but at the risk of fuch answer and fufpicions as I believe you do not wish me to undergo. "I have seen your fon this morning; he seems a pretty youth, and will, perhaps, find some better friend than I can procure him; but, though he fhould at last mifs the Univerfity, he may ftill be wife, ufeful, and happy. I am, Madam, "Your most humble fervant, 1762. Etat. 53. 66 June 8, 1762. SAM. JOHNSON." "SIR, To Mr. JOSEPH BARETTI, at Milan. London, July 20, 1762. "HOWEVER juftly you may accuse me for want of punctuality in correfpondence, I am not fo far loft in negligence as to omit the opportunity of writing to you, which Mr. Beauclerk's paffage through Milan affords me. "I fuppofe you received the Idlers, and I intend that you shall foon receive Shakspeare, that you may explain his works to the ladies of Italy, and tell them the story of the editor, among the other ftrange narratives with which your long refidence in this unknown region has fupplied you. "As you have now been long away, I fuppofe your curiofity may pant for fome news of your old friends. Mifs Williams and I live much as we did. Mifs Cotterel still continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and Charlotte is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets fix thousands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much fufpicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in 1762. Etat. 53. his match. Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the circuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardfon is dead of an apoplexy, and his fecond daughter has married a merchant. "My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myself, that you would rather hear of me than of thofe whom I have mentioned; but of myself I have very little which I care to tell. Laft winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and fhorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to fufpect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter-in-law, from whom I expected moft, and whom I met with fincere benevolence, has loft the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having gained much of the wifdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place, where, if there is not much happiness, there is at least fuch a diverfity of good and evil, that flight vexations do not fix upon the heart". "I think in a few weeks to try another excurfion; though to what end? Let me know, my Baretti, what has been the refult of your return to your own country: whether time has made any alteration for the better, and whether, when the first raptures of falutation were over, you did not find your thoughts confeffed their disappointment. "Moral fentences appear oftentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occafions than the journey of a wit to his own town: yet fuch pleasures and fuch pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with great fenfibility, a mind able to fee common incidents in their real state, is disposed by very common incidents to very ferious contemplations. Let us truft that a time will come, when the prefent moment shall be no longer irkfome; when we shall not borrow all our happiness from hope, which at laft is to end in difappointment. "I beg that you will fhew Mr. Beauclerk all the civilities which you have in your power; for he has always been kind to me. "I have lately feen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me of your quarrel with an Abbot of the Celestine order; but had not the particulars very ready in his memory. When you write to Mr. Marfili, let him know that I remember him with kindness. This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to melancholy minds. « May "May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or fome other place nearer to, Sir, "Your most affectionate humble fervant, 1762. L To the fame. "SAM. JOHNSON." Dec. 21, 1762. v SIR, "YOU are not to fuppofe, with all your conviction of my idleness, that I have paffed all this time without writing to my Baretti. I gave a letter to Mr. Beauclerk, who, in my opinion, and in his own, was haftening to Naples for the recovery of his health; but he has stopped at Paris, and I know not when he will proceed. Langton is with him. "I will not trouble you with speculations about peace and war. The good or ill fuccefs of battles and embaffies extends itself to a very fmall part of domestick life: we all have good and evil, which we feel more sensibly than our petty part of publick mifcarriage or profperity. I am forry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched than I should expect a man of your refolution and experience to have been, did I not know that general truths are feldom applied to particular occafions; and that the fallacy of our felf-love extends itself as our intereft or affections. Every man believes that miftreffes are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress and his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and contemptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished away in ungratified expectation; but he that approaches greatness, or glitters in a Court, imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from the common lot. "Do not let fuch evils overwhelm you as thousands have fuffered, and thousands have furmounted; but turn your thoughts with vigour to fome other plan of life, and keep always in your mind, that, with due fubmission to Providence, a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. Your patron's weakness or infenfibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not affisted by your own paffions. Of your love I know not the propriety, nor can estimate the power; but in love, as in every other paffion, of which hope is the effence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events. There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reafon from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman; and if all would happen that a lover fancies, I know not what other terreftrial happinefs would deferve pursuit. But love and marriage are different ftates. Thofe who are to fuffer the evils Dd 2 together, 1762. Ætat. 53. together, and to fuffer often for the fake of one another, foon lofe that tendernefs of look, and that benevolence of mind, which arose from the participation of unmingled pleasure and fucceffive amusement. A woman, we are fure, will not be always fair; we are not fure fhe will always be virtuous: and man cannot retain through life that refpect and affiduity by which he pleases for a day or for a month. I do not, however, pretend to have discovered that life has any thing more to be defired than a prudent and virtuous marriage; therefore know not what counfel to give you. "If you can quit your imagination of love and greatnefs, and leave your hopes of preferment and bridal raptures to try once more the fortune of literature and industry, the way through France is now open. We flatter ourselves that we fhall cultivate, with great diligence, the arts of peace; and every man will be welcome among us who can teach us any thing we do not know. For your part, you will find all your old friends willing to receive you. Reynolds ftill continues to increase in reputation and in riches. Mifs Williams, who very much loves you, goes on in the old way. Mifs Cotterel is still with Mrs. Porter. Mifs Charlotte is married to Dean Lewis, and has three children. Mr. Levet has married a ftreet-walker. But the gazette of my narration must now arrive to tell you, that Bathurst went physician to the army, and died at the Havannah. "I know not whether I have not sent you word that Huggins and Richardfon are both dead. When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are fubject to the general law of mortality, and shall foon be where our doom will be fixed for ever. "I pray God to blefs you, and am, Sir, "Your most affectionate humble fervant, "Write foon." "SAM. JOHNSON. The acceffion of George the Third to the throne of thefe kingdoms, opened a new and brighter profpect to men of literary merit, who had been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign. His present Majesty's education in this country, as well as his taste and beneficence, prompted him to be the patron of fcience and the arts; and early this year Johnson having been reprefented to him as a very learned and good man, without any certain provifion, his Majefty was pleased to grant him a pension of of three hundred pounds a year. The Earl of Bute was then prime minifter, and had the honour to announce this inftance of his fovereign's bounty, concerning which many and various stories, all equally erroneous, have been propagated, maliciously representing it as a political bribe to Johnson to defert his avowed principles, and become the tool of a government which he held to be founded in ufurpation. I have taken care to have it in my power to refute them from the most authentick information. Lord Bute has told me, that Mr. Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough, was the perfon who first mentioned this subject to him. Lord Loughborough has told me, that the penfion was granted to Johnson solely as the reward of his literary merit, without any ftipulation whatever, or even tacit understanding that he fhould write for administration. His Lordship added, that he was confident the political tracts which Johnson afterwards did write, as they were entirely confonant with his own opinions, would have been written by him, though no penfion had been granted to him. Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy, who then lived a good deal both with him and Mr. Wedderburn, have told me, that they previously talked with Johnson' upon this matter, and that it was perfectly understood by all parties that the penfion was merely honorary. Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that Johnfon called on him after his Majefty's intention had been notified to him, and faid he wished to confult his friends as to the propriety of his accepting this mark of the royal favour, after the definitions which he had given in his Dictionary of pension and penfioners. He faid he would not have Sir Joshua's answer till next day, when he would call again, and defired he might think of it. Sir Joshua anfwered, that he was clear to give his opinion then, that there could be no objection to his receiving from the King a reward for literary merit; and that certainly the definitions in his Dictionary were not applicable to him. Johnfon, it fhould feem, was fatisfied, for he did not call again till he had accepted the penfion, and had waited on Lord Bute to thank him. He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute faid to him exprefsly, "It is not given you for any thing you are to do, but for what you have done." His Lordship, he said, behaved in the handsomest manner. He repeated the words twice, that he might be fure that Johnson heard them, and thus fet his mind perfectly at eafe. This nobleman, who has been fo virulently abused, acted with great honour in this inftance, and difplayed a mind truly liberal. A minister of a more narrow and selfish disposition would have availed himfelf of fuch an opportunity to fix an implied obligation on a man of Johnson's powerful talents to give him his fupport. 1762. tat. 53. |