It was remarkable in Johnson, that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence.' Croker's Boswell, p. 832. There can be little question that she is describing the same room--a room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr. Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in which certainly there must have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled by her account, says:--'In his apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, ed. 1872, iv. 127.
[980] In his Life of Pope (Works, viii. 272) Johnson calls Theobald 'a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.' In the Preface to Shakspeare he admits that 'what little he did was commonly right.' Ib. v. 137. The Editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare on the other hand say:--'Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most brilliant emendations are due to him.' On Johnson's statement that 'Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,' they write:--'From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or editors, we emphatically dissent.' Cambridge Shakespeare, i., xxxi., xxxiv., note. Among Theobald's 'brilliant emendations' are 'a'babbled of green fields' (Henry V, ii. 3), and 'lackeying the varying tide.' (Antony and Cleopatra, i.4).
[981] 'A familiar epistle [by Lord Bolingbroke] to the most impudent man living, 1749.' Brit. Mus. Catal.
[982] 'Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet was content to court by an act, which, I hope, was unwillingly performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed an unauthorised number of the pamphlet called The Patriot King, Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke's works.' Johnson's Works, viii. 467. See ante, p. 268, and Walpole's Letters, ii. 159.
[983] A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy in Four Letters to a Friend, 1754-5.
[984] A paper under this name had been started seven years earlier. See Carter and Talbot Corres., ii. 33.
[985] In the two years in which Johnson wrote for this paper it saw many changes. The first Idler appeared in No. 2 of the Universal Chronicle or Weekly Gazette, which was published not by Newbery, but by J. Payne. On April 29, this paper took the title of Payne's Universal Chronicle, etc. On Jan. 6, 1759, it resumed the old title and was published by R. Stevens. On Jan. 5, 1760, the title was changed to The Universal Chronicle and Westminster Journal, and it was published by W. Faden and R. Stevens. On March 15, 1760, it was published by R. Stevens alone. The paper consisted of eight pages. The Idler, which varied in length, came first, and was printed in larger characters, much like a leading article. The changes in title and ownership seem to show that in spite of Johnson's contributions it was not a successful publication.
[986] 'Those papers may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all Reynolds's future discourses, and certainly occasioned him some thinking in their composition. I have heard him say, that Johnson required them from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account, he sat up the whole night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it produced a vertigo in his head.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 89, Reynolds must have spoken of only one paper; as the three, appearing as they did on Sept. 29, Oct. 20, and Nov. 10, could not have been required at one time.
[987] 'To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.' The Idler, No. 17.
[988] Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 [36], BOSWELL.
[989] In July, 1759.
[990] This number was published a few days after his mother's death. It is in the form of a letter, which is thus introduced:-'The following letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to be imparted to the publick; but I could not persuade myself to suppress it, because I think I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no disposition to provide for this day any other entertainment.'
[991] In the table of contents the title of No. 58 is, 'Expectations of pleasure frustrated.' In the original edition of The Idler no titles are given. In this paper he shews that 'nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.'
[992] In this paper he begins by considering, 'why the only thinking being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched, and to pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering calamities.' He ends by asserting that 'of what virtue there is, misery produces far the greater part.'
[993] 'There are few things,' he writes, 'not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last....