collect any thing in the libraries for his Dictionary.'

As the arduous work of the Dictionary drew towards a conclusion, Lord Chesterfield, who had treated Johnson with great contempt, now meanly condescended to court a reconciliation with him, in hopes of being immortalized in a dedication. With this view, he wrote two essays in the "World" in praise of the Dictionary, and, according to Sir John Hawkins, sent Sir Thomas Robinson to him for the same purpose. But Johnson rejected the advances of the noble Lord, and spurned his proffered patronage in the following letter, which is worthy of being preserved, as it affords the noblest lesson to both patrons and authors, that stands upon record in the annals of literary history.

'I HAVE been lately informed by the proprietors of the "World," that two papers in which my Dictionary is recommended to the publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

'When upon some slight encouragement I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainquier du vainquier 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 passed 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 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 bene. fit 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 awakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.

My Lord, your's &c. &c.

Johnson however acknowledged, to a friend, that he once received ten pounds from Lord Chesterfield; but as that was so inconsiderable a sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find place in a letter of this kind. Lord Chesterfield read the letter to Dodsley with an air of indifference, smiled at the several passages, and observed how well they were expressed: he excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying, that he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did not know where he lived; and declared, he would have turned off the best servant he ever had, if he knew that he had denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome. Of Lord Chesterfield's general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men, the evidence is unquestionable; but from the character which he gave of Johnson in his letter to his son, and the difference in their manners, little union or friendship could be looked for between them: certain it is, however,

that Johnson remained under an obligation to his lordship to the value of ten pounds.

Though he failed in an attempt, at an early period of life, to obtain the degree of Master of Arts; the university of Oxford, a short time before the publication of his Dictionary, in anticipa tion of the excellence of the work, and at the solicitation of his friend Mr. Warton, unanimously presented it to him; and it was considered as an honour of considerable importance, in the introduction of the work to the notice of the publick.

At length, in the month of May 1754, appeared his Dictionary of the English Language; with an History of the Language, and an English Grammar, in two volumes, folio.' It was receied by the learned world, who had long wished for its appearance, with a degree of applause proportionable to the impatience which the promise of it had excited. Though we may believe him in the declaration at the end of his preface, that he dismissed it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise; there cannot be a doubt but that he was highly gratified by the reputation it acquired both at home and abroad. The Earl of Corke and Orrery, being at Florence, presented it to the Academia della Crusca-The academy sent Johnson their Vocabulorio; and the French Academy sent him their Dictionaire by Mr. Langton.

Johnson, as though he had forseen some of the circumstances which would attend the publication of this arduous work, observes, A few

wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and har den ignorance in contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there can never be wanting some who distinguish desert.' Among those who amused themselves and the publick on this occasion, Mr. Wilkes, in an essay printed in the Publick Advertiser, ridiculed the following passage in the Grammar, ' H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable.' The remark is certainly too definite, but the author never altered the passage. Dr. Kenrick threatened an attack several years after, in his Review of Johnson's Shakespeare, but it was never carried into execution. Campbell's Lexiphanes, published in 1767, and Callander's Deformities of Dr. Johnson in 1782, may have some point and tendency to risibility; but in the opinion of a scholar, must be insignificant and nugatory. It would be doing injustice to the memory of his old friend and pupil Garrick, to omit the following epigram, with which he complimented our learned author on the first appearance of his Dictionary. It is happily allusive to the ill success of the French Academy, employed in settling their language.

Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance That one English soldier will beat ten of France; Would we alter the boast from the sword to the pen, Our odds are still greater-still greater our men; In deep mines of science, tho' Frenchmen may toil, Can their strength be compar'd to Locke, Newton, and Boyle?