1750. Ætat. 41. * SIR, To Dr. BIRCH. Gough-fquare, May 12, 1750. "KNOWING that you are now preparing to favour the publick with a new edition of Raleigh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to send you a Manuscript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of it; and the owner tells me, that, as he has heard, the hand-writing is Sir Walter's. If you should find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the owner, a blind perfon2, to recommend it to the bookfellers. I am, Sir, "Your most humble fervant, "SAM. JOHNSON." His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illuftrious juftice, beyond all who have written upon the fubject. And this year he not only wrote a Prologue, which was spoken by Mr. Garrick before the acting of Comus at Drury-lane theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took a very zealous intereft in the fuccefs of the charity. On the day preceding the performance, he published the following letter in the "General Advertiser," addreffed to the printer of that paper: "SIR, "THAT a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the works of genius, and teftifying a regard to the memory of authours, is a truth too evident to be be denied; and therefore to ensure a participation of fame with a celebrated poet, many who would, perhaps, have contributed to ftarve him when alive, have heaped expenfive pageants upon his grave. "It muft, indeed, be confeffed, that this method of becoming known to pofterity with honour is peculiar to the great, or at least to the wealthy; but an opportunity now offers for almost every individual to fecure the praise of paying a just regard to the illustrious dead, united with the pleasure of doing good to the living. To affift illuftrious indigence, ftruggling with distress and debilitated by age, is a difplay of virtue, and an acquifition of happiness. and honour. 1750. "Whoever, then, would be thought capable of pleasure in reading the works of our incomparable Milton, and not fo deftitute of gratitude as to Atat. 41. refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant entertainment for the benefit of his living remains, for the exercife of their own virtue, the increase of their reputation, and the pleafing consciousness of doing good, fhould appear at Drury-lane theatre to-morrow, April 5, when Comus will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to the authour, and the only furviving branch of his family. "N. B. There will be a new prologue on the occafion, written by the authour of Irene, and fpoken by Mr. Garrick; and, by particular defire, there will be added to the Masque a dramatick fatire, called Lethe, in which Mr. Garrick will perform." In 1751 we are to confider him as carrying on both his Dictionary and Rambler. But he alfo wrote "The Life of Cheynel,*" in the mifcellany called "The Student;" and the Reverend Dr. Douglas having, with uncommon acuteness, clearly detected a grofs forgery and impofition upon the publick by William Lauder, a Scotch schoolmafter, who had, with equal impudence. and ingenuity, reprefented Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin poets, Johnfon, who had been fo far impofed upon as to furnifh a Preface and Postscript to his work, now dictated a letter for Lauder, addreffed to Dr. Douglas, acknowledging his fraud in terms of fuitable contrition'. This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no fudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years; and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his fuperiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain paffages from Grotius, Mafenius, and others, which had a faint resemblance to fome parts of the " Paradife Loft." In these he interpolated some 3 Left there fhould be any perfon, at any future period, abfurd enough to fufpect that Johnson was a partaker in Lauder's fraud, or had any knowledge of it, when he affifted him with his mafterly pen, it is proper here to quote the words of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Carlisle, at the time when he detected the impofition. "It is to be hoped, nay it is expected, that the elegant and nervous writer, whofe judicious fentiments and inimitable style point out the authour of Lauder's Preface and Poftfcript, will no longer allow one to plume himself with his feathers, who appeareth fo little to deferve his affiftance: an affistance which I am perfuaded would never have been communicated, had there been the least suspicion of those facts which I have been the inftrument of conveying to the world in these sheets." Milton no Plagiary, 2d edit. p. 78. And his Lordship. has been pleafed now to authorise me to fay, in the strongest manner, that there is no ground whatever for any unfavourable reflection against Dr. Johnson, who expreffed the strongest indignation against Lauder, fragments 175T 1751. Etat. 42. fragments of Hog's Latin tranflation of that poem, alledging that the mafs thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied fuccefs, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled "An Effay on Milton's Ufe and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradife Loft." To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface, in full perfuafion of Lauder's honefty, and a Postscript recommending, in the moft perfuafive terms, a fubfcription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus fpeaks: "It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whofe name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius, they claim fome kind of fuperiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whofe works may poffibly be read when every other monument of British greatnefs fhall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he fees, he fees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now confider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal fpirit." Surely this is inconfiftent with "enmity towards Milton," which Sir John Hawkins imputes to Johnson upon this occafion, adding, "I could all along obferve that Johnson seemed to approve not only of the defign, but of the argument; and feemed to exult in a perfuafion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to fuffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the impofture, I am well perfuaded; but that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson." Is it poffible for any man of clear judgement to fuppofe that Johnson, who fo nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a Postscript to this very discovery," as he then supposed it, could, at the fame time, exult in a perfuafion that the great poet's reputation was likely to fuffer by it? This is an inconfiftency of which Johnson was incapable; nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, than that Johnson, who was alike diftinguished for ardent curiofity and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were gratified. That he was actuated by thefe motives, and certainly by no unworthy defire to depreciate our great epick poet, is evident from his own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature " to advance the honour, and diftinguish the beauties of Paradife Loft," he fays, "Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticifm has naturally given occafion, none is more obscure in itself, or more worthy of rational curiofity, than a retrospection of the progress of this mighty genius in the conftruction of his work; a view of the fabrick gradually rifing, perhaps, from finall beginnings, till its foundation refts in the centre, and its turrets fparkle in the fkies; to trace back the structure through all its varieties, to the fimplicity of its first plan; to find what was firft projected, whence the fcheme was taken, how it was improved, by what affistance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own."-Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels of Milton? Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being eafy, his humane and charitable difpofition was conftantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a conftant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and after her death having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, fhe had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house. In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his Dictionary. The last paper of his Rambler was published March 2, this year; after which, there was a ceffation for fome time of any exertion of his talents as an effayift. But, in the fame year, Dr. Hawkesworth, who was his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his style, and then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical paper, entitled "THE ADVENTURER," in connection with other gentlemen, one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend, Dr. Bathurst; and, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his converfation, most of his friends having been fo affifted in the course of their works. 1751. Ætat. 42. That there should be a fuspension of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752, will not feem ftrange, when it is confidered that soon after clofing his Rambler, he suffered a loss which, there there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepest diftrefs. For on the 17th of March, O. S. his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was diffembled [meaning simulated or affumed], and to affert, that if it was not the cafe, "it was a leffon he had learned by rote,” I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of fimilar feelings in his own breaft. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumftances, that he could not really love her, is abfurd; for love is not a fubject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can perfuade another con cerning 1752 1752. cerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the perfon he admires, the impreffions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language. That his love for her was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapfe of time, is evident from various paffages in the series of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, one of which I felect, as ftrongly marking the tenderness and fenfibility of his mind. "April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." Her wedding-ring, when fhe became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him as long as he lived with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the infide of which he pasted a flip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows: "Ebeu! After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful fervant and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter; but fhe having declined to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning-ring for his old mafter, and prefented it to his wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it. The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he fincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his IRENE, we find the following fervent and tender fpeech of Demetrius, addressed to his Aspasia : "From thofe bright regions of eternal day, "Where now thou fhin'ft amongst thy fellow faints, |