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He said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." And at another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

follows:

"DEAR SIR,

The letter was as

"Chelsea, March 16, 1759.

"I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM3 of literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says, the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you and I dare say you desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, Your affectionate, obliged, humble servant, "T. SMOLLETT."

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Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old master in chambers in the Inner Temple, and returned to his service.

What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find [Pr. and Med. pp. 30 and 40], "the change of outward things which I am now to make;" and

1 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 126.-BOSWELL.

2 Ibid. p.

251.-BOSWELL.

3 In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears in one of Mr. Wilkes's Miscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollett's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUм was certainly a mistaken reading for CHAM, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature: and was an epithet familiar to Smollett. See "Roderick Random," chap. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of Temple.-Boswell.

After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie of Philadelphia, with a copy of a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollett, at Leghorn, containing the following paragraph :

"As to the King's Bench patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some trifling favour of him in behalf of somebody for whom the great CHAM of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself."-MALONE.

"Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour." But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change.1

At this time there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne;2 and after being at considerable

1 It seems, from a note of his to Miss Porter, that Johnson, on the 23rd of March, of this year (1759), left his house in Gough-square, and went to reside in Staple Inn; Miss Williams took separate lodgings. It will appear from the list of Johnson's residences, subsequently given, that he removed from Staple Inn to Gray's Inn.-ED.

2 Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists he talks of "proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by nature-masculine and feminine-in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal;" nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement. He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring “from a person eminently skilled in mathematics and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches." Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanics. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastic father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch.

It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars-bridge, calling it "an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners." Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine, this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabric, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the public, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expense.-BOSWELL.

pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the "Gazetteer," in opposition to his plan.

If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered, that after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of lawsuits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed themselves for the occasion.

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ACCESSION OF GEORGE III.-JOHNSON WRITES THE ADDRESS OF THE PAINTERS ON THAT OCCASION-VARIOUS WRITINGS-PROJECTED HISTORY OF THE WARMURPHY'S" POETICAL EPISTLE" TO JOHNSON-ACCOUNT OF THEIR FIRST ACQUAINTANCE-LETTERS TO LANGTON, BARETTI, &c.-GRANT OF PENSION BY GEORGE III. TO JOHNSON-VISIT TO PLYMOUTH WITH REYNOLDS LETTERS TO LORD BUTE AND BARETTI-CONTRIBUTES TO THE "POETICAL CALENDAR," A CHARACTER OF COLLINS THE POET.

N 1760 he wrote "An Address of the Painters to George III. on his

of these Kingdoms," no monarch

ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a king, who gloried in being "born a Briton." He also wrote for Mr. Baretti the Dedicationt of his Italian and English Dictionary, to the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain.

Johnson was now either very idle or very busy with his Shakspeare; for I can find no other public composition by him except an Introduction to the Proceedings of the Committee for clothing the French Prisoners:* one of the many proofs that he was ever awake to the calls of humanity; and an account which he gave in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of Scots.* The generosity of Johnson's feelings shines forth in the following sentence:

"It has now been fashionable for near half a century to defame and vilify the house of Stuart and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Starts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who

will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet there remains still among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion."

In this year I have not discovered a single private letter written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, there is, "Send for books for Hist. of War." How much is it to be regretted that this intention was not fulfilled! His majestic expression would have carried down to the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country, with the same fervent glow which they produced on the mind at the time. He would have been under no temptation to deviate in any degree from truth, which he held very sacred, or to take a licence, which a learned divine told me he once seemed, in a conversation, jocularly to allow to historians.

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'There are," said he, "inexcusable lies and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man ate his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was (smiling), may be reckoned a consecrated lie."

This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated by the Rev. Dr. Francklin, who was one of the writers of the "Critical Review," published an indignant vindication in "A Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M.," in which he compliments Johnson in a just and elegant manner :

"Transcendent Genius! whose prolific vein
Ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain;
To whom APOLLO opens all his store,
And every Muse presents her sacred lore;

Say, pow'rful JOHNSON, whence thy verse is fraught
With so much grace, such energy of thought;
Whether thy JUVENAL instructs the age
In chaster numbers, and new-points his rage;
Or fair IRENE sees, alas! too late

Her innocence exchanged for guilty state;
Whate'er you write, in every golden line
Sublimity and elegance combine;

Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul,
While harmony gives rapture to the whole."

Again, towards the conclusion:

"Thou then, my friend, who see'st the dang'rous strife

In which some demon bids me plunge my life,

1 Prayers and Meditations, p. 42.-BOSWELL.

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