L

finifhed fo foon, fince it was written, as he fays, "with little affiftance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the foft obfcurities of retirement, or under the fhelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in forrow." The forrow to which he here alludes is probably that which he felt for the lofs of his wife, who died on the 17th of March Q. S. 1752, and whom he continued to lament as long as he lived.

The Dictionary did not occupy his whole time; for while he was pushing it forward, he fitted his Tragedy for the ftage; wrote the lives of feveral eminent men for the Gentleman's Magazine; published an Imitation of the 10th Satire of Juvenal, intitled "The Vanity of Human Wishes ;" and began and finished "The Rambler." This laft work is fo well known, that it is hardly neceffary to say that it was a periodical paper, publifhed twice a-week, from the 20th of March 1750 to the 14th of March 1752 inclufive; but to give our readers fome notion of the vigour and promptitude of the author's mind, it may not be improper to obferve, that notwithstanding the feverity of his other labours, all the affiftance which he received does not amount to five papers; and that many of the most masterly of thofe unequalled effays were written on the fpur of the occafion, and never feen entire by the author till they returned to him from the prefs.

Soon after the Rambler was concluded, Dr. Hawkefworth projected "The Adventurer" upon a fimilar plan; and by the affiftance of friends he was enabled to carry it on with almoft equal merit. For a fhort time, indeed, it was the most popular work of the two; and the papers with the fignature T, which are confeffedly the moft fplendid in the whole collection, are now known to have been communicated by Johnson, who received for each the fum of two guineas. This

was

was double the price for which he fold fermons to fuch clergymen as either would not or could not compose their own difcourfes; and of fermon-writing he seems to have made a kind of trade.

Though he had exhaufted, during the time that he was employed on the Dictionary, more than the fum for which the book fellers had bargained for the copy; yet by means of the Rambler, Adventurer, fermons, and other productions of his pen, he now found himself in greater affluence than he had ever done before; and as the powers of his mind, diftended by long and fevere exercife, required relaxation to reftore them to their proper tone, he appears to have done little or nothing from the clofing of the Adventurer till the year 1756, when he fubmitted to the office of reviewer in the Literary Magazine. Of his reviews, by far the most valuable is that of Soame Jennyns's "Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil." Never were wit and metaphyfical acutenefs more clofely united than in that criticism, which expofes the weakness and holds up to contempt the reafoning of thofe vain mortals, who prefumptuously attempt to grafp the scale of existence, and to form plans of conduct for the Creator of the universe. But the furnishing of magazines, reviews, and even newfpapers with literary intelligence, and authors of books with dedications and prefaces, was confidered as an employment unworthy of Johnson. It was therefore propofed by the booksellers that he fhould give a new edition of the dramas of Shakespeare; a work which he had projected many years before, and of which he had published a specimen which was commended by Warburton. When one of his friends expreffed a hope that this employment would furnish him with amusement and add to his fame, he replied, "I look upon it as I did upon the Dictionary; it is all work; and my inducement to it is not love or defire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only

motive to writing that I know of." He iffued propofals, however, of confiderable length; in which he fhowed that he knew perfectly what a variety of refearch fuch an undertaking required: but his indolence prevented him from purfuing it with diligence, and it was not published till many years afterwards.

On the 15th of April 1758 he began a new periodical paper intitled "The Idler," which came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper, called "The Univerfai Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette," published by Newbery. Of these effays, which were continued till the 5th of April 1760, many were written as haftily as an ordinary letter; and one in particular compofed at Oxford was begun only half an hour before the departure of the poft which carried it to London.` About this time he had the offer of a living, of which he might have rendered himself capable by entering into orders. It was a rectory in a pleafant country, of fuch yearly value as would have been an object to one in much better circumftances; but fenfible, as it is fuppofed, of the afperity of his temper, he declined it, faying, "I have not the requifites for the office, and I cannot in my confcience fhear the flock which I am unable to feed."

In the month of January 1759 his mother died at the great age of 90; an event which deeply affected him, and gave birth to the 41ft Idler, in which he laments, that the life which made his own life pleasant was at an end, and that the gate of death was fhut upon his profpects." Soon afterwards he wrote his "Rafelas Prince of Abyffinia," that with the profits he might defray the expence of his mother's funeral, and pay fome debts which fhe had left. He told a friend, that he received for the copy 100l. and 251. more when it came to a second edition; that he wrote it in the evenings of one week, fent it to the prefs in portions as it was written, and had never fince read it over.

Hitherto,

Hitherto, notwithstanding his various publications, he was poor, and obliged to provide by his labour for the wants of the day that was paffing over him; but having been early in 1762 reprefented to the king as a very learned and good man without any certain provifion, his majesty was pleased to grant him a penfion, which Lord Bute, then first minifter, affured him "was not given for any thing which he was to do, but for what he had already done." A fixed annuity of three hundred pounds a-year, if it diminished his diftress, increased his indolence; for as he conftantly avowed that he had no other motive for writing than to gain money, as he had now what was abundantly fufficient for all his purposes, as he delighted in converfation, and was vifited and admired by the witty, the elegant, and the learned, very little of his time was paffed in folitary study. Solitude was indeed his averfion; and that he might avoid it as much as poffible,Sir Joshua Reynolds and he, in 1764, inftituted a club, which exifted long without a name, but was afterwards known by the title of the Literary Club. It confifted of fome of the moft enlightened men of the age, who met at the Turk's Head in Gerard-street Soho, one evening in every week at feven, and till a late hour enjoyed "the feaft of rea

fon and the flow of foul."

:

In 1765, when Johnfon was more than ufually oppreffed with conftitutional melancholy, he was fortunately introduced into the family of Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers in England, and member of parliament for the borough of Southwark and it is but juftice to acknowledge, that to the affiftance which Mr. and Mrs. Thrale gave him, to the shelter which their houfe afforded him for 16 or 17 years, and to the pains which they took to foothe or reprefs his uneafy fancies, the public is probably indebted for fome of the moft mafterly as well as moft popular works which he ever produced, At length, in the

October

October of this year, he gave to the world his edition of Shakespeare, which is chiefly valuable for the preface, where the excellencies and defects of that immortal bard are difplayed with fuch judgment, as must please every man whofe tafte is not regulated by the ftandard of fashion or national prejudice. In 1767 he was honoured by a private converfation with the king in the library at the queen's houfe: and two years afterwards, upon the establishment of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, &c. he was nominated Profeffor of Ancient Literature; an office merely honorary, and conferred on him, as is fuppofed, at the recommendation of his friend the prefident.

In the variety of fubjects on which he had hitherto exercifed his pen, he had forborne, fince the adminiftration of Sir Robert Walpole, to meddle with the difputes of contending factions; but having feen with indignation the methods which, in the bufinefs of Mr. Wilkes, were taken to work upon the populace, he publifhed in 1770 a pamphlet, intitled "The Falfe Alarm" in which he afferts, and labours to prove by a variety of arguments founded on precedents, that the expulfion of a member of the houfe of commons is equivalent to exclufion, and that no fuch calamity as the fubverfion of the conftitution was to be feared from an act warranted by ufage, which is the law of parliament. Whatever may be thought of the principles maintained in this publication, it unquestionably contains much wit and much argument, expreffed in the author's best style of compofition; and yet it is known to have been written between eight o'clock on Wednefday night and twelve o'clock on the Thurfday night, when it was read to Mr. Thrale upon his coming from the houfe of commons. In 1771 he publifhed another political pamphlet, intitled, "Thoughts on the late Tranfactions refpecting Falkland's Iflands,' in which he attacked Junius; and he ever afterwards

delighted