A chum of literature is nonsense.'
[1046] In a note to that piece of bad book-making, Almon's Memoirs of Wilkes (i. 47), this allusion is thus explained:-'A pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes on that passage in Johnson's Grammar of the English Tongue, prefixed to the Dictionary--"H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable."' For this 'pleasantry' see ante, p. 300.
[1047] Mr. Croker says that he was not discharged till June 1760. Had he been discharged at once he would have found Johnson moving from Gough Square to Staple Inn; for in a letter to Miss Porter, dated March 23, 1739, given in the Appendix, Johnson said:-'I have this day moved my things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn.'
[1048] Prayers and Meditations , pp. 30 [39] and 40. BOSWELL.
[1049] 'I have left off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. 9, 1759. Murphy (Life, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year 1759, says:--'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses. He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went into lodgings [See post, July 1, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he had first moved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the Inner Temple-lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of literature, Magni stat nominis umbra. Mr. Fitzherbert used to say that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his chambers to send a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he found an authour by profession without pen, ink, or paper.' (It was Mr. Fitzherbert, who sent Johnson some wine. See ante, p. 305, note 2. See also post, Sept. 15, 1777). The following documents confirm Murphy's statement of Johnson's poverty at this time:
'May 19, 1759.
'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of forty-two pounds, nineteen shillings, and ten pence on demand, value received. L42 19 10.
'Sam. Johnson.'
'March 20, 1760.
'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of thirty pounds upon demand., L30 0 0.
'Sam. Johnson.'
In 1751 he had thrice borrowed money of Newbery, but the total amount of the loans was only four guineas. Prior's Goldsmith, i. 340. With Johnson's want of pen, ink, and paper we may compare the account that he gives of Savage's destitution (Works, viii. 3):--'Nor had he any other conveniences for study than the fields or the streets allowed him; there he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he had composed upon paper which he had picked up by accident.' Hawkins (Life, p. 383) says that Johnson's chambers were two doors down the Inner Temple Lane. 'I have been told,' he continues, 'by his neighbour at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more inquiries were made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put together of both the Inner and Middle Temple.' In a court opening out of Fleet Street, Goldsmith at this very time was still more miserably lodged. In the beginning of March 1759, Percy found him 'employed in writing his Enquiry into Polite Learning in a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 61.
[1050] Sir John Hawkins (Life, p. 373) 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 Mathematicks 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 mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastick 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.