I would counsel you to omit no decent nor manly degree of importunity. Your "SAM. JOHNSON." He now refreshed himself by an excurfion to Oxford, of which the following fhort characteristical notice, in his own words, is preferved: «*** is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever fince I came here. It was at my firft coming quite new and handfome. I have fwum thrice, which I had disused for many years. I have propofed to Vanfittart climbing over the wall, but he has refused me. are fore, at Dr. King's speech"." And I have clapped my hands till they His negro fervant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been fome time at fea, not preffed as has been fuppofed, but with his own confent, it appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Efq. from Dr. Smollet, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnfon always expreffed the utmost abhorrence. He faid, "No man will be a failor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a fhip is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." And at another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company "." • Dr. Robert Vanfittart, of the ancient and respectable family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much efteemed by Dr. Johnfon. 7 Gentleman's Magazine, April 1785. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 126, • Ibid. p. 251. The 1759 Etat. 50. 1759. Etat. 50. The letter was as follows: "DEAR SIR, Chelsea, March 16, 1759. "I AM again your petitioner, in behalf of that great chum' of literature Samuel Johnson. His black fervant, whofe name is Francis Barber, has been preffed on board the Stag Frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He fays the boy is a fickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly fubject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's fervice. You know what matter of animofity the faid Johnson has against you; and I dare fay you defire no other opportunity of refenting it than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to defire my affistance on this occafion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his intereft with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliott, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be fuperfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let flip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, "Your affectionate obliged humble servant, "T. SMOLLET." Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occafions has acted, as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commiffioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wifh of his own. He recollects the precife time to be three days before King George II. died. He found his old master in chambers in the Inner Temple, and returned to his fervice. What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of fome fort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find, "the change of outward things which I am now to make;" and, "Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour." But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change. Had Dr. Smollet been bred at an English Univerfity, he would have known that a chum is a ftudent who lives with another in a chamber common to them both. A chum of literature is nonsense. 2 Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 and 40. At At this time there being a competition among the architects of London to 1759. be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a queftion was very Etat. 50. warmly agitated whether femicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnfon's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne'; and after being at confiderable pains to study the fubject, he wrote three feveral letters in the Gazetteer, in opposition to his plan.. If 3 Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but fignificantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an oftentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of "proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by Nature-masculine and feminine-in a man, fefquioctave of the head, and in a woman fefquinonal;" nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of mufical terms, which do not feem much to correfpond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mafs. To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little difgufting to my readers. I fhall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his ftatement.-He feems to exult in having detected Johnfon in procuring" from a perfon eminently skilled in mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches." Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely.. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the femicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little verfed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastick father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch. It is ungraciously fuggefted, that Johnson's motive for oppofing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North-Britain; when, in truth, as has been ftated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and fo far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abufing Blackfriarsbridge, calling it "an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain fought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated their own difgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners." Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine, this ftately, elegant, and airy structure, which has fo fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, muft wonder at fuch unjust and ill-tempered cenfure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good tafte, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabrick, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland ftone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the publick, under the direction of the Lords of the Treafury, it fo happened that parliamentary intereft, which is often the bane of fair purfuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this difadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never funk either in its foundations or in its arches, 1759. Etat. 50. 1760. If it fhould be remarked that this was a controverfy which lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered that after all, his employing his powers of reafoning and eloquence upon a fubject which he had ftudied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often obferve in lawyers, who, as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of law-fuits, are fometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon fubjects of which they have informed themfelves for the occafion. In 1760 he wrote "An Addrefs of the Painters to George III. on his Acceffion to the Throne of thefe Kingdoms,t" which no monarch ever afcended with more fincere congratulations from his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a King, who gloried in being "born a Briton." He also wrote for Mr. Baretti the Dedication of his Italian and English Dictionary, to the Marquis of Abreu, then Ambaffadour Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great-Britain. Johnson was now either very idle, or very bufy with his Shakspeare; for I can find no other publick compofition by him except an account which he gave in the Gentleman's Magazine of Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of Scots.* The generofity of Johnfon's feelings shines forth in the following fentence: "It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists; for the dead cannot pay for praise, and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet there remains ftill among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a defire of establishing right in oppofition to fashion." In this year I have not discovered a fingle private letter written by him to any of his friends. It should feem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful fucceffes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his refolutions or memorandums, September 18, there is, "Send for books for Hift. of War 4." How much is it to be regretted that this intention was not fulfilled, His majestick expreffion would have carried down to the latest pofterity the glorious arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of fevere frofts have been already, in fome measure, repaired with founder ftone, and every neceffary renewal can be completed at a moderate expence, Prayers and Meditations, p. 42. atchievements 1760. achievements of his country, with the fame fervent glow which they produced on the mind at the time. He would have been under no temptation to tat. 51. deviate in any degree from truth, which he held very facred, or to take a licence which a learned divine told me he once feemed, in a conversation, jocularly to allow to hiftorians. "There are (faid he) inexcufable lies, and confecrated lies. For inftance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man eat his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to fay there was, (fmiling) may be reckoned a confecrated lie." This year Mr. Murphy having thought himself ill treated by the Reverend "Transcendant Genius, whofe prolifick vein "And every Mufe prefents her facred lore; "Say, pow'rful JOHNSON, whence thy verfe is fraught "With fo much grace, fuch energy of thought; "Whether thy JUVENAL inftructs the age "In chafter numbers, and new-points his rage; "Her innocence exchang'd for guilty state; Sublimity and elegance combine; Thy nervous phrafe impreffes every foul, Again, towards the conclufion: "Thou then, my friend, who fee'ft the dang'rous ftrife "To the Aonian fount direct my feet, |