Lives of the English Poets | Page 8

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 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.