When JOHNSON had completed his great work, and was receiving the acclamations of the nation. and the congratulations of the literary world, Chesterfield, who was at the head of fashionable society, and who also aspired to be at the head of literary circles, began to pay JOHNSON homage by scribbling to his praise in the World, the most fashionable paper of the day, anticipating that, by this courtly method of applause, he would have the gratification and eclat of having the Dictionary dedicated to himself, as the polite patron of litera

ture.

JOHNSON, however, who, when a needy, ill-clad, awkward scholar, had paid court to Lord Chesterfield, but had been repulsed from his door, 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 cockboats to tow me into harbour?" We also find him saying in the last number of "The Rambler": "Having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of dedication." Such being his sentiments, JOHNSON was not to be

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bribed by his lordship's flattery. He scornfully declined to accept the proferred homage, in a letter dated 7th February, 1755, which, for manly dignity and pathos, has never found a parallel.

"MY LORD.-I have been lately informed by the proprietor of the World that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

"When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself, le vainquer du vainqueur de la terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the arts of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I have done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

"Seven years, my lord, have now passed away since I waited in your outward rooms, and 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, and one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

"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 the 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 obligation where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

"Having carried on my work thus far, with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, should less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself, with so much exultation.

"My Lord, Your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

That letter, the original of which is in the British Museum, rang the death knell of Patronage in Literature. In the whole range of English literature we know of nothing so proud, dignified and pathetic, as that letter to Chesterfield, and the preface to his Dictionary.

Regarding JOHNSON'S fame, Carlyle says, "To JOHNSON, as to a healthy minded man, the fantastic article, sold or given under the title of Fame, had little or no value but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the means of getting him employment and good wages, scarcely as anything more. We reckon it a striking fact in JOHNSON's history this carelessness of his to fame." Carlyle is not quite correct in his estimate of JOHNSON in this respect. He was not insensible to fame. He says in the "Rambler," "The love of fame is a passion natural and universal, which no man, however, high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise." It must surely have escaped the remembrance of Carlyle, that JOHNSON in a literary circle one evening, exclaimed with evident rapture, "Oh gentlemen, I must tell you a very great thing. The

Emperor of Russia has ordered the "Rambler" to be translated into the Russian language, so that I shall be read on the banks of the Volga." Says Boswell," I have since heard that the report was not well founded; but the elation discovered by JOHNSON in the belief that it was true, showed a noble ardour for literary fame." On another Occasion JOHNSON remarked to Boswell that, "Men have a solicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it." Says Boswell, "I silently asked myself: Is it possible that the great SAMUEL JOHNSON really entertains any such apprehension, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established upon a foundation never to be shaken?" We are informed by Tom Tyers, as JOHNSON always called him during a friendship of thirty years, and whose literary qualifications are so ably and so humourously described in the 48th number of the "Idler" as Tom Restless, that JOHNSON declared to him that he wrote the "Rambler" by way of relief from his application to the Dictionary, and for the reward. JOHNSON "was a good man by nature,