1752.

Etat. 43.

upon his other qualities; and, in a fhort time, the moral, pious Johnson, and the gay, diffipated Beauclerk, were companions. "What a coalition! (faid Garrick, when he heard of this ;) I fhall have my old friend to bail out of the Round-house." But I can bear teftimony that it was a very agreeable affociation. Beauclerk was too polite, and valued learning and wit too much, to offend Johnfon by fallies of infidelity or licentioufnefs; and Johnfon delighted in the good qualities of Beauclerk, and hoped to correct the evil. Innumerable were the fcenes in which Johnson was amufed by these young men. Beauclerk could take more liberty with him, than any body with whom I ever faw him; but, on the other hand, Beauclerk was not fpared by his refpectable companion, when reproof was proper. Beauclerk had fuch a propenfity to satire, that at one time Johnson faid to him, "You never open your mouth but with intention to give pain; and you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you faid, but from feeing your intention." At another time applying to him, with a flight alteration, a line of Pope, he faid, "Thy love of folly, and thy fcorn of fools-Every thing thou doft fhews the one, and every thing thou fay'ft the other." At another time he faid to him, Thy body is all vice, and thy mind all virtue." Beauclerk not feeming to relish the compliment, Johnfon faid, "Nay, Sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have defired to have had more faid to him."

Johnson was fome time with Beauclerk at his house at Windfor, where he was entertained with experiments in natural philofophy. One Sunday, when the weather was very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, infenfibly, to faunter about all the morning. They went into a church-yard, in the time of divine fervice, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of the tomb-stones. "Now, Sir, (faid Beauclerk) you are like Hogarth's Idie Apprentice." When Johnson got his pension, Beauclerk faid to him, in the humorous phrase of Falstaff, "I hope you'll now purge, and live cleanly like a gentleman.”

One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and fat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnfon, and fee if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his fhirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that fome ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good humour agreed to their propofal: "What, is it you, you dogs! I'll have a frisk with

you,"

1752.

you." He was foon dreft, and they fallied forth together into Covent-Garden, where the green-grocers and fruiterers were beginning to arrange their hampers, Etat. 43. juft come in from the country. Johnfon made fome attempts to help them; but the honeft gardeners ftared fo at his figure and manner, and odd interference, that he foon faw his fervices were not relifhed. They then repaired to one of the neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnfon had always liked; while in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines,

"Short, O fhort then be thy reign,

"And gve us to the world again!"

They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were fo well pleased with their amusement, that they refolved to perfevere in diffipation for the rest of the day but Langton deferted them, being engaged to breakfaft with fome young ladies. Johnson scolded him for "leaving his focial friends, to go and fit with a fet of wretched un-idea'd girls." Garrick being told of this ramble, faid to him smartly, "I heard of your frolick t'other night. You'll be in the Chronicle." Upon which Johnfon afterwards obferved, "He durft not do fuch a thing. His wife would not let him!"

He entered upon the year 1753 with his ufual piety, as appears from the following prayer transcribed from that part of his diary which he burnt a few days before his death:

Jan. 1, 1753, N. S. which I fhall ufe for the future.

Almighty GoD, who haft continued my life to this day, grant that, by the affiftance of thy Holy Spirit, I may improve the time which thou fhalt grant me, to my eternal falvation. Make me to remember, to thy glory, thy judgements and thy mercies. Make me fo to confider the lofs of my wife, whom thou haft taken from me, that it may difpofe me, by thy grace, to lead the refidue of my life in thy fear. Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S fake. Amen."

He now relieved the drudgery of his Dictionary, and the melancholy of his grief, by taking an active part in the composition of "The Adventurer,” in which he began to write April 10, marking his effays with the fignature T, by which most of his papers in that collection are diftinguished: thofe, however, which have that fignature and also that of Myfargyrus, were not written by him, but, as I fuppofe, by Dr. Bathurst. Indeed Johnfon's energy of thought

1753.

thought and richness of language, are still more decifive marks than any fignature. As a proof of this, my readers, I imagine, will not doubt that No. 39, on fleep, is his; for it not only has the general texture and colour of his style, but the authours with whom he was peculiarly converfant are readily introduced in it in curfory allufion. The translation of a paffage in Statius quoted in that paper, and marked C. B. is certainly the performance of Dr. Charles Bathurst. How much this amiable man actually contributed to "The Adventurer," cannot be known. Let me add, that Hawkefworth's imitations of Johnson are fometimes fo happy, that it is extremely difficult to distinguish them, with certainty, from the compofitions of his great archetype. Hawkefworth was his closest imitator, a circumftance of which that writer would once have been proud to be told; though, when he had become elated by having rifen into fome degree of confequence, he, in a converfation with me, had the provoking" effrontery to fay he was not fenfible of it.

Johnfon was truly zealous for the fuccefs of "The Adventurer;" and very foon after his engaging in it, he wrote the following letter

To the Reverend Dr. JOSEPH WARTON.

DEAR SIR,

"I OUGHT to have written to you before now, but I ought to do many things which I do not; nor can I, indeed, claim any merit from this letter; for being defired by the authours and proprietor of the Adventurer to look out for another hand, my thoughts neceffarily fix'd upon you, whofe fund of literature will enable you to affift them, with very little interruption of your ftudies.

"They defire you to engage to furnish one paper a month, at two guineas a paper, which you may very readily perform. We have confidered that a paper fhould confift of pieces of imagination, pictures of life, and difquifitions of literature. The part which depends on the imagination is very well fupplied, as you will find when you read the paper; for defcriptions of life, there is now a treaty almoft made with an authour and an authorefs; and the province of criticifm and literature they are very defirous to affign to the commentator on Virgil.

"I hope this propofal will not be rejected, and that the next poft will bring us your compliance. I fpeak as one of the fraternity, though I have no part in the paper, beyond now and then a motto; but two of the writers

are my particular friends, and I hope the pleasure of seeing a third united to them, will not be denied to, dear Sir,

1753.

Etat. 44.

March 8, 1753.

"Your most obedient

"And most humble fervant,

SAM. JOHNSON."

The confequence of this letter was, Dr. Warton's enriching the collection with feveral admirable effays.

Johnson's saying "I have no part in the paper beyond now and then a motto," may seem inconsistent with his being the authour of the papers marked T. But he had, at this time, written only one number; and besides, even at any after period, he might have used the fame expreffion, confidering it as a point of honour not to own them; for Mrs. Williams told me, that "as he had given thofe effays to Dr. Bathurst, who fold them at two guineas each, he never would own them; nay, he used to say he did not write them but the fact was, that he dictated them, while Bathurft wrote." I read to him Mrs. Williams's account; he fimiled, and faid nothing.

I am not quite fatisfied with the cafuistry by which the productions of one perfon are thus paffed upon the world for the productions of another. I allow that not only knowledge, but powers and qualities of mind may be communicated; but the actual effect of individual exertion never can be tranfferred, with truth, to any other than its own original cause. One person's child may be made the child of another perfon by adoption, as among the Romans, or by the ancient Jewish mode of a wife having children borne to her upon her knees, by her handmaid. But these were children in a different fenfe from that of nature. It was clearly understood that they were not of the blood of their nominal parents. So in literary children, an authour may give the profits and fame of his compofition to another man, but cannot make that other the real authour. A Highland gentleman, a younger branch of a family, once confulted me if he could not validly purchase the Chieftainship of his family, from the Chief who was willing to fell it. I told him it was impoffible for him to acquire, by purchase, a right to be a different perfon from what he really was; for that the right of Chieftainship attached to the blood of primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being transferred. I added, that though Efau fold his birth-right, or the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the first-born of his parents; and that whatever agreement a Chief might make with any of the clan, the Herald's Office could not admit of the metamorphofis, or with any decency atteft that the younger was the elder; but I did not convince the worthy gentleman.

1753.

Ætat. 44.

1754.

Johnson's papers in the Adventurer are very fimilar to thofe of the Rambler; but being rather more varied in their fubjects, and being mixed with effays by other writers, upon topicks more generally attractive than even the most elegant ethical difcourfes, the fale of the work, at firft, was more extenfive. Without meaning, however, to depreciate the Adventurer, I must obferve, that as the value of the Rambler came, in the progress of time, to be better known, it grew upon the publick eftimation, and that its fale has far exceeded that of any other periodical papers fince the reign of Queen Anne. In one of the books of his diary I find the following entry:

Apr. 3, 1753. I began the fecond vol. of my Dictionary, room being left in the first for Preface, Grammar, and Hiftory, none of them yet begun. "O GOD, who haft hitherto fupported me, enable me to proceed in this labour, and in the whole task of my present state; that when I fhall render up, at the last day, an account of the talent committed to me, I may receive pardon, for the fake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen."

He this year favoured Mrs. Lennox with a Dedication to the Earl of Orrery, of her "Shakspeare Illuftrated."

In 1754 I can trace nothing published by him, except his numbers of the Adventurer, and "The Life of Edward Cave," in the Gentleman's Magazine for February. In biography there can be no question that he excelled, beyond all who have attempted that fpecies of compofition; upon which, indeed, he fet the highest value. To the minute felection of characteristical circumstances, for which the ancients were remarkable, he added a philofophical research, and the most perspicuous and energetick language. Cave was certainly a man of estimable qualities, and was eminently diligent and fuccessful in his own bufinefs, which, doubtless, entitled him to refpect. But he was peculiarly fortunate in being recorded by Johnfon, who, of the narrow life of a printer and publisher, without any digreffions or adventitious circumftances, has made an interesting and agreeable narrative.

The Dictionary, we may believe, afforded Johnson full occupation this year. As it approached to its conclufion, he probably worked with redoubled vigour, as feamen increase their exertion and alacrity when they have a near profpect of their haven.

Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnfon had paid the high compliment of addreffing to his Lordship the Plan of his Dictionary, had behaved to him in fuch a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumftances, that a fudden difguft was taken by Johnson upon occafion of his having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordfhip's

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