‘Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his price to twenty guineas a head[974], and Miss is much employed in miniatures[975]. I know not any body [else] whose prosperity has encreased since you left them.
[Page 327: Johnson’s SHAKSPEARE delayed. Ætat 49.]
‘Murphy is to have his Orphan of China acted next month; and is therefore, I suppose, happy[976]. I wish I could tell you of any great good to which I was approaching, but at present my prospects do not much delight me; however, I am always pleased when I find that you, dear Sir, remember,
‘Your affectionate, humble servant,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘Jan. 9, 1758.’
‘TO MR. BURNEY, AT LYNNE, NORFOLK.
‘SIR,
‘Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular regard from you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my sense of your favours[977]; but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus distinguished by you.
‘I am ashamed to tell you that my Shakspeare will not be out so soon as I promised my subscribers; but I did not promise them more than I promised myself. It will, however, be published before summer.
‘I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, and have hitherto left very few passages unexplained; where I am quite at a loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by commentators[978].
‘I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them, with more importunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an opportunity. I once printed them at length in the Chronicle, and some of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the Gray’s-Inn Journal) introduced them with a splendid encomium.
[Page 328: The garret in Gough-square. A.D. 1758.]
‘Since the Life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather all those that have anything of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me.
‘I am, Sir,
‘Your most obliged
‘And most humble servant,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘London, March 8, 1758.’
Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum, which I take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style. I love to exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend by various eminent hands.
‘Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had an interview with him in Gough-square, where he dined and drank tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he there found about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs and one arm[979]. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams’s history, and shewed him some volumes of his Shakspeare already printed, to prove that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney’s opening the first volume, at the Merchant of Venice, he observed to him, that he seemed to be more severe on Warburton than Theobald. “O poor Tib.! (said Johnson) he was ready knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him.” “But, Sir, (said Mr. Burney,) you’ll have Warburton upon your bones, won’t you?” “No, Sir; he’ll not come out: he’ll only growl in his den.” “But you think, Sir, that Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald?” “O, Sir, he’d make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices[980]! The worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there’s nothing to be said.” Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed “To the most impudent Man alive[981].” He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties[982].
[Page 330: The Idler. A.D. 1758.]
Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton’s book against Bolingbroke’s Philosophy[983]? “No, Sir, I have never read Bolingbroke’s impiety, and therefore am not interested about its confutation.”’
On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled The Idler[984],[*] which came out every Saturday in a weekly newspaper, called The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, published by Newbery[985]. These essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their total number, twelve were contributed by his friends; of which, Numbers 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas Warton; No. 67 by Mr. Langton; and Nos. 76, 79, and 82, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82, ‘and pollute his canvas with deformity,’ being added by Johnson, as Sir Joshua informed me[986].
The Idler is evidently the work of the same mind which produced The Rambler, but has less body and more spirit. It has more variety of real life, and greater facility of language. He describes the miseries of idleness, with the lively sensations of one who has felt them[987]; and in his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find ‘This year I hope to learn diligence[988].’ Many of these excellent essays were written as hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford[989], asking him one evening how long it was till the post went out; and on being told about half an hour, he exclaimed, ‘then we shall do very well.’ He upon this instantly sat down and finished an Idler, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr. Langton having signified a wish to read it, ‘Sir, (said he) you shall not do more than I have done myself.’ He then folded it up and sent it off.
Yet there are in The Idler several papers which shew as much profundity of thought, and labour of language, as any of this great man’s writings. No. 14, ‘Robbery of Time;’ No. 24, ‘Thinking;’ No. 41, ‘Death of a Friend[990];’ No. 43, ‘Flight of Time;’ No. 51, ‘Domestick greatness unattainable;’ No. 52, ‘Self-denial;’ No. 58, ‘Actual, how short of fancied, excellence[991];’ No. 89, ‘Physical evil moral goode[992];’ and his concluding paper on ‘The horrour of the last[993];’ will prove this assertion. I know not why a motto, the usual trapping of periodical papers, is prefixed to very few of the Idlers, as I have heard Johnson commend the custom: and he never could be at a loss for one, his memory being stored with innumerable passages of the classicks[994]. In this series of essays he exhibits admirable instances of grave humour, of which he had an uncommon share. Nor on some occasions has he repressed that power of sophistry which he possessed in so eminent a degree. In No. 11, he treats with the utmost contempt the opinion that our mental faculties depend, in some degree, upon the weather; an opinion, which they who have never experienced its truth are not to be envied; and of which he himself could not but be sensible, as the effects of weather upon him were very visible. Yet thus he declaims:—
[Page 332: Influence of the weather. A.D. 1758.]
‘Surely, nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance, every day is bright; and every