CHAPTER XX.

SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS (1709—1784).

THE great activity of original and independent thought which preceded the French Revolution led not only to the overturning of political tyranny, and the reconstruction of government, but it roused men to examine into all social forms and customs, and to see whether these were placed on a true basis, and whether they were fulfilling rightly the reason of their existence. One of the most important directions taken by this spirit of the time was that relating to the true position of literature, and the right of the author to live by the just payment of his work. In earlier times, when readers were few, this might have been impossible, but now education had made many readers, and created a demand for books; still, however, literature was regarded too much as a means for gratifying the vanity of a writer, and as giving opportunity to a rich man to patronise intellect, and keep it in his pay. Pope had attacked this system, and Swift and Steele and Goldsmith had held themselves, in a measure, independent of patronage; but it needed great strength of character in an author to keep himself wholly free from the service of any party, and great courage and self-denial to be the first to trust to the general intelligence of the people to find out the merit of his work, and to pay him for it according to its real value. There is high honour due, therefore, to Samuel Johnson, who was the first to lead the way along the nobler path of honest, hard work, with a free mind and will, instead of living a life of dependence

on the bounty of others, for which flattery and the use of the author's pen were expected in return. Johnson's work, therefore, in relation to English literature is most important, and reaches beyond the influence of his books themselves; for it is the beginning of a new era, such as Milton foresaw in his "Areopagitica," when literature, free from all the shackles of public interference or private interest, should assert the truth with simple faith and courage, trusting to God, and to the light of God in man, for its recognition and reception.

Samuel Johnson was born on the 18th of September, 1709. He was the son of a bookseller at Lichfield, and was named Samuel after Dr. Swinfen, who was lodging in the house. He was naturally of an unhealthy constitution, and he suffered from this all his life long. It affected his nerves and muscles, and gave him odd twitchings and contortions of his face, and made him most clumsy and awkward in his movements; there was a fear, also, that disease might at some time attack his brain, and bring on insanity; but it was a part of his brave life to struggle against all these difficulties, instead of making them an excuse for idleness and selfindulgence. At seven years old he was sent to Lichfield Grammar School, where Addison had been more than thirty years before. At fifteen he went to school at Stourbridge, where he gave help in teaching in return for instruction. With some aid from his godfather, Dr. Swinfen, he went to Oxford when he was nineteen. He had made up his mind to "fight his way by literature," and he already showed the way he meant to do it. On one occasion, when some one saw that the poor scholar was in want of new shoes, and put a pair at his door, Johnson indignantly threw them down-stairs. Want of money, probably, prevented his returning home even for the vacations, and the length of his residence at the university is not exactly known. Illness or poverty caused him to leave before he had taken his degree. In 1731 his father died, leaving him £20, and he then had

to find a living for himself. He felt the time had not come for his literary work-he was only twenty-three, and had no interest or introductions; but with the view probably of still carrying on his own study and preparation for work, he went to be usher in a school at Market Bosworth. His life here was not a happy one; his peculiarities excited the ridicule of the boys, and, unable any longer to endure it, he gave it up and went to Birmingham, to stay with an old school-fellow who was lodging at a bookseller's. Here he got five guineas for translating Father Lobo's "Voyage to Abyssinia." After his return home he wrote a little for the Gentleman's Magazine, which had been started by Edward Cave the year before. At Birmingham Johnson had met with a Mrs. Porter, the widow of a mercer there, and in 1736 she became his wife. She was twenty-one years older than he was; but they were much attached to one another, and eighteen years after her death Johnson wrote: "When I recollect the time we lived together, my grief for her departure is not abated, and I have less pleasure in any good that befalls me because she does not partake it. On many occasions I think what she would have said or done. When I saw the sea at Brighthelmstone I wished for her to have seen it with me. But with respect to her, no rational wish is now left but that we may meet at last where the mercy of God shall make us happy, and perhaps make us instrumental to the happiness of each other."

Mrs. Johnson had £800, and with this Johnson determined to begin a school. An advertisement announced in the Gentleman's Magazine that "At Edial, near Lichfield, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages by Samuel Johnson." But young gentlemen did not come to be taught; at least, only three appear to have become Johnson's pupils; two of these were David Garrick and his brother, sons of Captain Garrick. At the end of a year and a half the school had to be given up.

Johnson still held firmly to his resolution to live by literature, and while keeping a school he had begun a tragedy-Irene. He now determined to come up to London and work his way there. David Garrick came with him, and in later years became the greatest actor of the time, besides being the writer and adapter of many plays. Mrs. Johnson stayed for a while at Edial or in Lichfield. All that Johnson endured during his first years in London he told to no man. He often used to say that "he hated a grumbler," and he was not a man, at any time of his life, to claim pity as an unappreciated author. He knew what he was doing, and that it was no one's fault that booksellers declined the risk of publishing without the name of some great patron to introduce the author to the public. But still he worked bravely and patiently on, until publishers learned that good work could be appreciated by the sound sense of the public, and would find a sale without a patron's name attached to it. He made translations and wrote accounts of the proceedings in Parliament for the Gentleman's Magazine. In one of his letters to Cave, the editor, he signs himself "Yours, Impransus," or dinnerless.

London." It was

In 1738 appeared his first poem, on no second-hand description neatly put into verse, as were many of the poems of the time, but it expressed through a vigorous imitation of the third satire of Juvenal, his own depth of actual experience and observation as a struggling worker in the great city. Its reality gave it power at once to touch the hearts of others, and within a week a second edition of it was called for. Pope made inquiries for the unknown author, and friends began to gather round him. Still he did not hang on these, and his life was one of continued hard work and self-denial.

In 1747 Johnson began to plan his "Dictionary." This was a work of the most laborious kind, and was, besides,

considered, as he himself says, to be "a book that requires
neither the light of learning nor the activity of genius, but
may be successfully performed, without any higher quality
than that of bearing burdens with dull patience." It was an
invaluable gift to literature, but was not literature itself, and
the author was likely to be lost sight of by those who were
reaping the results of his labour. It took him eight years.
to complete the "Dictionary," but the whole of his time.
was not given to it. In 1748 he wrote another poem, "The
Vanity of Human Wishes," an imitation of the tenth satire
of Juvenal. It was not the vanity of human life itself which
he satirised, but the empty, selfish desire for individual
distinction and personal glory at the expense of the general
good. For the best blessings of life man does not seek in
vain :-
:-

"Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resigned;
For love, which scarce collective men can fill;
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith that, panting for a happier seat,
Counts Death kind Nature's signal of retreat.
These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain,
These goods He grants who grants the power to gain;
With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,

And makes the happiness she does not find."

All this time Johnson's play, Irene, had never been put on the stage. It had not enough play of fancy and brightness of dialogue to make a good acting play, and managers had refused it; but in 1749 David Garrick had become the manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and he determined to bring out the play of his friend and old master. Garrick gave it his best acting; and Johnson's friends and admirers went to see and applaud it; but the general public did not care for it, so after it had been played for nine nights it was withdrawn. Johnson received, however, nearly £300 as his share of the profits.