Lives of the English Poets | Page 8

to act the moralizer and the
rhetorician, alleviated his sufferings by declaiming on the instability of
human happiness.
During this interval he also wrote the Prologue to Comus, spoken by
Garrick, for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to
Milton; the Prologue and Postscript to Lander's impudent forgeries
concerning that poet, by which Johnson was imposed on, as well as the
rest of the world; a letter to Dr. Douglas, for the same impostor, after he
had been detected, acknowledging and expressing contrition for the
fraud; and the Life of Cheynel, in the Student.
Soon after his wife's death, he became intimate with Beauclerk and
Langton, two young men of family and distinction, who were fellow
collegians at Oxford, and much attached to each other; and the latter of
whom admiration of the Rambler had brought to London with the
express view of being introduced to the author. Their society was very
agreeable to him; and he was, perhaps, glad to forget himself by joining
at times in their sallies of juvenile gaiety. One night, when he had

lodgings in the Temple, he was roused by their knocking at his door;
and appearing in his shirt and nightcap, he found they had come
together from the tavern where they had supped, to prevail on him to
accompany them in a nocturnal ramble. He readily entered into their
proposal; and, having indulged themselves till morning in such frolics
as came in their way, Johnson and Beauclerk were so well pleased with
their diversion, that they continued it through the rest of the day; while
their less sprightly companion left them, to keep an engagement with
some ladies at breakfast, not without reproaches from Johnson for
deserting his friends "for a set of unidea'd girls."
In 1753, he gave to Dr. Bathurst, the physician, whom he regarded with
much affection, and whose practice was very limited, several essays for
the Adventurer, which Hawkesworth was then publishing; and wrote
for Mrs. Lenox a Dedication to the Earl of Orrery, of her Shakspeare
illustrated; and, in the following year, inserted in the Gentleman's
Magazine a Life of Cave, its former editor.
Previously to the publication of his Dictionary, it was thought advisable
by his friends that the degree of Master of Arts should be obtained for
him, in order that his name might appear in the title page with that
addition; and it was accordingly, through their intercession, conferred
on him by the University of Oxford. The work was presented by the
Earl of Orrery, one of his friends then at Florence, to the Delia Crusca
Academy, who, in return, sent their Dictionary to the author. The
French Academy paid him the same compliment. But these honours
were not accompanied by that indispensable requisite, "provision for
the day that was passing over him." He was arrested for debt, and
liberated by the kindness of Richardson, the writer of Clarissa, who
became his surety. To prevent such humiliation, the efforts of his own
industry were not wanting. In 1756, he published an Abridgement of
his Dictionary, and an Edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Christian
Morals, to which he prefixed a Life of that writer; he contributed to a
periodical miscellany, called the Universal Visitor, by Christopher
Smart,[9] and yet more largely to another work of the same kind,
entitled, the Literary Magazine; and wrote a dedication and preface for
Payne's Introduction to the Game of Draughts, and an Introduction to

the newspaper called the London Chronicle, for the last of which he
received a single guinea. Yet either conscientious scruples, or his
unwillingness to relinquish a London life, induced him to decline the
offer of a valuable benefice in Lincolnshire, which was made him by
the father of his friend, Langton, provided he could prevail on himself
to take holy orders, a measure that would have delivered him from
literary toil for the remainder of his days. But literary toil was the
occupation for which nature had designed him. In the April of 1758, he
commenced the Idler, and continued to publish it for two years in the
Universal Chronicle. Of these Essays, he was supplied with Nos. 33, 93,
and 96, by Thomas Warton; with No. 67 by Langton, and with Nos. 76,
79, and 82 by Reynolds. Boswell mentions twelve papers being given
by his friends, but does not say who were the contributors of the
remaining five. The Essay on Epitaphs, the Dissertation on Pope's
Epitaphs, and an Essay on the Bravery of the English common Soldiers,
were subjoined to this paper, when it was collected into volumes. It
does not differ from the Rambler, otherwise than as the essays are
shorter, and somewhat less grave and elaborate.
Another wound was inflicted on him by the death of his mother, who
had however