1762.

Etat. 53.

together, and to fuffer often for the fake of one another, foon lofe that tendernefs of look, and that benevolence of mind, which arofe 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 respect 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 counsel 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 induftry, the way through France is now open. We flatter ourselves that we shall 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 still 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 fent you word that Huggins and Richardfon are both dead. When we fee 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 bless 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 prospect to men of literary merit, who had been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign. His present Majefty's education in this country, as well as his tafte and beneficence, prompted him to be the patron of fcience and the arts; and early this year Johnfon having been represented to him as a very learned and good man, without any certain provifion, his Majefty was pleased to grant him a pension

of

1762.

of three hundred pounds a year. The Earl of Bute was then prime minister, and had the honour to announce this inftance of his fovereign's bounty, con- Etat. 53cerning 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 person who first mentioned this fubject to him. Lord Loughborough has told me, that the pension was granted to Johnson folely 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 pension 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 Johnson called on him after his Majesty's intention had been notified to him, and faid he wifhed 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 answered, 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. Johnson, it should feem, was fatisfied, for he did not call again till he had accepted the pension, 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 felfifh difpofition 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.

Etat. 53.

Mr. Murphy and the late Mr. Sheridan feverally contended for the distinction. of having been the first who mentioned to Mr. Wedderburn that Johnson ought to have a penfion. When I spoke of this to Lord Loughborough, wishing to know if he recollected the prime mover in the business, he said, "All his friends affifted:" and when I told him that Mr. Sheridan strenuously afferted his claim to it, his Lordship faid, "He rang the bell." And it is but just to add, that Mr. Sheridan told me, that when he communicated to Dr. Johnson that a penfion was to be granted him, he replied, in a fervour of gratitude, "The English language does not afford me terms adequate to my feelings on this occafion. I must have recourse to the French. I am penetré with his Majefty's goodness." When I repeated this to Dr. Johnson, he did not con

tradict it.

His definitions of penfion and penfioner, partly founded on the fatirical verfes of Pope, which he quotes, may be generally true; and yet every body must allow, that there may be, and have been, inftances of penfions given and received upon liberal and honourable terms. Thus, then, it is clear, that there was nothing inconfiftent or humiliating in Johnson's accepting of a penfion fo unconditionally and fo honourably offered to him.

This year his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds paid a vifit of fome weeks to his native county, Devonshire, in which he was accompanied by Johnson, who was much pleased with this jaunt, and declared he had derived from it a great acceffion of new ideas. He was entertained at the feats of feveral noblemen and gentlemen in the weft of England; but the greatest part of the time was paffed at Plymouth, where the magnificence of the navy, the ship-building and all its circumftances, afforded him a grand fubject of contemplation. The Commiffioner of the Dock-yard paid him the compliment of ordering the yacht to convey him and his friend to the Eddystone, to which they accordingly failed. But the weather was fo tempeftuous that they could not land.

Reynolds and he were at this time the guests of Dr. Mudge, the celebrated furgeon, and now physician of that place, not more diftinguished for quicknefs of parts and variety of knowledge, than loved and efteemed for his amiable manners; and here Johnfon formed an acquaintance with Dr. Mudge's father, that very eminent divine, the Reverend Zachary Mudge, Prebendary of Exeter, who was idolifed in the weft, both for his excellence as a preacher and the uniform perfect propriety of his private conduct. He preached a fermon purposely that Johnson might hear him; and we shall fee afterwards that Johnson honoured his memory by drawing his character. While Johnfon was at Plymouth, he saw a great many of its inhabitants, and was not sparing

of

of his very entertaining converfation. It was here that he made that frank and 1762. truly original confeffion, that "ignorance, pure ignorance," was the cause of Etat. 53. a wrong definition in his Dictionary of the word paftern", to the no fmall furprize of the Lady who put the question to him; who having the most profound reverence for his character, so as almost to suppose him endowed with infallibility, expected to hear an explanation (of what, to be fure, feemed strange to a common reader,) drawn from fome deep-learned fource with which the was unacquainted.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom I am obliged for my information concerning this excurfion, mentions a very characteristical anecdote of Johnson while at Plymouth. Having obferved that in confequence of the Dock-yard a new town had arisen about two miles off as a rival to the old; and knowing from his fagacity, and just observation of human nature, that it is certain if a man hates at all, he will hate his next neighbour; he concluded that this new and rifing town could not but excite the envy and jealousy of the old, in which conjecture he was very foon confirmed; he therefore fet himself resolutely on the fide of the old town, the established town, in which his lot was caft, confidering it as a kind of duty to ftand by it. He accordingly entered. warmly into its interests, and upon every occasion talked of the dockers, as the inhabitants of the new town were called, as upstarts and aliens. Plymouth is very plentifully fupplied with water by a river brought into it from a great distance, which is fo abundant that it runs to waste in the town. The Dock, or New-town, being totally deftitute of water, petitioned Plymouth that a small portion of the conduit might be permitted to go to them, and this was now under confideration. Johnson, affecting to entertain the paffions of the place, was violent in opposition; and half-laughing at himself for his pretended zeal, where he had no concern, exclaimed, "No, no! I am against the dockers; I am a Plymouth-man. Rogues! let them die of thirft. They shall not have a drop!" In 1763 he furnished to "The Poetical Calendar," published by Fawkes and Woty, a character of Collins,* which he afterwards ingrafted into his entire life of that admirable poet, in the collection of lives which he wrote for the body of English poetry, formed and published by the bookfellers of London. His account of the melancholy depreffion with which Collins was feverely afflicted, and which brought him to his grave, is, I think, one of the most tender and interesting paffages in the whole series of his writings. He alfo favoured Mr. Hoole with the Dedication of his tranflation of Taffo to

7: See p..163.

1763.

the

1763.

Ætat. 54.

the Queen, which is fo happily conceived and elegantly expreffed, that I cannot but point it out to the peculiar notice of my readers.

This is to me a memorable year, for in it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I am now writing; an acquaintance which I fhall ever efteem as one of the moft fortunate circumstances in my life. Though then but two-and-twenty, I had for several years read his works with delight and inftruction, and had the highest reverence for their authour, which had grown up in my fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring to myself a state of folemn elevated abstraction, in which I fuppofed him to live in the immenfe metropolis of London. Mr. Gentleman, a native of Ireland, who paffed fome years in Scotland as a player, and as an inftructor in the English language, a man whofe talents and worth were depreffed by misfortunes, had given me a representation of his figure and manner; and during my first vifit to London, which was for three months in 1760, Mr. Derrick the poet, who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flattered me with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an honour of which I was very ambitious. But he never found an opportunity, which made me doubt that he had promised to do what was not in his power, till Johnfon fome years afterwards told me, " Derrick, Sir, might very well have introduced you. I had a kindness for Derrick, and am forry he is dead." In the fummer of 1761 Mr. Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, and delivered lectures upon the English Language and Publick Speaking to large and refpectable audiences. I was often in his company, and heard him frequently expatiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, talents, and virtues, repeat his pointed fayings, defcribe his particularities, and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two or three in the morning. At his house I hoped to have many opportunities of seeing the fage, as Mr. Sheridan obligingly affured me I fhould not be disappointed.

When I returned to London in the end of 1762, to my furprize and regret I found an irreconcileable difference had taken place between Johnfon and Sheridan. A penfion of two hundred pounds a year had been given to Sheridan. Johnson, who as has been already mentioned, thought flightingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was alfo penfioned, exclaimed, "What! have they given him a penfion? Then it is time for me to give up mine." Whether this proceeded from a momentary indignation, as if it were an affront to his exalted merit that a player fhould be rewarded in the fame manner with him, or was the fudden effect of a fit of peevishness, it was unluckily faid, and, indeed, cannot be justified. Mr. Sheridan's penfion was

granted