[748] 'One evening at the Club Johnson proposed to us the celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, [The Life of Harriet Stuart, a novel, published Dec. 1750] by a whole night spent in festivity. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. About five Johnson's face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 286. See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' and May 15, 1784.
[749] In a document in the possession of one of Cave's collateral descendants which I have seen dated May 3, 1754, and headed, 'Present state of the late Mr. Edward Cave's effects,' I found entered 'Magazine, £3,000. Daily Advertiser, £900.' The total value of the effects was £8,708.
[750] Johnson records of his friend that 'one of the last acts of reason which he exerted was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little narrative.' Works, vi. 433.
[751] See Hawkins's Johnson, p. 189.
[752] Lord Chesterfield writing to his son in 1751 (Letters, iii. 136) said:—'People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind, as surgeons are to their bodily pains; they see and hear of them all day long, and even of so many simulated ones, that they do not know which has are real, and which are not. Other sentiments are therefore to be applied to than those of mere justice and humanity; their favour must be captivated by the suaviter in modo; their love of ease disturbed by unwearied importunity; or their fears wrought upon by a decent intimation of implacable, cool resentment: this is the true fortiter in re! He was himself to experience an instance of the true fortiter in re.
[753] If Lord Chesterfield had read the last number of The Rambler (published in March, 1752) he could scarcely have flattered himself with these expectations. Johnson, after saying that he would not endeavour to overbear the censures of criticism by the influence of a patron, added:—'The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and, though greatness sometimes sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of truth, I will not at last violate it by the confession of terrors which I do not feel; having laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of dedication.'
[754] On Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 1754. The World, by Adam Fitz-Adam, Jan. 1753 to Dec. 1765. The editor was Edward Moore. Among the contributors were the Earls of Chesterfield and Corke, Horace Walpole, R. O. Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns. See post, July 1, 1763.
[755] With these papers as a whole Johnson would have been highly offended. The anonymous writer hopes that his readers will not suspect him 'of being a hired and interested puff of this work.' 'I most solemnly protest,' he goes on to say, 'that neither Mr. Johnson, nor any booksellers have ever offered me the usual compliment of a pair of gloves or a bottle of wine.' It is a pretty piece of irony for a wealthy nobleman solemnly to protest that he has not been bribed by a poor author, whom seven years before he had repulsed from his door. But Chesterfield did worse than this. By way of recommending a work of so much learning and so much labour he tells a foolish story of an assignation that had failed 'between a fine gentleman and a fine lady.' The letter that had passed between them had been badly spelt, and they had gone to different houses. 'Such examples,' he wrote, 'really make one tremble; and will, I am convinced, determine my fair fellow-subjects and their adherents to adopt and scrupulously conform to Mr. Johnson's rules of true orthography.' Johnson, in the last year of his life, at a time of great weakness and depression, defended the roughness of his manner. 'I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company' (post, June 11, 1784).
[756] In the original 'Mr. Johnson.'
[757] In the original 'unnecessary foreign ornaments.'