Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett | Page 4

premier of the day. About
this time he became intimate with the notorious Richard Savage, and
with him spent too many of his private hours. Both were poor, both
proud, both patriotic, both at that time lovers of pleasure, and they
became for a season inseparable; often
perambulating the streets all

night, engaged now, we fear, in low revels, and now in high talk, and
sometimes determined to stand by their country when they could stand
by nothing else. Yet, if Savage for a season corrupted Johnson, he also
communicated to him much information, and at last left himself in
legacy, as one of the best subjects to one of the greatest masters of
moral anatomy. In 1744, Johnson rolled off from his powerful pen,
with as much ease as a thick oak a thunder-shower, the sounding
sentences which compose the "Life of Savage," and which shall for
ever perpetuate the memory and the tale of that "unlucky rascal." It is a
wasp preserved in the richest amber. The whole reads like one sentence,
and is generally read at one sitting. Sir Joshua Reynolds, meeting it in a
country inn, began to read it while standing with his arm leaning on a
chimney-piece, and was not able to lay it aside till he had finished it,
when he found his arm totally benumbed. In 1745, Johnson issued
proposals for a new edition of Shakspeare, but laid them aside for a
time, owing to the great expectations entertained of the edition then
promised by Warburton.
For several years, except a few trifles in the Gentleman's Magazine,
and his famous "Prologue delivered at the Opening of Drury Lane
Theatre," he seems to have written nothing. But in 1745 appeared the
prospectus of his most laborious undertaking, the "English

Dictionary." This continued his principal occupation for some years,
and, as Boswell truly observes, "served to relieve his constitutional
melancholy by the steady, yet not oppressive, employment it secured
him." In its unity, too, and gigantic size, the task seemed fitted for the
powers of so strong a man; and although he says he dismissed it at last
with "frigid tranquillity," he had no doubt felt its influence during the
time to be at once that of a protecting guardian and of an inspiring
genius. In 1749, he published his "Vanity of Human Wishes," for
which he received the sum of fifteen guineas,--a miserable recompense
for a poem which Byron pronounces "sublime," and which is as true as
it is magnificent in thought, and terse in language. In the same year,
Garrick had "Irene" acted, but it was "damned" the first night, although
it dragged on heavily for eight nights more. When the author was asked
how he felt at its ill-success, he replied, "Like the Monument!" How
different from Addison, walking restlessly, and perspiring with anxiety

behind the scenes, while the fate of "Cato" was hanging in the balance!
In 1750 he began his "Rambler," and carried it on with only tolerable
success till 1752. The world has long ago made up its mind on the
merits and defects of this periodical, its masculine thought and
energetic diction, alternating with disguised common-place and (as he
would have said himself) "turgescent tameness"--its critical and
fictitious papers, often so rich in fancy, and felicitous in expression,
mixed with others which exhibit "bulk without spirit vast," and are
chiefly remarkable for their bold, bad innovations on that English
tongue of which the author was piling up the standard Dictionary.
Many have dwelt severely on Johnson's inequalities, without attending
to their cause; that was unquestionably the "body of death" which hung
so heavily upon his system, and rendered writing at times a positive
torment. Let his fastidious critics remember that he never spent a single
day, of which he could say that he was entirely well, and free from pain,
and that his spirits were often so depressed, that he was more than once
seen on his knees, praying God to preserve his understanding.
A great calamity now visited his household. This was the death of his
wife. She expired on the 17th of March 1752. She had been married to
him sixteen years; and notwithstanding the difference of age, and other
causes of disagreement, he seems to have loved her with sincerity, and
to have lamented her death with deep and long-continued sorrow. He
relaxed not, however, an instant in his literary labours, continued the
preparation of his Dictionary, and contributed a few lively and vigorous
papers to the "Adventurer"--a paper, edited by Dr Hawkesworth, a
writer of some talent, who did his best to tower up to the measure and
stature of the "Rambler."
During this time Johnson was filling his house with a colony of poor
dependants,--such as Mrs Anna Williams, a soured female poetaster;
and Levet, a