This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having become joint patentee and manager of Drury-lane theatre, Johnson honoured his opening of it with a Prologue*, which for just and manly dramatick criticism on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence, is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to the "Distressed Mother," it was, during the season, often called for by the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it have been so often repeated, and so well recollected by all the lovers of the drama and of poetry, that it would be superfluous to point them out.

But the year 1747 is distinguished as the epoch when Johnson's arduous and important work, his "DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE," was announced to the world by the publication of its Plan or PRO

SPECTUS.

Johnson, single and unaided, for the execution of a work, which in other countries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch, Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds.

The "Plan" was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of his majesty's principal secretaries of state; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success. There is, perhaps, in every thing of any consequence, a secret history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. Johnson told me 2, "Sir, the way in which the How long this immense undertaking had plan of my Dictionary came to be inscribbeen the object of his contemplation, I do ed to Lord Chesterfield was this: I had not know. I once asked him by what means neglected to write it by the time appointed. he had attained to that astonishing know- Dodsley suggested a desire to have it adledge of our language, by which he was ena- dressed to Lord Chesterfield. I laid hold bled to realize a design of such extent and of this as a pretext for delay, that it might accumulated difficulty. He told me, that be better done, and let Dodsley have his "it was not the effect of particular study; desire. I said to my friend, Dr. Bathurst, but that it had grown up in his mind insen-Now, if any good comes of my addresssibly." I have been informed, by Mr. ing to Lord Chesterfield, it will be ascribJames Dodsley, that several years before ed to deep policy, when in fact, it was only this period, when Johnson was one day sit- a casual excuse for laziness 3."" ting in his brother Robert's shop, he heard It is worthy of observation, that the his brother suggest to him, that a Dictiona-" Plan" has not only the substantial merit ry of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick; that Johnson seemed, at first, to catch at the proposition; but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, "I believe I shall not undertake it." That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject before he published his " Plan," is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits; and we find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the writers whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities were selected by Pope; which proves that he had been furnished, probably by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that eminent poet had contributed towards a great literary project, that had been the subject of important consideration in a former reign.

The booksellers who contracted with

1 My friend, Mr. Courtnay, whose eulogy on Johnson's Latin poetry has been inserted in this work, is no less happy in praising his English poetry.

"But hark, he sings! the strain even Pope admires;
Indignant Virtue her own bard inspires,
Sublime as Juvenal he pours his lays,

And with the Roman shares congenial praise ;-
In glowing numbers now he fires the age,

And Skakspeare's sun relumes the clouded stage."

BOSWELL.

of comprehension, perspicuity, and precision, but that the language of it is unexceptionably excellent; it being altogether free from that inflation of style, and those uncommon, but apt and energetick words, which, in some of his writings, have been censured, with more petulance than justice; and never was there a more dignified strain of compliment than that in which he courts the attention of one, who, he had been persuaded to believe, would be a respectable patron.

"With regard to questions of purity or propriety (says he), I was once in doubt whether I should not attribute to myself too much in attempting to decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond

2 September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne to Islam.-BOSWELL.

3 [The reader will see, in the very next page, that this account of the affair was, to say the best of it, inaccurate; but if it were correct, would it not invalidate Johnson's subsequent complaint of Lord Chesterfield's inattention and ingratitude? for, even if his lordship had neglected what was dedicated to him only by laziness and accident, he could not justly be charged with ingratitude; a dedicator who means no compliment, has no reason to complain if he be not rewarded: but more of this hereafter.-ED.]

the proposition of the question, and the display of the suffrages on each side; but I have been since determined, by your lordship's opinion, to interpose my own judgement, and shall therefore endeavour to support what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Cæsar had judged him equal:

and the arguments are properly and modestly expressed. However, some expressions may be cavilled at, but they are trifles. I'll mention one: the barren laurel. The laurel is not barren, in any sense whatever; it bears fruits or flowers. Sed hæ sunt nuga2, and I have great expectations from the performance 3."

That he was fully aware of the arduous nature of the undertaking he acknowledges; and shows himself perfectly sensible of it in the conclusion of his "Plan;" but he had a noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit.

‘Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putat?' And I hope, my lord, that since you, whose authority in our language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious jurisdiction; Dr. Adams found him one day busy at and that the power which might have been his Dictionary, when the following diadenied to my own claim, will be readily al- logue ensued:-" ADAMS. This is a great lowed me as the delegate of your lordship." work, sir. How are you to get all the etyThis passage proves, that Johnson's ad-mologies? JOHNSON. Why, sir, here is a dressing his Plan" to Lord Chesterfield was not merely in consequence of the result of a report by means of Dodsley that the earl favoured the design; but that there had been a particular communication with his lordship concerning it. Dr. Taylor told me that Johnson sent his "Plan" to him in manuscript for his perusal; and that when it was lying upon his table, Mr. William Whitehead happened to pay him a visit, and being shown it, was highly pleased with such parts of it as he had time to read, and begged to take it home with him, which he was allowed to do; that from him it got into the hands of a noble lord, who carried it to Lord Chesterfield. When Taylor observed this might be an advantage, Johnson replied, sir, it would have come out with more bloom if it had not been seen before by any body."

"No,

The opinion conceived of it by another noble authour appears from the following extract from the Earl of Orrery's note to Dr. Birch:

shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welsh gentleman who has published a collection of Welsh proverbs, who will help me with the Welsh. ADAMS. But, sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman." With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had undertaken to execute.

The publick has had, from Sir John Hawkins, a long detail of what had been done in this country by prior Lexicographers; and no doubt Johnson was wise to avail himself of them, so far as they went: but the learned, yet judicious research of etymology, the various, yet accurate display of definition, and the rich collection of "Caledon, Dec. 30, 1747. authorities, were reserved for the superiour "I have just now seen the specimen of mind of our great philologist. For the meMr. Johnson's Dictionary, addressed to chanical part he employed, as he told me, Lord Chesterfield. I am much pleased six amanuenses; and let it be remembered with the plan, and I think the specimen is by the natives of North Britain, to whom one of the best that I have ever read. he is supposed to have been so hostile, that Most specimens disgust rather than pre-five of them were of that country 5. judice us in favour of the work to follow; but the language of Mr. Johnson's is good,

1 [This also must be inaccurate, for the plan contains numerous allusions and references to Lord Chesterfield's opinions; and there is the evidence both of Lord Chesterfield and Johnson, that Dodsley was the person who communicated with his lordship on the subject. And the remark about the bloom of the plan seems almost unintelligible. The bloom of a work, as regards the public, cannot be impaired by its being communicated to two or three private friends.-ED.]

There

were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. [Rob2 [Nuga, indeed! for, though the laurel, of course, goes through the process of fructification, it is, not only in the allegorical but in the ordinary sense of the word, barren. Its flowers have neither hue nor odour, nor is its fruit edible.ED.]

3 Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4303.-BOSWELL. 4 Sir John Hawkins's list of former English Dictionaries is, however, by no means complete MALONE.

[See ante, note, p. 53.-ED.]

ert] Shiels, who, we shall hereafter | see, partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elemen-ary with improvement and pleasure; and it

p. 257.

Life,

p. 139.

Piozzi,

p. 138, 159.

note.

At these meetings Sir J. Hawkins ob- | J. Hawkins, tells us, to the same Murphy, serves not only that in conversation John- effect, that Johnson was surprised son made it a rule to talk his best, to be told, but it was certainly true, Hawk. but that on many subjects he was that with all his great powers of mind, wit not uniform in his opinions, con- and humour were his most shining taltending as often for victory as for truth: at ents1;] [and Mrs. Piozzi says, that one time good, at another evil was predom- his vein of humour was rich and inant in the moral constitution of the world. apparently inexhaustible-to such Upon one occasion, he would deplore the a degree that Mr. Murphy used to say he non-observance of Good-Friday, and on an- was incomparable at buffoonery.] other deny, that among us of the present age there is any decline of public worship. He would sometimes contradict self-evident propositions, such as, that the luxury of this country has increased with its riches; and that the practice of card-playing is more general than heretofore. At this versatility of temper, none, however, took of fence: as Alexander and Cæsar were born for conquest, so was Johnson for the office of a symposiarch, to preside in all conversations; and Sir J. Hawkins adds that he never yet saw the man who would venture to contest his right.

Let it not, however, be imagined, that the members of this club met together with the temper of gladiators, or that there was wanting among them a disposition to yield to each other in all diversities of opinion: and, indeed, disputation was not, as in many associations of this kind, the purpose of the meeting; nor were their conversations, like those of the Rota club, restrained to particular topicks. On the contrary, it may be said, that with the gravest discourses was intermingled "mirth, that after no repenting draws" (Millon); for not only in Johnson's melancholy there were lucid intervals, but he was a great contributor to the mirth of conversation, by the many witty sayings he uttered, and the many excellent stories which his memory had treasured up, and he would on occasion relate; so that those are greatly mistaken who infer, either from the general tendency of his writings, or that appearance of hebetude which marked his countenance when living, and is discernible in the pictures and prints of him, that he could only reason and discuss, dictate and control. In the talent of humour there hardly ever was his equal. By this he was enabled to give to any relation that required it the graces and aids of expression, and to discriminate with the nicest exactness the characters of those whom it concerned. In aping this faculty, Sir J. Hawkins says that he had seen even Warburton disconcerted, and when he would fain have been thought a man of pleasantry, not a little out of countenance. [Mr. Murphy, a better judge than Sir

Hawk. p. 259.

[For the sake of further relaxa- Malone, tion from his literary labours, and probably also for Mrs. Johnson's health, he this summer visited Tunbridge Wells, then a place of much greater resort than it is at present. In the print2, representing some of "the remarkable characters" who were at Tunbridge Wells, in 1748, and copied from a drawing of the same size, Dr. Johnson stands the first figure.] [On the opposite side of the drawing his wife is represented, as are also Garrick, Cibber, Speaker Onslow, Lord Chatham, Lord Lyttelton, and Miss Chudleigh, and several other celebrated persons; and in this assemblage, as has been already stated, neither Johnson or his wife exhibit any appearance of inferiority to the rest of the company.]

ED.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for May of this year he wrote a "Life of Roscommon*," with Notes (p. 216); which he afterwards much improved (indenting the notes into text), and inserted amongst his Lives of the English Poets.

Mr. Dodsley this year brought out his " Preceptor," one of the most valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished

Tyers,

p. 5.

The Preface*," containing a general, sketch of the book, with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article [this he sat up a whole night to write]; and also, "The Vision of Theodore, the Hermit, found in his Cell *," a most beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore [Percy] heard Dr. Johnson say, that he thought this was the best thing he ever wrote [and he told Mr. Tyers that he composed it also, in one night, after finishing an evening in Holborn].

In January, 1749, he published "The Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated*." He, I be

[This should be borne in mind in reading Johnson's conversations, because much of that peculiarity called humour cannot be adequately conveyed in words and many things may appear trite, dull, or offensively rude in mere narration, which were enlivened or softened by the air and reader who may be curious about Johnson's early style of the delivery.-Ed.] associates.-ED.] 2 See ante, p. 34, 35.

lieve, composed it the preceding year.
Mrs. Johnson, for the sake of country air,
had lodgings at Hampstead, to which he
resorted occasionally, and there the greatest
part, if not the whole, of this imitation was
written. The fervid rapidity with which
it was produced is scarcely credible. I have
heard him say, that he composed seventy
lines of it one day, without putting one of
them upon paper till they were finished 2.
I remember when I once regretted to him
that he had not given us more of Juvenal's
Satires, he said, he probably should give
more, for he had them all in his head; by
which I understood, that he had the origi-
nals and correspondent allusions floating in
his mind, which he could, when he pleased,
embody and render permanent without
much labour. Some of them3, however,
he observed were too gross for imitation.
The profits of a single poem, however ex-been as hard as Hebrew 5."'
cellent, appear to have been very small in
the last reign, compared with what a pub-
lication of the same size has since been
known to yield. I have mentioned upon
Johnson's own authority, that for his "Lon-
don" he had only ten guineas; and now,
after his fame was established, he got for
his "Vanity of Human Wishes" but five
guineas more, as is proved by an authentick
document in my possession 4.

ing his fixed intention to publish at some
period, for his own profit, a complete collec-
tion of his works.

His " Vanity of Human Wishes" has less of common life, but more of a philosophick dignity than his "London." More readers, therefore, will be delighted with the pointed spirit of "London," than with the profound reflection of "The Vanity of Human wishes." Garrick, for instance, observed in his sprightly manner, with more vivacity than regard to just discrimination, as is usual with wits," When Johnson lived much with the Herveys, and saw a good deal of what was passing in life, he wrote his London,' which is lively and easy: when he became more retired, he gave us his Vanity of Human Wishes,' which is as hard as Greek. Had he gone on to imitate another satire, it would have

It will be observed, that he reserves to himself the right of printing one edition of this satire, which was his practice upon occasion of the sale of all his writings; it be

1 Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following.-BoswELL. [Mr. Boswell is here more solemnly inaccurate than Sir John, who, though he erroneously inverts the order of appearance of the two works, does not represent the poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of the play, but, on the contrary, neutralizes the mistake he makes as to time, by warning his reader not to impute the translation of Juvenal to the failure of the tragedy. ED.]

2 [This was Johnson's general habit of composing: his defect of sight rendered writing and written corrections troublesome, and he therefore exercised his memory where others would have employed pen and paper.-ED.]

[He probably said "some passages of them;" for there are none of Juvenal's Satires to which the same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is altogether gross and licentious.-Ed.]

"Nov, 25, 1748, I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which I assign to him the right of copy of an Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition.-SAM. JOHNSON." -BosWELL.

But The Vanity of Human Wishes" is, in the opinion of the best judges, as high an effort of ethick poetry as any language can show. The instances of variety of disappointment are chosen so judiciously, and painted so strongly, that, the moment they are read, they bring conviction to every thinking mind.

That of the warrior, Charles of Sweden, is, I think, as highly finished a picture as can possibly be conceived. That of the scholar must have depressed the too sanguine expectations of many an ambitious student 6.

[Gar

5 From Mr. Langton.-BosWELL. rick's criticism (if it deserves the name) and his facts are both unfounded. "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is in a graver and higher tone than the London, but not harder to be understood. On the contrary, some classical allusions, inconsistent with modern manners, obscure passages of the latter; while all the illustrations, sentiments, and expressions of the former are, though wonderfully noble and dignified, yet perfectly intelligible, and almost familiar. Moreover, we have seen that when Johnson wrote London, he was not living the gay and fashionable life which Mr. Garrick is represented as mentioning. Alas! he was starving in obscure lodgings on eightpence and even fourpence a day (see ante, p. 39), and there is in London nothing to show any intimacy with the great or fashionable world. As to the Herveys, it may be here observedcontrary to Mr. Boswell's (as well as Mr. Garrick's) supposition-that he was intimate with that family previous to the publication of Lon don:-that the sneer in that poem at "Clodio's jest," stood in the first edition " H——y's jest," and was probably aimed at Lord Hervey, who was a favourite theme of satire with the opposition writers of the day.-ED.]

In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned men is Lydiat:

"Hear Lydiat's Life, and Galileo's end."