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by bookseller Millar, he told the world to honour him for Et. 31. raising the rewards of books: and treating authorship, since the world would have it so, as any other trade, and still heartily embracing poverty as a trusted and honourable companion, was content in Grub-street, or any other street, to work out his case as he could. "Seven years, my lord, have "now past," he wrote to Lord Chesterfield, on appearance of the Dictionary four years before, "since I waited in your "outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during "which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have "brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one "act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile “of favour.... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks "with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, "and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with "help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of "my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; "till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, "and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity "not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the public should con"sider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has "enabled me to do for myself." What! said he in more familiar mood to Garrick, have I sailed a long and difficult voyage round the world of the English language, and does he now send out his cock-boat to tow me into harbour?

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* His letter to Thomas Warton announcing the near completion of his Dictionary is less known; yet I do not know that his manly courage and self-reliance have anywhere found more masterly expression. "I now begin to see land, after “having wandered, according to Mr. Warburton's phrase, in this vast sea of words. "What reception I shall meet with on the shore, I know not whether the sound

And from this man, even now, there was nothing to separate 1759. the humblest of literary workmen. Here were his words, Et. 31. as a trumpet, to call them to the field; and there he was himself, in person, to animate the struggle. To what, then, should he first look, who, hitherto a compelled and reluctant dweller on the threshold of literature, was now of his own resolute choice advancing within to try his fortune, if not to this great, unyielding figure of Samuel Johnson, for courage and sustainment? There, beyond a doubt, were the thoughts of Oliver Goldsmith now;-with poverty, not simply endured, but made a badge of honour; with independence, though indeed but a bookseller's servant; without remonstrance or uneasy resistance, should even the worst attendants of the garret continue to be his lot for ever. "He "assured me," says the author of the Rambler of his friend Ofellus, "that thirty pounds a year was enough to enable a

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man to live in London without being contemptible. He "allowed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at eighteenpence a week; few people

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would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was "easy to say, Sir, I am to be found at such a place. By "spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for

some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, "and do without supper. On clean-shirt day, he could go "abroad and pay visits." Nor were these the holiday theories

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"of bells, and acclamations of the people, which Ariosto talks of in his last Canto, or a general murmur of dislike, I know not whether I shall find upon the coast a Calypso that will court, or a Polypheme that will resist. But if Polypheme comes, have at his eye." Boswell, ii. 28.

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Comparing this with his actual experience, one feels that Ofellus had decidedly the advantage on the whole. It is true that when Johnson first came to London his dinner cost him twopence more. ("I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and bread "for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay,

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of one to whom the practice of poverty was not still familiar. Et. 31. Here lay the singular worth of Johnson's example: that the world of enemies as well as friends were beginning, in a poor man, to recognise an intellectual chief and potentate of literature, a man who had the right to rule them. "He and I were never cater-cousins," wrote Smollett to Wilkes a month or two before the date to which I have brought this narrative, and in the same letter Smollett calls him the "Great Cham of "literature." Yet the great cham's poverty was obliged in this very year to surrender Gough-square for a humbler lodging in Gray's Inn: that same Gough-square in Fleetstreet, where Doctor Burney had found him amid a chaos of Greek folios, and with the moderate accommodation of one deal writing-desk and a chair and a half; the entire seat offered to his visiter, and himself tottering on its threelegged and one-armed fellow. Nay, some few brief years before, he had been placed under arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings; though already he had written London, the Vanity of Human Wishes, and the Rambler, and was author of The English Dictionary.

Now, week by week, in a paper of Mr. John Newbery's, he sent forth the Idler.* What he was, and what with a serious earnestness, be it wrong or right, he had come into the world to say and do, were at last becoming evident to all. Colleges were glad to have him visit them, and a small enthusiastic circle was gradually forming around him. The Reynoldses, Bennet Langtons, and Topham Beauclercs, had thus early given

"better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing." Boswell, i. 113.) But then no fasting days appear in Ofellus's bill of fare, and at that period of his life, as he surprised the party in the Hebrides by telling them several years later, "he had fasted for two "days at a time, during which he had gone about visiting, though not at the hours of "dinner or supper; that he had drank tea, but eaten no bread; that this was no inten“tional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life." Boswell, v. 8, 9. Among the papers of Newbery is the account rendered on the collection of the

in their allegiance; and Arthur Murphy was full of wonder 1759. at his submitting to contradiction, when they dined together Et. 31. this last Christmas day with young Mr. Burke of Wimpolestreet. But not more known or conspicuous was the consideration thus exacted, than the poverty which still waited on it, and claimed its share. So might literature avenge herself, in this penniless champion, for the disgrace of the money-bags of Walpole and Pelham. "I have several times "called on Johnson," wrote Grainger to Percy, some months before the present date, "to pay him part of your subscrip"tion" (for his edition of Shakspeare). "I say part, because "he never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in "his pocket."* And again, a month later: "As to his Shakspeare, movet, sed non promovet. I shall feed him "occasionally with guineas." It was thus the good Mr. Newbery found it best to feed him too; and in that worthy publisher's papers many memoranda of the present year were

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Idler into two small volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that Johnson should receive two-thirds of the profits. It shows the growing popularity of Johnson, and is also worth comparing with similar charges in our own time.

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+ Ibid, 261. Letter of 20th July, 1758. Mr. John Nichols communicated to Boswell the subjoined anecdote. "In the year 1763 a young bookseller, who was "an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to his “Shakspeare; and observing that the doctor made no entry in any book of the "subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask whether he would please to have "the gentleman's address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed "list of subscribers. I shall print no list of subscribers,' said Johnson, with great abruptness; but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very

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1759.

of one to whom the practice of poverty was not still familiar. Et. 31. Here lay the singular worth of Johnson's example: that the world of enemies as well as friends were beginning, in a poor man, to recognise an intellectual chief and potentate of literature, a man who had the right to rule them. "He and I were

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never cater-cousins," wrote Smollett to Wilkes a month or two before the date to which I have brought this narrative, and in the same letter Smollett calls him the "Great Cham of "literature." Yet the great cham's poverty was obliged in this very year to surrender Gough-square for a humbler lodging in Gray's Inn: that same Gough-square in Fleetstreet, where Doctor Burney had found him amid a chaos of Greek folios, and with the moderate accommodation of one deal writing-desk and a chair and a half; the entire seat offered to his visiter, and himself tottering on its threelegged and one-armed fellow. Nay, some few brief years before, he had been placed under arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings; though already he had written London, the Vanity of Human Wishes, and the Rambler, and was author of The English Dictionary.

Now, week by week, in a paper of Mr. John Newbery's, he sent forth the Idler.* What he was, and what with a serious earnestness, be it wrong or right, he had come into the world to say and do, were at last becoming evident to all. Colleges. were glad to have him visit them, and a small enthusiastic circle was gradually forming around him. The Reynoldses, Bennet Langtons, and Topham Beauclercs, had thus early given

“better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing." Boswell, i. 113.) But then no fasting days appear in Ofellus's bill of fare, and at that period of his life, as he surprised the party in the Hebrides by telling them several years later, "he had fasted for two

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days at a time, during which he had gone about visiting, though not at the hours of "dinner or supper; that he had drank tea, but eaten no bread; that this was no inten"tional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life." Boswell, v. 8, 9. Among the papers of Newbery is the account rendered on the collection of the

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