that ‘one of the last acts of reason which he exerted was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little narrative.’ Works, vi. 433.
[751] See Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 189.
[752] Lord Chesterfield writing to his son in 1751 (Letters, iii. 136) said:—‘People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind, as surgeons are to their bodily pains; they see and hear of them all day long, and even of so many simulated ones, that they do not know which has are real, and which are not. Other sentiments are therefore to be applied to than those of mere justice and humanity; their favour must be captivated by the suaviter in modo; their love of ease disturbed by unwearied importunity; or their fears wrought upon by a decent intimation of implacable, cool resentment: this is the true fortiter in re! He was himself to experience an instance of the true fortiter in re.
[753] If Lord Chesterfield had read the last number of The Rambler (published in March, 1752) he could scarcely have flattered himself with these expectations. Johnson, after saying that he would not endeavour to overbear the censures of criticism by the influence of a patron, added:—‘The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and, though greatness sometimes sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of truth, I will not at last violate it by the confession of terrors which I do not feel; having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of dedication.’
[754] On Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 1754. The World, by Adam Fitz-Adam, Jan. 1753 to Dec. 1765. The editor was Edward Moore. Among the contributors were the Earls of Chesterfield and Corke, Horace Walpole, R. O. Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns. See post, July 1, 1763.
[755] With these papers as a whole Johnson would have been highly offended. The anonymous writer hopes that his readers will not suspect him ‘of being a hired and interested puff of this work.’ ‘I most solemnly protest,’ he goes on to say, ‘that neither Mr. Johnson, nor any booksellers have ever offered me the usual compliment of a pair of gloves or a bottle of wine.’ It is a pretty piece of irony for a wealthy nobleman solemnly to protest that he has not been bribed by a poor author, whom seven years before he had repulsed from his door. But Chesterfield did worse than this. By way of recommending a work of so much learning and so much labour he tells a foolish story of an assignation that had failed ‘between a fine gentleman and a fine lady.’ The letter that had passed between them had been badly spelt, and they had gone to different houses. ‘Such examples,’ he wrote, ‘really make one tremble; and will, I am convinced, determine my fair fellow-subjects and their adherents to adopt and scrupulously conform to Mr. Johnson’s rules of true orthography.’ Johnson, in the last year of his life, at a time of great weakness and depression, defended the roughness of his manner. ‘I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company’ (post, June 11, 1784).
[756] In the original ‘Mr. Johnson.’
[757] In the original ‘unnecessary foreign ornaments.’
[758] In the original, ‘will now, and, I dare say.’
[759] Hawkins (Life, p. 191) says that Chesterfield, further to appease Johnson, sent to him Sir Thomas Robinson (see post, July 19, 1763), who was ‘to apologise for his lordship’s treatment of him, and to make him tenders of his future friendship and patronage. Sir Thomas, whose talent was flattery, was profuse in his commendations of Johnson and his writings, and declared that, were his circumstances other than they were, himself would settle £500 a year on him. ‘And who are you,’ asked Johnson, ‘that talk thus liberally?’ ‘I am,’ said the other, ‘Sir Thomas Robinson, a Yorkshire baronet.’ ‘Sir,’ replied Johnson, ‘if the first peer of the realm were to make me such an offer, I would shew him the way down stairs.’
[760] Paradise Lost, ii. 112.
[761] Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of his interviews with Chesterfield, when in his Rambler on ‘The Mischiefs of following a Patron’ (No. 163) he wrote:—‘If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured your philosophy within the attraction of greatness, you know the force of such language, introduced with a smile of gracious tenderness, and impressed at the conclusion with an air of solemn sincerity.’
[762] Johnson said to Garrick:—‘I have sailed a long and painful voyage round the world of the English language; and does he now send out two cock-boats to tow me into harbour?’ Murphy’s Johnson, p. 74. This metaphor may perhaps have been suggested to Johnson by Warburton. ‘I now begin to see land, after having wandered, according to Mr. Warburton’s phrase, in this vast sea of words.’ Post, Feb. 1, 1755.
[763] See post, Nov. 22, 1779, and April 8, 1780. Sir Henry Ellis says that ‘address’ in Johnson’s own copy of his letter to Lord Chesterfield is spelt twice with one d. Croker’s Corres. ii. 44. In the series of Letters by Johnson given in Notes and Queries, 6th S. v, Johnson writes persuit (p. 325); ‘I cannot butt (p. 342); ‘to retain council‘ (p. 343); harrassed (p. 423); imbecillity (p. 482). In a letter to Nichols quoted by me, post, beginning of 1783, he writes ilness. He commonly, perhaps always, spelt Boswell Boswel, and Nichols’s name in one series of letters he spelt Nichols, Nichol, and Nicol. Post, beginning of 1781, note.
[764] Dr. Johnson appeared to have had a remarkable delicacy with respect to the circulation of this letter; for Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, informs me that, having many years ago pressed him to be allowed to read it to the second Lord Hardwicke, who was very desirous to hear it (promising at the same time, that no copy of it should be taken), Johnson seemed much pleased that it had attracted the attention of a nobleman of such a respectable character; but after pausing some time, declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile, ‘No, Sir; I have hurt the dog too much already;’ or words to that purpose. BOSWELL.
[765] See post, June 4, 1781.
[766] In 1790, the year before the Life of Johnson came out, Boswell published this letter in a separate sheet of four quarto pages under the following title:—The celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, LL.D., to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; Now first published with Notes, by James Boswell, Esq., London. Printed by Henry Baldwin: for Charles Dilly in the Poultry, MDCCXC. Price Half-a-Guinea. Entered in the Hall-Book of the Company of Stationers. It belongs to the same impression as The Life of Johnson.
[767] ‘Je chante le vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre.’ Boileau, L’Art poétique, iii. 272.
[768] The following note is subjoined by Mr. Langton:—‘Dr. Johnson, when he gave me this copy of his letter, desired that I would annex to it his information to me, that whereas it is said in the letter that “no assistance has been received,” he did once receive from Lord Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds; but as that was so inconsiderable a sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find place in a letter of the kind that this was.’ BOSWELL. ‘This surely is an unsatisfactory excuse,’ writes Mr. Croker. He read Johnson’s letter carelessly, as the rest of his note shews. Johnson says, that during the seven years that had passed since he was repulsed from Chesterfield’s door he had pushed on his work without one act of assistance. These ten pounds, we may feel sure, had been received before the seven years began to run. No doubt they had been given in 1747 as an acknowledgement of the compliment paid to Chesterfield in the Plan. He had at first been misled by Chesterfield’s one act of kindness, but he had long had his eyes opened. Like the shepherd in Virgil (Eclogues, viii. 43) he could say:—’Nunc scio quid sit Amor.’
[769] In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently alludes to the loss of his wife. We find the same tender recollection recurring to his mind upon innumerable occasions: and, perhaps no man ever more forcibly felt the truth of the sentiment so elegantly expressed by my friend Mr. Malone, in his Prologue to Mr. Jephson’s tragedy of JULIA [Julia or the Italian Lover was acted for the first time on April 17, 1787. Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 354]:—
‘Vain—wealth,