Lives of the English Poets | Page 9

reached her ninetieth year. His affection and his regret
will best appear from the following letter to the daughter of his
deceased wife.
To Miss Porter, in Lichfield.
You will conceive my sorrow for the loss of my mother, of the best
mother. If she were to live again, surely I should behave better to her.

But she is happy, and what is past is nothing to her: and, for me,
since I cannot repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will efface
them. I return you, and all those that have been good to her, my
sincerest thanks, and pray God to repay you all with infinite advantage.
Write to me, and comfort me, dear child. I shall be glad likewise, if
Kitty will write to me. I shall send a bill of twenty pounds in a few days,
which I thought to have brought to my mother, but God suffered it not.
I have not power nor composure to say much more. God bless you, and
bless us all.

I am, dear Miss,
Your affectionate humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
Her attention to his mother, as it is reported in the following words, by
Miss Seward, ensured to Johnson the sympathy of Lucy Porter.
From the age of twenty till her fortieth year, when affluence came to
her by the death of her eldest brother, she had boarded in Lichfield with
Dr. Johnson's mother, who still kept that little bookseller's shop, by
which her husband had supplied the scanty means of existence.
Meanwhile, Lucy Porter kept the best company of our little city, but
would make no engagement on market-days, lest Granny, as she called
Mrs. Johnson, should catch cold by serving in the shop. There Lucy
Porter took her place, standing behind the counter, nor thought it a
disgrace to thank a poor person who purchased from her a penny
battledore [10].
To defray the expenses of his mother's funeral, he had recourse to his
pen; and, in the evenings of one week produced the Rasselas, for which
he received one hundred pounds, and was presented by the purchasers
with twenty-five more on its reaching a second edition. Rasselas is a
noble monument of the genius of its author. Reflections so profound,
and so forcible a draught of some of the great outlines of the human
intellect and passions, are to be found in few writers of any age or
country. The mind is seldom presented with any thing so marvellous as
the character of the philosopher, who has persuaded himself that he is
entrusted with the management of the elements. Johnson's dread of
insanity was, perhaps, relieved by embodying this mighty conception.
He had seen the shadowy form in the twilight, and might have
dissipated or eased his apprehensions by coming up to it more closely,
and examining into the occasion of his fears. In this tale, the censure
which he has elsewhere passed on Milton, that he is a lion who has no
skill in dandling the kid, recoils upon himself. His delineation of the
female character is wanting in delicacy.

In this year he supplied Mr. Newbery with an Introduction to the World
Displayed, a Collection of Voyages and Travels: till the publication of
his Shakspeare, in 1765, the only writings acknowledged by himself
were a Review of Tytler's Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots, in the
Gentleman's Magazine; an Introduction to the Proceedings of the
Committee for Clothing the French Prisoners; the Preface to Bolt's
Dictionary of Trade and Commerce; a Dedication to the King, of
Kennedy's Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding
the Scriptures; and a Dedication to the Queen, of Hoole's Tasso.
In the course of this period, he made a short visit to Lichfield, and thus
communicates his feelings on the occasion, in a letter dated July 20,
1762, to Baretti, his Italian friend, who was then at Milan.
Last winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets
much narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by
a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My
play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I am no
longer young. My only remaining friend had changed his principles,
and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My
daughter-in-law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with
sincere benevolence, had lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without
having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five
days, and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place,
where, if there is not much happiness, there is at least such a diversity
of good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart.
I think in a few weeks to