Part 2

He learnt, too, to love his college and the university. Later we shall see how affectionately he talked of the days when "he was generally seen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies."

"O! Mr Edwards!" he exclaimed to an old friend about 50 years later "I'll convince you that I recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an alehouse near Pembroke gate?"--but we must go back and see him as he came down from Oxford at the age of 22:

"And now (I had almost said _poor_) Samuel Johnson returned to his native city, destitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a decent livelihood. His father's misfortune in trade rendered him unable to support his son; and for some time there appeared no means by which he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died."

"I layed by" wrote Johnson in his diary (15 July 1732) "eleven guineas on this day, when I received twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for out of my father's effects, previous to the death of my mother; an event which I pray GOD may be very remote. I now therefore see that I must make my own fortune."

How was this fortune to be made?

Like many another after him who has left the university with no definite plan of life in view, Johnson turned inevitably to teaching, accepting "an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that he went on foot."

Like many another, too, he soon complained that "this employment was very irksome to him in every respect ... that it was unvaried as the note of the cuckow; and that he did not know whether it was more disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules."

A few months of this were enough for him, after which he went to live with his friend Mr Hector at Birmingham and began to earn a little money by his pen. For the translation of a French book of travel he received five guineas.

In Birmingham Johnson fell in love with a widow--Mrs Porter. This lady was twenty years older than her lover and, as we shall see in a moment, no great beauty.

Nor was Johnson. When he was first introduced to her, "his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule. Mrs Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages and said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.'"

"I know not" Boswell goes on "for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good humour ... I have had from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn: 'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.'"

This is what Boswell, who was a married man, calls "a manly firmness," though he admits that it was "a singular beginning."

"Sir," said Johnson to a friend years afterwards "it was a love marriage on both sides."

"In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1736," says Boswell, "there is the following advertisement:

'At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON.'

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune who died early."

Boswell (though he has a kind word of patronage for successful schoolmasters) evidently thought that his hero's brains were too good, and his temper too bad, for the profession of teaching; moreover, David Garrick was the kind of boy who is the despair of his teacher, the delight of his schoolfellows, and the hero of school stories.

The truth about Johnson as a schoolmaster, according to Boswell, was that "he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements ... as men of inferiour powers of mind.... The art of communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued; and I have ever thought that those who devote themselves to this employment, and do their duty with diligence and success, are entitled to very high respect from the community, as Johnson himself often maintained. Yet I am of opinion that the greatest abilities are not only not required for this office, but render a man less fit for it. While we acknowledge the justness of Thomson's beautiful remark,

'Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, And teach the young idea how to shoot!'

we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by 'a mind at ease,' a mind at once calm and clear; but that a mind gloomy and impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of time in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and errour in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential requisite in a Preceptor.... From Mr Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner, and uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment ... and, in particular, the young rogues used to ... turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name ... _Tetty_ or _Tetsey_ ... which seems to us ludicrous, when applied to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr Garrick described her to me as very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastick in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. I have seen Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimickry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter."

The "exquisite talent of mimickry" is not popular amongst schoolmasters and the academy for young gentlemen was closed after a year and a half.

Again, what was Johnson to do? He had tried teaching and failed; he had written a little, but could not hope to get money or fame by selling translations to country booksellers; he had married a wife. The next step was the decisive one:

"Johnson now thought of trying his fortune in London."

_Johnson comes to London_

"I came to London" said Johnson in later years "with two-pence half-penny in my pocket."

Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, "eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?"

JOHNSON, "Why yes; when I came with two-pence half-penny in _my_ pocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in thine."

Master and pupil had travelled together; Garrick was to 'complete his education' at an academy kept by a Mr Colson, but it was well for Johnson that he "knew how he could live in the cheapest manner. His first lodgings were at the house of Mr Norris, a staymaker, in Exeter-street, adjoining Catherine-street, in the Strand. 'I dined (said he) very well for eight-pence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New-street, just by. Several of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day; but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for six-pence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing.'"

Johnson was, as Boswell says, "an adventurer in literature." What kind of place was this London of 1737, this "great field of genius and exertion, where" according to Boswell "talents of every kind have the fullest scope, and the highest encouragement"?

Here are two pictures. The first is an account of an ordinary day's doings by a stranger staying in Pall Mall:

"We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven or go to tea-tables. About twelve the _beau monde_ assembles in several coffee or chocolate houses ... all so near to one another that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs, which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or one shilling per hour, and your chair-men serve you for porters to run on errands.... If it is fine weather we take a turn in the park till two, when we go for dinner.... Ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, but there are good French ones in Suffolk Street. The general way here is to make a party at the coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of some great man. After the play the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's coffee-houses near adjoining, where there is playing at picquet and the best of conversation till midnight.... Or if you like rather the company of ladies, there are assemblies at most people of quality's houses."

The second is by an Irish painter whom Johnson had met at Birmingham and who had "practised his own precepts of economy for several years in the British capital":

"He assured Johnson, who, I suppose, was then meditating to try his fortune in London, but was apprehensive of the expence, 'that thirty pounds a year was enough to enable a man to live there without being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people would enquire where he lodged; and, if they did, it was easy to say 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending three-pence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On _clean-shirt-day_ he went abroad, and paid visits."

It was this world of "Grub Street" (a street which became famous about the end of the 16th century as the home of poor authors and whose name was used generally to mean the world in which they lived[2]) which Johnson had to face. He must try and make a living by his pen.

He had, of course, no "patron," no rich man who would help to pay for the printing of his books, recommend them to his fashionable friends and perhaps secure their author a government post which would bring with it light duties and a comfortable income.

Except for Harry Hervey ("a vicious man, but very kind to me," he told Boswell, "If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him") Johnson hardly had a friend in London. What was he to write? Who was to buy his manuscripts?

Newspapers, indeed, were everywhere. They consisted mostly of four pages containing a little news, a little gossip, a little poetry, and many advertisements. There was not much hope for Johnson here.

A journal founded in 1731 gave him a better opening.

"_The Gentleman's Magazine_, begun and carried on by Mr Edward Cave, under the name of SYLVANUS URBAN, had attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London.... He told me, that when he first saw St John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he 'beheld it with reverence.'"

To Mr Cave, therefore, Johnson wrote, having observed in his paper "very uncommon offers of encouragement to men of letters," and _The Gentleman's Magazine_ was for many years "his principal source for employment and support."

In the summer of 1737 he went back to Lichfield, where he finished a tragedy called _Irene_, of which we shall hear something later. On his return to London he brought his wife with him, and in London he lived for the remaining 47 years of his life.

It was fitting, therefore, that the first of his writings which brought him fame should be a poem called _London_. It was offered to, and refused by, several booksellers, an incident afterwards commemorated in these lines:

Will no kind patron JOHNSON own? Shall JOHNSON friendless range the town? And every publisher refuse The offspring of his happy Muse?

However, the "worthy, modest, and ingenious Mr Robert Dodsley had taste enough to perceive its uncommon merit, and thought it creditable to have a share in it."

Now this poem may not attract us very much to-day. Boswell, of course, thought it "one of the noblest productions in our language," but to understand it properly we need to know something of the politics of the time, especially of the Tory feeling against Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister who said that "every man had his price"; we need to know something, too, of the poem by Juvenal, of which it is an imitation.

But a few lines are quoted here, because they bring out very clearly the state of Johnson's mind at the time.

He is a bitter opponent of the corrupt government of the day and its weak concessions to Spain:

Grant me, kind heaven, to find some happier place, Where honesty and sense are no disgrace ... Here let those reign, whom pensions can incite To vote a patriot black, a courtier white; Explain their country's dear-bought rights away, And plead for pirates in the face of day.[3]

He feels his own poverty keenly:

This mournful truth is ev'ry where confess'd SLOW RISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESS'D.

"We may easily conceive" says Boswell "with what feeling a great mind like this, cramped and galled by narrow circumstances, uttered this last line, which he marked by capitals."

_London_ was a success.

"Everybody was delighted with it; and there being no name to it, the first buz of the literary circles was 'here is an unknown poet, greater even than Pope.' And it is recorded in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ of that year [1738], that it 'got into the second edition in the course of a week.'"

But Johnson got no more than ten guineas for his work.

Truly, as Boswell says, "he felt the hardships of writing for bread." So poor, indeed, did his prospects seem, that he thought of turning schoolmaster again or of entering the law. But he had no university degree and there seemed no escape from "the drudgery of authourship"--unless he should take the advice of Mr Wilcox.

"Mr Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that his intention was to get his livelihood as an author, eyed his robust frame attentively, and with a significant look, said 'You had better buy a porter's knot.'"

Of his life during the first ten years after his arrival in London we do not know many details. He was miserably poor, but not entirely friendless. His intimate companion for some time was Richard Savage, whom "misfortunes and misconduct had reduced to the lowest state of wretchedness as a writer for bread."

Boswell finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and Savage were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the streets.... He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when Savage and he walked round St James's-square for want of a lodging, they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and 'resolved they would _stand by their country_.'"

A few years later Johnson wrote a _Life_ of his friend, sitting up all night and writing forty-eight of the printed pages at a sitting.

"Soon after Savage's _Life_ was published, Mr Harte dined with Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, Cave said, 'You made a man very happy t'other day.'--'How could that be?' says Harte; 'nobody was there but ourselves.' Cave answered, by reminding him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose to appear; but on hearing the conversation, he was highly delighted with the encomiums on his book."

For the copyright of the book Johnson received fifteen guineas.

Such money, indeed, as Johnson earned at this time came mostly from Mr Cave. To _The Gentleman's Magazine_ he contributed poems, essays, lives of famous men, translations of foreign works and accounts of debates in Parliament, taking care, in these last, that "the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it."

Few of these writings would be remembered if their author had not become famous for other reasons, and we maybe sure that Johnson was dissatisfied with this kind of work. He was an adventurer in literature and an adventurer likes to tackle a big task.

Before long he found one big enough.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] See pages 33, 95.

[3] The Spaniards had abused the right of searching merchant vessels granted to them by the treaty of Commerce. In the following year, 1739, after the affair of "Jenkins's ear," Walpole was compelled to yield to the popular demand for war.

_The Great Lexicographer_

The title of this chapter sounds dull enough. A dictionary is not generally thought to be lively reading and perhaps we may feel that a man who deliberately set out to write one must have been a dry-as-dust old fellow who went out of his way to explain short and simple words by means of long and complicated phrases more difficult than the words themselves.

Well, there is no doubt that Johnson did use long words. He had been brought up on classical authors and, like other writers of the period, often used words of many syllables derived from the Greek or Latin, when simpler words would have done as well.

Boswell is the same. He does not say "many times in his later life" but "upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life." Or look back at page 24, where he finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and Savage were in such extreme indigence." Why couldn't he have found it "sad to think that they were so poor"?

Long words were the fashion of the time and to do Johnson justice, we must try to put ourselves back in his century.

Nowadays, we have no trouble in finding dictionaries, whether we want an exhaustive work of reference or a handy volume for the pocket.

But in Johnson's day it was different.

Such dictionaries as had previously appeared were vocabularies of "hard words" only, not of words in general. The only attempt to produce a dictionary containing _all_ English words was that compiled in 1721 by one Nathaniel Bailey, but it contained very little illustration of the use of words. There was, in fact, no dictionary which attempted either to _fix_ the language or to illustrate the different meanings of a word by quotations from English writers. Johnson began to consider whether he might not produce one himself.

"The year 1747" says Boswell "is distinguished as the 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.'"

Even Johnson had had some doubts at the beginning:

"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 publick; 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.'"

But he changed his mind. Half-a-dozen booksellers agreed between them to pay the author fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds for the work, and the "Plan" was addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield, "then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction."

England has always prided herself on the individual enterprise of her citizens and Johnson "the true-born Englishman" had now undertaken, "single and unaided ... a work which in other countries had not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many," but "he had a noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit."

Boswell gives us a few glimpses of his hero engaged on this great task:

"Dr Adams found him one day busy at his _Dictionary_, when the following dialogue ensued: ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir.... How can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is: this is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."

"For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country.... To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness."

"While the _Dictionary_ was going forward, Johnson lived part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an upper room fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which he gave to the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly taken from other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written down with spaces left between them, he delivered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the passages, with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be effaced. I have seen several of them, in which that trouble had not been taken, so that they were just as when used by the copyists."