Lives of the English Poets | Page 7

of time the various changes in Johnson's place of
residence in the metropolis, if it were worth the trouble, would not be
possible. A list of them, which he gave to Boswell, amounting to
seventeen, but without the correspondent dates, is preserved by that
writer. For the sake of being near his printer, while the Dictionary was
on the anvil, he took a convenient house in Gough Square, near
Fleet-street, and fitted up one room in it as an office, where six
amanuenses were employed in transcribing for him, of whom Boswell
recounts in triumph that five were Scotchmen. In 1748, he wrote, for
Dodsley's Preceptor, the Preface, and the Vision of Theodore the
Hermit, to which Johnson has been heard to give the preference over all
his other writings. In the January of the ensuing year, appeared the
Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated,
which he sold for fifteen guineas; and, in the next month, his Irene was
brought on the stage, not without a previous altercation between the

poet and his former pupil, concerning some changes which Garrick's
superior knowledge of the stage made him consider to be necessary, but
which Johnson said the fellow desired only that they might afford him
more opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking his heels. He always
treated the art of a player with illiberal contempt; but was at length, by
the intervention of Dr. Taylor, prevailed on to give way to the
suggestions of Garrick. Yet Garrick had not made him alter all that
needed altering; for the first exhibition of Irene shocked the spectators
with the novel sight of a heroine who was to utter two verses with the
bow-string about her neck. This horror was removed from a second
representation; but, after the usual course of ten nights, the tragedy was
no longer in request. Johnson thought it requisite, on this occasion, to
depart from the usual homeliness of his habit, and to appear behind the
scenes, and in the side boxes, with the decoration of a gold-laced hat
and waistcoat. He observed, that he found himself unable to behave
with the same ease in his finery, as when dressed in his plain clothes. In
the winter of this year, he established a weekly club, at the King's Head,
in Ivy Lane, near St. Paul's, of which the other members were Dr.
Salter, a Cambridge divine; Hawkesworth; Mr. Ryland, a merchant; Mr.
John Payne, the bookseller; Mr. John Dyer, a man of considerable
erudition, and a friend of Burke's; Doctors Macghie, Baker, and
Bathurst, three physicians; and Sir John Hawkins.
He next became a candidate for public favour, as the writer of a
periodical work, in the manner of the Spectator; and, in March, 1750,
published the first number of the Rambler, which was continued for
nearly two years; but, wanting variety of matter, and familiarity of style,
failed to attract many readers, so that the largest number of copies that
were sold of any one paper did not exceed five hundred. The topics
were selected without sufficient regard to the popular taste. The
grievances and distresses of authors particularly were dwelt on to
satiety; and the tone of eloquence was more swelling and stately than
he had hitherto adopted. The papers allotted to criticism are marked by
his usual acumen; but the justice of his opinions is often questionable.
In the humourous pieces, when our laughter is excited, I doubt the
author himself, who is always discoverable under the masque of
whatever character he assumes, is as much the object as the cause of

our merriment; and, however moral and devout his more serious views
of life, they are often defective in that most engaging feature of sound
religion, a cheerful spirit. The only assistance he received was from
Richardson, Mrs. Chapone, Miss Talbot, and Mrs. Carter, the first of
whom contributed the 97th number; the second, four billets in the 10th;
the next, the 30th; and the last, the 44th and 100th numbers.
Three days after the completion of the Rambler (March 17, 1752), he
was deprived of his wife, whom, notwithstanding the disparity in their
age, and some occasional bickerings, he had tenderly loved. Those who
are disposed to scrutinize narrowly and severely into the human heart,
may question the sincerity of his sorrow, because he was collected
enough to write her funeral sermon. But the shapes which grief puts on
in different minds are as dissimilar as the constitution of those minds.
Milton, in whom the power of imagination was predominant, soothed
his anguish for the loss of his youthful friend, in an irregular, but most
beautiful assemblage of those poetic objects which presented
themselves to his thoughts, and consecrated them to the memory of the
deceased; and Johnson, who loved