Life of Johnson, Volume 6 | Page 9

will be
"The Choice of Life
or
The History of ... Prince of Abissinia."
'It will make about two volumes like little Pompadour, that is about one middling volume. The bargain which I made with Mr. Johnson was seventy five pounds (or guineas) a volume, and twenty five pounds for the second edition. I will sell this either at that price or for sixty[2], the first edition of which he shall himself fix the number, and the property then to revert to me, or for forty pounds, and I have the profit that is retain half the copy. I shall have occasion for thirty pounds on Monday night when I shall deliver the book which I must entreat you upon such delivery to procure me. I would have it offered to Mr. Johnson, but have no doubt of selling it, on some of the terms mentioned.
[Footnote 2: 'Fifty-five pounds' written first and then scored over.]
'I will not print my name, but expect it to be known. I am Dear Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. Jan. 20, 1759. Get me the money if you can.'
This letter is of unusual interest, as it proves beyond all doubt that Rasselas was written some weeks before Candide was published (see ante, i. 342, n. a). Baretti, as I have shewn (i. 341, n. 3), says that 'any other person with the degree of reputation Johnson then possessed would have got ￡400 for the work, but he never understood the art of making the most of his productions.' We see, however, by this letter that Johnson did ask for a larger sum than the booksellers allowed him. He received but one hundred pounds for the first edition, but he had made a bargain for one hundred and fifty pounds or guineas. Johnson, the bookseller, seems to have been but in a small way of business as a publisher. I do not find in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1758 any advertisement of books published by him, and only one in 1759 (P. 339). Cowper's publisher in 1778 was Joseph Johnson of St. Paul's Churchyard. (Cowper's Works by Southey, i. 285; see also Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, iii. 461-464.)
By 'little Pompadour' Johnson, no doubt, means the second and cheaper edition of The History of the Marchioness de Pompadour. The first edition was published by Hooper in one volume, price five shillings (_Gent. Mag_. for October 1758, p. 493). and the second in two volumes for three shillings and sixpence (_Gent. Mag_. for November, 1758, p. 543).
Johnson did not generally 'print his name.' He published anonymously his translation of _Lobos Voyage to Abyssinia; London; The Life of Savage; The Rambler_, and The Idler, both in separate numbers and when collected in volumes; _Rasselas; The False Alarm; Falkland's Islands; The Patriot;_, and _Taxation no Tyranny_; (when these four pamphlets were collected in a volume he published them with the title of _Political Tracts, by the Authour of the Rambler_). He gave his name in _The Vanity of Human Wishes, Irene_, the Dictionary, his edition of Shakespeare, the Journey to the Western Islands, and the Lives of the Poets.
VII.
_A letter about George Strahan's election to a scholarship at University College, Oxford, and about William Strahan's 'affair with the University'; dated October 24, 1764_.[In the possession of Mr. Frederick Barker.]
'SIR,
'I think I have pretty well disposed of my young friend George, who, if you approve of it, will be entered next Monday a Commoner of University College, and will be chosen next day a Scholar of the House. The Scholarship is a trifle, but it gives him a right, upon a vacancy, to a Fellowship of more than sixty pounds a year if he resides, and I suppose of more than forty if he takes a Curacy or small living. The College is almost filled with my friends, and he will be well treated. The Master is informed of the particular state of his education, and thinks, what I think too, that for Greek he must get some private assistance, which a servitour of the College is very well qualified and will be very willing to afford him on very easy terms.
'I must desire your opinion of this scheme by the next post, for the opportunity will be lost if we do not now seize it, the Scholarships being necessarily filled up on Tuesday.
'I depend on your proposed allowance of a hundred a year, which must the first year be a little enlarged because there are some extraordinary expenses, as
Caution (which is allowed in his last quarter). . 7 0 0 Thirds. (He that enters upon a room pays two thirds of the furniture that he finds, and receives from his successor two thirds of what he pays; so that if he pays ￡20 he receives ￡13 6s. 8d., this perhaps may be) 12