like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

"Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

"Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached the ground,

encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exul"My Lord,

tation,

"Your Lordship's most humble,

"Most obedient servant,
"SAM. JOHNSON."

With this spirited letter the celebrated Dr. Warburton was highly pleased, and requested Dr. Adams to tell Johnson, with his compliments, that he honoured him for his manly conduct. The effect which it produced upon the mind of Chesterfield was undoubtedly great; but he, with his accustomed policy, appeared to treat the matVOL. IV.

ter with the most perfect indifference, and after reading the letter to Mr. Dodsley, and praising the expression of various passages in it, made no other apology for his scandalous neglect of the author, than that " he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and he did not know where he lived!"

After this open rupture with his Lordship, Johnson no longer forbore publicly to express his opinion of him. In the next edition of his Vanity of Human Wishes, the last line of the following couplet,

Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail, Pride, envy, want, the garret, and the jail : was thus altered,

Pride, envy, want, the Patron, and the jail : and speaking of him to his friends, "This man," would he say, "I thought had been a Lord among wits, but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!" Whatever severity there may be in this observation, the opinion which he pronounced upon the Letters of this nobleman to his son, is, I am sorry to say, perfectly correct, "they teach," said he, "the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master."

the

In August 1754, Johnson visited Oxford, for express purpose of examining the libraries of that university; and in November of the same

year he was induced, with the advice and assistance of his friends Mr. Thomas Warton, and Mr. Wise, Radclivian Librarian, to solicit from the University the degree of Master of Arts, an honour which was deemed of essential consequence, as it would carry much weight with it on the title-page of his Dictionary. The degree, by diploma, was, on the recommendation of the Chancellor, conferred upon him by the University, on the 20th of February, 1755, without a single dissentient voice, and in terms expressive of a high sense of his literature and writings; cumque vir doctissimus SAMUEL JOHNSON, è Collegio Pembrochiensi, scriptis suis popularium mores informantibus dudum literato orbi innotuerit; quin et linguæ patriæ tum ornandæ tum stabiliendæ (Lexicon scilicet Anglicanum summo studio, summo a se judicio congestum propediem editurus) etiam nunc utilissimam impendat operam; Nos," &c. &c.

66

This great work was at length published in May, 1755, in two volumes folio, to which were prefixed a Grammar and History of the English Language. Johnson had supposed, when he began his labours on this subject, that three years of regular application would be sufficient for the performance of the task; and he therefore gave the proprietors and the public reason to hope for

its completion on the expiration of that period. In this calculation he was, however, so greatly deceived, that eight years elapsed before his folios were ushered into the world; and one consequence of this delay was, that he had spent all the copy-money, which he had been in the habit of receiving by drafts, and an additional hundred pounds, long previous to the conclusion of his undertaking. The patience of his employers was, therefore, severely tried; and when the last sheet was brought to Mr. Millar, he could not avoid exclaiming, "thank God I have done with him;" a sally which when repeated to Johnson, he replied with a smile, "I am glad that he thanks God for any thing."

What was merely mechanical in the construction of his Dictionary he entrusted to six amanuenses, five of whom were Scotchmen. These he placed in an upper room of his house in Goughsquare, which he fitted up conveniently with desks; their employment was to write down the words, which he had chosen, with spaces between them, then to insert as fast as he delivered them in writing, their etymologies, definitions, and various significations, and afterwards to copy the authorities from books, in which he had distinguished the passages selected by the stroke of a black-lead pencil.