1731. Johnson's father dies (Dec.), Johnson receiving £20 from his effects. The Gentleman's Magazine estab lished. Cowper and Churchill born. Defoe died. 1732. Johnson an usher at the Market-Bosworth School. Pope's Essay on Man (Epistles I. and II.). Gay died. 1733. Johnson, living chiefly at Birmingham, translates Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia.

1734 Johnson publishes proposals for printing the poems of Politian, and for the first time offers his services to Cave, proprietor of the Gentleman's Magazine.

1735. Johnson marries (July 9) Elizabeth, the widow of Henry Porter, a Birmingham mercer. (Johnson's wife is supposed to have brought him about £700 or £800.) He publishes his translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia.

1736. Johnson sets up a "private academy" at Edial, in Staffordshire, one of his pupils being David Garrick. Butler's Analogy of Religion.

1737. Johnson and Garrick set out together for London. Johnson makes further proposals to Cave, and returns to Lichfield, where he completes his tragedy of Irene. After staying at Lichfield for three months he settles with Mrs. Johnson in London. Gibbon born. 1738. Johnson "enlisted by Mr. Cave as a regular coadjutor in his magazine." He publishes London (May). With a view to obtaining the mastership of Appleby School he endeavours, unsuccessfully, to obtain the degree of M.A. from Oxford University.

1739. Hume's Treatise of Human Nature.

1740. Cibber's Apology for his Life, and Richardson's Pamela. James Boswell born.

1741. This year and the two following Johnson is the "sole composer " of the Parliamentary Debates in the Gentleman's Magazine.

1742. Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Shenstone's Schoolmistress, and Young's Night Thoughts.

1744. Johnson publishes his Life of Savage. Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination. Pope died.

1745. Swift died. Jacobite Rebellion.

1746. Collin's Odes (dated 1747).

1747. Johnson publishes his Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language, addressed to Lord Chesterfield.

Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

1748. Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Smollett's Roderick Random, and Thomson's Castle of Indolence. Thomson died.

1749. Johnson publishes The Vanity of Human Wishes and Irene. Irene is brought out by Garrick at Drury Lane. Fielding's Tom Jones.

1750. Johnson begins the publication of the Rambler. 1751. Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, and Hume's Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. R. B.

Sheridan born.

1752. Johnson's wife dies. The last Rambler published. Hume's Political Discourses. Bishop Butler died. Frances Burney and Chatterton born.

1753. Johnson begins to contribute to Hawkesworth's Adventurer. Berkeley died.

1754. Hume's History of England (Vol. I.), and Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophical Writings (edited by David Mallet). Fielding died.

1755. Johnson receives the degree of M.A. from Oxford University. His Dictionary of the English Language published.

1756. Johnson contributes to the Literary Magazine established this year, and issues Proposals for an edition of Shakspeare. He refuses a living offered to him in Lincolnshire. Burke's Vindication of Natural Society, and Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.

1757. Smollett's History of England (Vols. I.-IV.). Blake born.

1758. Johnson begins a new periodical paper, The Idler. Allan Ramsay died.

1759. Johnson's mother dies, and he publishes Rasselas, "that with the profits he might defray the expence of [her] funeral, and pay some little debts which she left." Sterne's Tristram Shandy (Vols. I. and II.), and Robertson's History of Scotland. Robert Burns born.

1760. Accession of George III.

1761. Churchill's Rosciad.

Richardson died.

1762. A pension of £300 a year granted to Johnson. Macpherson's Ossian.

1763. Johnson meets Boswell (May 16), who in August starts on a tour of three years on the Continent. Churchill's Prophecy of Famine, and Smart's Song to David.

1764. The Literary Club founded, Sir Joshua Reynolds being the first proposer of it, and Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith among the first members. Goldsmith's Traveller, Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and Chatterton's Elinour and Juga.

1765. Johnson receives the degree of LL.D. from Trinity College, Dublin. He is introduced to the Thrales. His

edition of Shakspeare published. Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

1766. Boswell returns to England (February). Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield.

1767. Johnson has a conversation with George III. in the library at Buckingham Palace.

1768. Sterne's Sentimental Journey, Goldsmith's Good-Natured Man, Gray's Poems (the first collected edition), and Boswell's Account of Corsica.

Sterne died.

1769. Burke's Observations on the Present State of the Nation, the first Letter of " Junius," and Robertson's History of Charles V.

1770. Johnson publishes his pamphlet, The False Alarm, on the Middlesex election. Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontent and Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Chatterton died. Wordsworth born.

1771. Beattie's Minstrel (Book I.), and Smollett's Humphrey Clinker. Gray and Smollett died. Walter Scott born.

1772. The Letters of Junius (first collected edition). Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses. Coleridge born. 1773. Johnson visits Scotland with Boswell (Aug. 14 to Nov. 22). Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and Fergusson's Poems.

1774. Johnson visits Wales with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale (JulySeptember). Burke's Speech on American Taxation,

Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, and Vol. I. of Thomas Warton's History of English Poetry. Goldsmith died. Southey born.

1775. Johnson receives the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University. He visits France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale (October and November). His Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Taxation no Tyranny published. Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, and Sheridan's Rivals. Jane Austen, Lamb, and Landor born.

THE LIFE OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

To write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments, or his various works, has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task.

Had Dr. Johnson written his own Life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given,1 that every man's life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition. Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death.

As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view; as he was well apprised of this circumstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my enquiries, by communicating to me the incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting, and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him, from every quarter where I could discover that they were to be found, and have been favoured

1 Idler, No. 84,

with the most liberal communications by his friends; I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such a work as this, with more advantages; independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing.

Since my work was announced, several Lives and Memoirs of Dr. Johnson have been published, the most voluminous of which is one compiled for the booksellers of London, by Sir John Hawkins, Knight,1 a man, whom, during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, I think, but once, and I am sure not above twice. Johnson might have esteemed him for his decent, religious demeanour, and his knowledge of books and literary history; but from the rigid formality of his manners, it is evident that they never could have lived together with companionable ease and familiarity; nor had Sir John Hawkins that nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors, gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments of a diary and other papers as were left; of which, before delivering them up to the residuary legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, as I have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous labours, I must acknowledge, exhibit a farrago, of which a considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works, (even one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys,) a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most 1 The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins was alive and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But though I would not "war with the dead" offensively, I think it necessary to be strenuous in defence of my illustrious friend, which I cannot be, without strong animadversions upon a writer who has greatly injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not have been very prompt to gratify Sir John Hawkins with any compliment in his life-time, I do now frankly acknowledge, that, in my opinion, his volume, however inadequate and improper as a life of Dr. Johnson, and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects, contains a collection of curious anecdotes and observations, which few men but its authour could have brought together.