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. Lord Chesterfield read the letter to Dodsley with an air of indifference, smiled at the several passages, and observed how well they were expressed. He excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying, that he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did not know where he lived, and declared he would have turned off the best servant he ever had, if he knew that he had denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome. Of Lord Chesterfield's general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary man, the evidence is unquestionable; but of the character which he gave of Johnson in his letters to his son, and the difference in their manners, little union or friendship could be looked for between them. Certain it is however, that Johnson remained under an obligation to his lordship to the value of ten pounds.

Though he failed in an attempt, at an early period of life, to obtain the degree of Master of Arts; the university of Oxford, a short time before the publication of his dictionary, in anticipation of the excellence of the work, and at the solicitation of his friend Mr. Warton, unanimously presented it to him; and it was considered as an honour of considerable importance in the introduction of the work to the notice of the public.

At length in the month of May 1754, appeared his 'Dictionary of the English Language, with an History of the Language, and a English Grammar, in two volumes, folio.' It was received by the learned world, who had long wished for its appearance, with a degree of applause, proportionable to the

impatience which the promise of it had excited. Though we may believe him in the declaration at the end of his preface, that he dismissed it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise; there cannot be a doubt but that he was highly gratified by the reputation it acquired both at home and abroad. The Earl of Corke and Orrery, being at Florence, presented it to the Academia della Crusca. The academy sent Johnson their Vocabulorio, and the French Academy sent him their Dictionaire by Mr. Langton.

Johnson, as though he had foreseen some of the circumstances which would attend the publication of this arduous work, observes,' A few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there can never be wanting some who distinguish desert. Among those who amused themselves and the public on this occasion, Mr. Wilkes, in an essay printed in the Public Advertiser, ridiculed the following passage in the Grammar, H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable.' The remark is certainly too definite; but the author never altered the passage. Dr. Kenrick threatened an attack, several years after, in his Review of Johnson's Shakespeare, but it was never carried into execution. Campbell's Lexiphanes, published in 1767, and Callender's Deformities of Dr. Johnson, in 1782, may have some point and tendency to risibility, but in the opinion of à scholar must be insignificant and nugatory. It would be doing injustice to the memory of his old friend and pupil Garrick, to omit the following epigram, with which he complimented our learned au

thor on the first appearance of his dictionary. It is happily allusive to the ill success of the French Academy employed in settling their language.

'Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance That one English soldier will beat ten of France; Would we alter the boast from the sword to the pen, Our odds are still greater, still greater our men ; In deep mines of science, tho' Frenchmen may toil, Can their strength be compar'd to Locke, Newton, and Boyle?

Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their powers,

Their verse-men and prose-men, then match them

with ours;

First Shakespeare and Milton, like gods in the fight,
Have put their whole drama and epic to flight;
In satires, epistles, and odes would they cope,
Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope;
And Johnson well-armed like a hero of yore,
Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more."

Our author having spent, during the progress of his laborious work, the money which he had contracted to execute it, was still under the necessity of exerting his talents, as he himself expresses it, in making provision for the day that was passing over him. The subscriptions taken in for his edition of Shakespeare, and the profit of his miscellaneous essays, were now his principal resource for subsistence; and it appears from the following letter to Mr. Richardson, dated Gough Square, March 16, 1756, that they were not sufficient to ward off the distress of an arrest on a particular emergency.

'I am obliged to entreat your assistance; I am now under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shilllings; Mr. Strahan from whom I should have the

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necessary help in this case is not at home, and I am afraid of not finding Mr. Millar. If you could be so good as to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former obligations.' In the margin of this letter there is a memorandum in these words, March 16, 1756. Sent six guineas,

Witness William Richardson.'

The same year he engaged to superintend, andcontribute largely, to another monthly publication, entitled The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review. For this periodical work, he wrote original essays, and critical reviews: his essays evince extensive judgment: some of his reviews are short accounts of the production noticed, but many of them are examples of elaborate criticism in the most masterly style. About this period he was offered by a particular friend, a church living of considerable value in Lincolnshire, if he would take orders and accept it; but he chose to decline the clerical function. This year the Ivy Lane club was dissolved by the dispersion of the members.

In April 1758, he began the Idler, which appeared statedly in a weekly newspaper, called- The Universal Chronicle,' and was continued till April 1760. The Idler evidently appeared to be the production of the same genius as the Rambler; but it has more of real life as well as ease of language.

Soon after the death of his mother, which happened in the beginning of 1759, he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, that with the profits he might defray the expense of her funeral, and pay some little debts which he had contracted. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over.

He

received for the copy 1001.; and 251. when it came to a second edition. The applause with which this work was received, bore ample testimony to its merit; indeed, its reception was such that it has been translated into various modern languages, and admitted into the politest libraries of Europe.

In 1760, Mr. Murphy conceiving himself illiberally treated by Dr. Franklin, a cotemporary writer in his dissertation on Tragedy, published an animated vindication of himself, in a Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A. M. in which he complimented Johnson in a just and elegant manner. An acquaintance first commenced between Johnson and Mr. Murphy in the following manner. Mr. Murphy during the publication of his 'Gray's Inn Journal,' happened to be in the country with Foote the modern Aristophanes, and having mentioned that he was obliged to go to London, to get ready for the press one of the numbers; Foote said to him-' You need not go on that account. Here is a French magazine, in which you will find a very pretty original tale; translate that and send it to your printer. Mr. Murphy having read the tale was highly pleased with it, and followed Foote's advice. When he arrived in town, this tale was pointed out to him in the Rambler, from whence it had been translated into the French Magazine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson to explain this curious incident, and a friendship was formed between them that continued without interruption till the death of Johnson.

In 1762, Fortune, which had hitherto left our author to struggle with the inconveniences of a precarious subsistence, arising entirely from his own labours, gave him the independence which his literary talents certainly deserved. His present Majesty, in the