BOSWELL'S "LIFE OF JOHNSON."
Sir John Malcolm once asked Warren Hastings, who was a contemporary and companion of Dr. Johnson and Boswell, what was his real estimation of Boswell's Life of Johnson? "Sir," replied Hastings, "it is the dirtiest book in my library;" then proceeding, he added: "I knew Boswell intimately; and I well remember, when his book first made its appearance, Boswell was so full of it, that he could neither think nor talk of anything else; so much so, that meeting Lord Thurlow hurrying through Parliament-street to get to the House of Lords, where an important debate was expected, for which he was already too late, Boswell had the temerity to stop and accost him with "Have you read my book?" "Yes," replied Lord Thurlow, with one of his strongest curses, "every word of it; I could not help it."
PATRONAGE OF AUTHORS.
In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison could scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the deficiency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by the artificial encouragement—by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary merit were so splendid—at which men who could write well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided, patronized literature with emulous munificence.
Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Rowe was not only poet laureate, but land-surveyor of the Customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissioners of the Peace. Ambrose Phillips was judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance. Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silk-mercer, became a secretary of Legation at five-and-twenty. It was to a poem on the death of Charles II., and to "the City and Country Mouse," that Montague owed his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and his auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the queen, would have been a bishop. Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a Commissioner of Stamps, and a member of Parliament. Arthur Mainwaring was a Commissioner of the Customs, and Auditor of the Imprest. Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison was Secretary of State.
But soon after the succession of the throne of Hanover, a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared little for poetry or eloquence. Walpole paid little attention to books, and felt little respect for authors. One of the coarse jokes of his friend, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, was far more pleasing to him than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's Pamela.