40 [25]. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755:--'If I turn my thoughts upon myself, what do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast of wind to weakness and misery?... Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer me some wine; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I shall therefore be obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' Pioszi Letters, ii. 393.
[892] Prayers and Meditations, p. 27. BOSWELL
[893] See post, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison; 'where he had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest letter to Dr. Burney, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, "whom I myself," he impressively adds, "have already assisted according to my willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend he said:--"I bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt."' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 205, 280.
[894] In this Essay Johnson writes (Works, v. 315):--'I think there is room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, indeed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether she knew of what bread is made."'
[895] In The Universal Visiter this Essay is entitled, 'Reflections on the Present State of Literature;' and in Johnson's Works, v. 355, 'A Project for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be found for them. 'There are some reasons for which they may seem particularly qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want of every kind; they are accustomed to obey the word of command from their patrons and their booksellers; they have always passed a life of hazard and adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the next day.... There are some whom long depression under supercilious patrons has so humbled and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ranks. But for these men there may be found fifes and drums, and they will be well enough pleased to inflame others to battle, if they are not obliged to fight themselves.'
[896] He added it also to his Life of Pope.
[897] 'This employment,' wrote Murphy (Life, p. 88), 'engrossed but little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends. Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he gave responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the complaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who," he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived, men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a better history of Grub Street than any man living. His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In The Rambler, No. 145, Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:--'a race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to censure without an apologist.'
[898] In this essay (Works, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a 'region of desolate sterility,' 'a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.'
[899] The bill of 1756 that he considers passed through the Commons but was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the comparative population of the different counties, Devonshire was to furnish 3200 men--twice as many as Lancashire. Essex, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk were each to furnish 1920 men; Lancashire, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire 1600: Durham and Bedfordshire 800. From the three Ridings of Yorkshire 4800 were to be raised. The men were to be exercised every Sunday before and after service. The Literary Magazine, p. 58.
[900] In this paper are found the forcible words, 'The desperate remedy of desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. Ib. p. 121.
[901] Johnson considers here the war in America between the English and French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been wronged by both nations. 'Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily wish success to either party.... The American dispute between the French and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger.' The French had this in their favour, that they had treated the natives better than we. 'The favour of the Indians which they enjoy with very few exceptions among all the nations of the northern continent we ought to consider with other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' Works, vi. 114, 122.
[902] These Memoirs end with the year 1745.