in public, I had exhaufted all the art of pleafing, which a retired and uncourtly scholar can poffefs. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever fo little.

"Seven years, my Lord, have now paffed fince I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulfed 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 affiftance, one word of encouragement, or one fmile 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 folitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical afperity, not to confefs obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public fhould confider me as owing that to a pawhich Providence has enabled me to

tron,

do for myself.

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Having carried on my work thus far, with fo little obligation to any favourer of learning, I fhall not be disappointed though I fhould conclude it, if lefs be poffible, with lefs; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boafted myself with fo much exultation,My Lord, your, &c,"

Johnson, however, acknowledged to Mr. Langton, that "he did once receive ten pounds from Lord Chesterfield; but that, as that was fo inconfiderable a fum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find place in a letter of the kind that this was." Chesterfield read the letter to Dodfley with an air of indifference, "smiled at the feveral paffages, and obferved how well they were expreffed." He excused his neglect of Johnfon, by faying, "that he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did not know where he lived;" and declared, "that he would have turned off the best fervant he ever had, if he had known that he denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome." Of Chesterfield's general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men, the evidence is unqueftionable; but, from the character which he gave of johnfon, in his "Letters to his

Son" [Let. 112.], 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 Chesterfield, to the value of ten pounds.

On the 10th of February, previous to the publication of his Dictionary, the Univerfity of Oxford, in anticipation of the excellence of this work, at the folicitation of his friend Mr. Warton, unanimously conferred upon him the degree of Mafter of Arts; which, it has been obferved, could not be obtained for him at an early period, but was now confidered as an honour of confiderable importance, in order to grace the title page of his Dictionary.

At length, in May following, his Dictionary, with a Grammar and Hiftory of the English Language, was published in 2 vols. folio; and was received by the learned world, who had long wished for its appear

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ance, with an 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 "difmiffed it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from cenfure or from praise;" we cannot but suppose that he was pleased in the gloom of folitude," with the honour it procured him, both abroad and at home. The Earl of Corke and Orrery, being at Florence, prefented it to the Academia della Crufca. That academy fent Johnson their Vocabulario, and the French Academy fent him their Dictionaire, by Mr. Langton. As though he had forefeen fome of the circumstances which would attend this publication, he obferves, " A few wild blunders and rifible abfurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish Folly with laughter, and harden Ignorance into contempt;