have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.'

The talents of Savage, and the mingled fire, rudeness, pride, meanness, and ferocity of his character, concur in making it credible that he was fit to plan and carry on an ambitious and daring scheme of imposture, similar instances of which have not been wanting in higher spheres, in the history of different countries, and have had a considerable degree of

success.

66

Yet, on the other hand, to the companion of Johnson (who, through whatever medium he was conveyed into this world, be it ever so doubtful, to whom related, or by whom begot," was, unquestionably, a man of no common endowments,) we must allow the weight of general repute as to his status or parentage, though illicit; and, supposing him to be an impostor, it seems strange that Lord Tyrconnel, the nephew of Lady Macclesfield, should patronise him, and even admit him as a guest in his family. Lastly, it must ever appear very suspicious, that three different accounts of the Life of Richard Savage,—one published in "The Plain Dealer," in 1724, another in 1727, and another by the powerful pen of Johnson, in 1744,-and all of them while Lady Macclesfield was alive, should, notwithstanding the severe attacks upon her, have been suffered to pass without any public and effectual contradiction.5

I have thus endeavoured to sum up the evidence upon the case, as fairly as I can; and

1 This is decisive: if Savage was what he represented himself to be, nothing could have prevented his recovering his legacy. CROKER.

Johnson's companion appears to have persuaded that lofty minded man, that he resembled him in having a noble pride; for Johnson, after painting in strong colours the qarrel between Lord Tyrconnel and Savage, asserts that the spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never suffered him to solicit à reconciliation: he returned reproach for reproach, and insult for insult." But the respectable gentleman to whom I have alluded, has in his possession a letter from Savage, after Lord Tyrconnel had discarded him, addressed to the Rev. Mr. Gilbert, his Lordship's chaplain, in which be requests him, in the humblest manner, to represent his cate to the Viscount.- BOSWELL.

Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson represents this unhappy man's being received as a companion by Lord Tyrconnel, and pensioned by his Lordship, as posterior to Savage's conviction and pardon. But I am assured, that Savage had received the voluntary bounty of Lord Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by him long before the murder was committed, and that his Lordship was very instrumental in Pouring Savage's pardon. by his intercession with the

en, through Lady Hertford. If, therefore, he had been drons of preventing the publication by Savage, he would have left him to his fate. Indeed, I must observe, that although Johnson mentions that Lord Tyrconnel's patronage of Savage was upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the cruelty of his mother," the great biographer has forgotten that he himself has mentioned, that Savage's

ry had been told several years before in "The Plain Dealer:" from which he quotes this strong saying of the Eros Sir Richard Steele, that the "inhumanity of his

ther had given him a right to find every good man his her." At the same time it must be acknowledged, that Lady Macclesfield and her relations might still wish that her story should not be brought into more conspicuous notice the satirical pen of Savage.- BOSWELL.

Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Lady Mac

the result seems to be, that the world must vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what was the truth.

This digression, I trust, will not be censured, as it relates to a matter exceedingly curious, and very intimately connected with Johnson, both as a man and an author.

He this year wrote the "Preface to the Harleian Miscellany." The selection of the pamphlets of which it was composed was made by Mr. Oldys, a man of eager curiosity, and indefatigable diligence, who first exerted that spirit of inquiry into the literature of the old English writers, by which the works of our great dramatic poet have of late been so signally illustrated.

clesfield by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well known in all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgment as to genteel life and manners, that he submitted every scene of his "Careless Husband" to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be free in his gallantry with his lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy, and Edging. - BOSWELL.

Lady Macclesfield died 1753, aged above 80. Her eldest daughter, by Col. Brett, was, for the few last months of his life, the mistress of George I. (See Walpole's Reminiscences.) Her marriage ten years after her royal lover's death is thus announced in the Gent. Mag. 1737 :- Sept. 17. Sir W. Leman, of Northall, Bart., to Miss Brett of Bond Street, an heiress;" and again next month" Oct. 8. Sir William Lemun, of Northall, Baronet, to Miss Brett, half sister to Mr. Savage, son to the late Earl Rivers;" for the difference of date I know not how to account; but the second insertion was, no doubt, made by Savage to countenance his own pretensions -CROKER.

5 It should, however, as Boswell himself suggests, be recollected, before we draw any conclusion from Lady Macclesfield's forbearance to prosecute a libeller, that however innocent she might be as to Savage, she was undeniably and inexcusably guilty in other respects, and would have been naturally reluctant to drag her frailties again before the public. CROKER.

6 William Oldys was born in 1696. In 1737 he published "The British Librarian: an Abstract of our most scarce, useful, and valuable Books; " and, in 1738, a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. He also contributed several articles to the General Dictionary, and the Biographia Britannica. He died in 1761.- WRIGHT.

of Macbeth, with Remarks on Sir T. H.'s (Sir Thomas Hanmer's) Edition of Shakspeare." To which he affixed, Proposals for a new edition of that poet.

As we do not trace any thing else published by him during the course of this year, we may conjecture that he was occupied entirely with that work. But the little encouragement which was given by the public to his anonymous proposals for the execution of a task which Warburton was known to have undertaken, probably damped his ardour. His pamphlet, however, was highly esteemed, and was fortunate enough to obtain the approbation even of the supercilious Warburton himself, who, in the Preface to his Shakspeare, published two years afterwards, thus mentioned it: "As to all those things which have been published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakspeare, if you except some Critical Notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius, the rest are absolutely below a serious notice."

Of this flattering distinction shown to him by Warburton, a very grateful remembrance was ever entertained by Johnson, who said, "He praised me at a time when praise was of value to me."

In 1746, it is probable that he was still employed upon his Shakspeare, which perhaps he laid aside for a time, upon account of the high expectations which were formed of Warburton's edition of that great poet. It is somewhat curious, that his literary career appears to have been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 and 1746, those years which were marked by a civil war in Great Britain, when a rash attempt was made to restore the House of Stuart to the throne. That he had a tenderness for that unfortunate House, is well known; and some may fancifully imagine, that a sym

1 Sir Thomas Hanmer was born in 1676. He was Speaker of the House of Commons in Queen Anne's last parliament, and died May 5. 1746. His Shakspeare, in six volumes quarto, was published in 1744. WRIGHT.

2 In the Garrick Correspondence, there is a letter from Gilbert Walmesley, dated Nov. 3. 1746, containing this passage: "When you see Mr. Johnson, pray give my compliments. and tell him I esteem him as a great genius quite lost, both to himself and the world." Upon which the Editor observes, "Between the years 1743 and 1746, Johnson literally wrote nothing. The rebellion that was then raging perhaps inspired him with the hopes that attached to his political principles. He loved the House of Stuart, and in the success of the Pretender might anticipate his own independence." G. C. i. 45. It would be, I readily admit, too fanciful to believe that his literary powers were suspended by ** sympathetic anxiety;" but it is little less so to imagine with Mr. Boswell, that he had employed these two years in contemplative preparation for his future Dictionary He must have had some means, however small, of subsistence. In the absence then of any other explanation, I cannot reject as altogether fanciful the idea of the Garrick Editor, that he may have been diverted from his ordinary pursuits not by "sympathetic anxiety,' but by some mere personal share in the proceedings of the Jacobite party. We shall see hereafter (Aug. 1766) that

he was privy to the concealment of at least one of the Scotch Jacobites, who was hiding from justice for his share in the rebellion may he not have been in some difficulties which might occasion his own absence or concealment? might this not have been the period of his temporary separation from his wife, if any such thing ever occurred? and finally, it is at least a curious coincidence, that Johnson's

pathetic anxiety impeded the exertion of his intellectual powers: but I am inclined to think, that he was, during this time, sketching the outlines of his great philological work.

None of his letters during those years are extant, so far as I can discover. This is much to be regretted. It might afford some entertainment to see how he then expressed himself to his private friends concerning state affairs. Dr. Adams informs me, that "at this time a favourite object which he had in contemplation was The Life of Alfred;' in which, from the warmth with which he spoke about it, he would, I believe, had he been master of his own will, have engaged himself, rather than on any other subject."

In 1747, it is supposed that the Gentleman's Magazine for May was enriched by him with five short poetical pieces distinguished by three asterisks. The first is a translation, or rather a paraphrase, of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether the Latin was his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English; as to which my only cause of doubt is, that his slighting character of Hanmer as an editor, in his "Observations on Macbeth," is very different from that in the Epitaph. It may be said, that there is the same contrariety between the character in the Observations, and that in his own Preface to Shakspeare; but a considerable time elapsed between the one publication and the other, whereas, the Observations and the Epitaph came close together. The others are, "To Miss on her giving the Author a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving;" "Stella in Mourning ;""The Winter's Walk;" "An Ode ;" and, "To Lyce, an elderly Lady." I am not positive that all these were his productions; but as "The Winter's Walk" has never been controverted to be his, and all of

disappearance from the Gentleman's Magazine, Feb. 1744, (ante, p. 49. n. 1.) is exactly contemporaneous with the arrest of Col. Cecil, the Pretender's agent and the general agitation into which the country was thrown by the king's message to Parliament announcing an invasion, and that he reappears in 1747, when the rebellion and all its fatal conse quences were over. I have a strong suspicion that from this period dates what I may call his morbid antipathy to the Scotch; and I also faintly suspect that a strong wish to recover an old letter out of the hands of Francis Stuart, one of his amanuenses in compiling the Dictionary, may have reference to this period. See post, Dec. 1779, 27th Feb. and 18th March, 1784, and the notes about Francis Stuart in the Appendix. CROKER, 1846.

3 In the "Universal Visiter," to which Johnson contributed, the mark which is affixed to some pieces unquestion ably his, is also found subjoined to others, of which he certainly was not the author. The mark, therefore, will not ascertain the poems in question to have been written by him. Some of them were probably the productions of Hawkesworth, who, it is believed, was afflicted with the gout The verses on a Purse were inserted afterwards in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, and are, unquestionably, Johnson's.""MALONE.

There is no evidence whatever that any of these were Johnson's, and every reason to suppose that they are all Hawkesworth's. The ode which Boswell doubts about on internal evidence, is the ode to Spring, which, as well as those on Summer, Autumn, and Winter, have been of late published as Johnson's, and are, no doubt, as Boswell says, all by the same hand. But we see that Spring bears internal marks of not being Johnson's, and of being Hawkesworth's. Winter and Summer, Mr. Chalmers asserts to be also Hawkes

them have the same mark, it is reasonable to conclude that they are all written by the same hand. Yet to the Ode, in which we find a passage very characteristic of him, being a learned description of the gout,

"Unhappy, whom to beds of pain

Arthritick tyranny consigns;

there is the following note, "The author being ill of the gout:" but Johnson was not attacked with that distemper till a very late period of his life. May not this, however, be a poetical fiction? Why may not a poet suppose himself to have the gout, as well as suppose himself to be in love, of which we have innumerable instances, and which has been admirably ridiculed by Johnson in his "Life of Cowley?" have also some difficulty to believe that he could produce such a group of conceits as appear in the verses to Lyce, in which he claims for this ancient personage as good a right to be assimilated to heaven, as nymphs whom other poets have flattered; he therefore ironically ascribes to her the attributes of the sky, in such stanzas as this:

"Her teeth the night with darkness dies,
She's starr'd with pimples o'er;
Her tongue like nimble lightning plies,
And can with thunder roar."

I

But as, at a very advanced age, he could condescend to trifle in namby-pamby rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her daughter, he may have, in his earlier years, composed such a piece as this.

It is remarkable, that in this first edition of "The Winter's Walk," the concluding line is much more Johnsonian than it was afterwards printed; for in subsequent editions, after praying Stella to "snatch him to her arms," he

says,

"And shield me from the ills of life." Whereas in the first edition it is

"And hide me from the sight of life."

worth's; and the index to the Gent. Mag. for 1748 attributes Summer to Mr. Greville, a name known to have been asmed by Hawkesworth. The verses on the "Purse," and to Stella in Mourning," are certainly by the same hand as the four odes. The whole therefore may be assigned to Hawksworth, but at all events should be removed from Johnson's works. CROKER.

1 Johnson's habitual horror was not of life, but of death. - CROKER.

1 Mr. Boswell and the critic, who I suppose was Doctor Blair, are unlucky in this objection, for Johnson has indifferently" in the sense of "without concern" in his Dictionary, with this example from Shakespeare, "And I will look on death indifferently." - CROKER.

3 These verses are somewhat too severe on the extraerdinary person who is the chief figure in them; for he was, ndoubtedly, brave. His pleasantry during his solemn trial (which, by the way, I have heard Mr. David Hume observe, that we have one of the very few speeches of Mr. Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, authentically given) was very remarkable. When asked if he had any questions to pot to Sir Everard Fawkener, who was one of the strongest witnesses against him, he answered, "I only wish him joy of his young wife." And after sentence of death, in the horrible terms in such cases of treason, was pronounced upon him, as

A horror at life in general is more consonant with Johnson's habitual gloomy cast of thought.' I have heard him repeat with great energy the following verses, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for April this year; but I have no authority to say they were his own. Indeed, one of the best critics of our age suggests to me, that "the word indifferently being used in the sense of without concern, and being also very unpoetical, renders it improbable that they should have been his composition.'

"2

ON LORD LOVAT'S EXECUTION.

"Pitied by gentle minds KILMARNOCK died;
The brave, BALMERINO, were on thy side;
RADCLIFFE, unhappy in his crimes of youth,
Steady in what he still mistook for truth,
Beheld his death so decently unmoved,
The soft lamented, and the brave approved.
But LOVAT's fate indifferently we view,
True to no king, to no religion true:
No fair forgets the ruin he has done;
No child laments the tyrant of his son;
No Tory pities, thinking what he was;
No Whig compassions, for he left the cause;
The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave!"

This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having become joint patentee and manager of Drury Lane theatre, Johnson honoured his opening of it with a Prologue*, which, for just and manly dramatic criticism on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence, is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to the "Distressed Mother," it was, during the season, often called for by the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it have been so often repeated, and are so well recollected by all the lovers of the drama and of poetry, that it would be superfluous to point them out. In the Gentleman's Magazine for December this year, he inserted an "Ode on Winter," which is, I think, an admirable specimen of his genius for lyric poetry.5

But the year 1747 is distinguished as the

he was retiring from the bar, he said, "Fare you well, my lords, we shall not all meet again in one place." He behaved with perfect composure at his execution, and called out, "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori.” — BOSWELL.

He was a profligate villain, and deserved death for his moral, at least, as much as for his political, offences. There is, in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1747, an account of the behaviour of Lord Lovat at his execution, the latter part of which, censuring pleasantry in articulo mortis, bears strong internal evidence, both in matter and manner, of having been written by Johnson. The interest which he took in this transaction may have fixed in his memory the lines on Lord Lovat, which certainly do not resemble his own style.CROKER.

4. In 1712, Ambrose Philips brought upon the stage, The Distressed Mother,' almost a translation of Racine's Andromaque.' It was concluded with the most successful epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited twice, and continued to be demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the play." Johnson, Life of A. Philips. WRIGHT. This celebrated prologue, though attributed to Budgell, was written by Addison. Ib. post. 26th April, 1776. CROKER, 1846.

5 Certainly Hawkesworth's. See antè, p. 54. n. 3.-CROKER.

epoch when Johnson's arduous and important work, his "DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE," was announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan or Prospectus.

How long this immense undertaking had been the object of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design of such extent and accumulated difficulty. He told me, that "it was not the effect of particular study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly." I have been informed by Mr. James Dodsley, that several years before this period, when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert's shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the public; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, "I believe I shall not undertake it." That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his "Plan," is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits; and we find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the writers whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities, were selected by Pope; which proves that he had been furnished, probably by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that eminent poet had contributed towards a great literary project, that had been the subject of important consideration in a former reign.

The booksellers who contracted with Johnson, single and unaided, for the execution of a work, which in other countries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch, Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and 'seventy-five pounds.

The "Plan was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success. There is, perhaps, in every thing of any consequence, a secret history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. Johnson told me (Sept. 22. 1777, | going from Ashbourn to Islam), "Sir, the way in which the plan of my Dictionary came to be inscribed to Lord Chesterfield, was this: I had

1 The reader will see on the next pages, under Johnson's own hand, that this account of the affair was inaccurate; but if it were correct, would it not invalidate Johnson's subsequent complaint of Lord Chesterfield's inattention and ingratitude? for, even if his lordship had neglected that which had been dedicated to him only by laziness and accident, he could not justly be charged with ingratitude; a dedicator who means no compliment, has no reason to com

It is worthy of observation, that the " Plan' has not only the substantial merit of comprehension, perspicuity, and precision, but that the language of it is unexceptionably excellent; it being altogether free from that inflation of style, and those uncommon but apt and energetic words, which, in some of his writings, have been censured, with more petulance than justice; and never was there a more dignified strain of compliment than that in which he courts the attention of one who, he had been persuaded to believe, would be a respectable patron.

"With regard to questions of purity or propriety," says he, "I was once in doubt whether I should not attribute to myself too much in attempting to decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond the proposition of the question. and the display of the suffrages on each side; but I have been since determined by your lordship's opinion, to interpose my own judgment, and shall therefore endeavour to support what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Cæsar had judged him equal:

'Cur me posse negem, posse quod ille putat?' And I may hope, my lord, that since you, whose authority in our language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious jurisdiction; and that the power which might have been denied to my own claim, will be readily allowed me as the delegate of your lordship."

This passage proves, that Johnson's addressing his "Plan to Lord Chesterfield was not merely in consequence of the result of a report by means of Dodsley, that the earl favoured the design; but that there had been a particular communication with his lordship concerning it. Dr. Taylor told me, that Johnson sent his "Plan" to him in manuscript, for his perusal; and that when it was lying upon his table, Mr. William Whitehead happened to pay him a visit, and being shown it, was highly pleased with such parts of it as he had time to read, and begged to take it home with him,