tempt for "Mallett, alias Malloch," the prostitute editor of Bolingbroke's posthumous works, was not until after many years changed to "Simson alias Smith." He gave Mr. Boswell another instance of his indulgence of private feelings, at the expense of living characters. "You know, Sir, Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to the word Renegado, after telling that it meant one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter, I added, sometimes we say a Gower. Thus it went to press but the printer* had more wit than I, and struck it out." The same spirit of discontent with public men and measures induced him, in No. 11, to describe the attendant on a court, as one "whose business it is to watch the looks of a being weak and foolish as himself." Why he should have retained sentiments which he afterwards would have deemed unjust or irreverent, can only be accounted for by supposing that he had forgot, or was not required to correct them. In private life, he was by no means reluctant to acknowledge an error, and especially if it had been attended with injury or uneasiness to any individual. Nor ought it to be omitted in this place that his capricious definitions were sometimes directed against himself. We are indebted to his Biographer for pointing out two cases in which he alludes with ridiculing pleasantry to his own occupation. "Grub-street, the name of a street much inhabited by writers of small his Mr. Nichols properly reminds me, "his steady and intelligent friend, Mr. Strahan." tories, dictionaries, and temporary poems;" and, "Lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words." The reflections on death, in No. 41, were the first effusion of the author's sorrow on the death of his mother, which afflicted him in no common degree. Whoever has lost an affectionate mother, will think he has sometimes treated her with less respect than he ought; and to good minds such reflections, although perhaps without much foundation, have often been found to imbitter the loss of parents. To this event in Dr. Johnson's history, we owe immediately the composition of his much-admired Rasselas, written with the affectionate purpose of defraying the expenses of his mother's funeral, and of paying some small debts she left. The cause gave inspiration and vigour to his pen. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to press as it was written, and had never since read it over. Such a fact must raise our admiration of the astonishing powers which enabled him to defy the common interruptions, or lapses of memory, and to neglect without injury the precautions which all writers have found necessary in order to compose a regular whole. Nor was it in the prime of life only that his faculties were thus at command, and independent of the usual guards against error and confusion. I am enabled to add, upon incontestable authority, that in his latter days, when the strong man bowed himself, he wrote his "Lives of the Poets" in the same desultory manner. * Mr. Boswell adverts to the general want of mottoes in this paper, for which he is unable to account, as he had heard Dr. Johnson commend the custom, and never could be at a loss for one, his memory being stored with innumerable passages of the classics. The author told Mrs. Piozzi, however, that "this practice was forborne, the better to conceal himself and escape discovery." I should be sorry to add to the many doubts already expressed of the accuracy of this lady's memory, by calling in question this excuse but surely no writer ever had fewer means and less art to escape discovery. What could the absence of a motto do to conceal Dr. Johnson's style? Sitting, however, with this lively lady one day, he recollected a few mottoes, which she wrote down, and which are here copied as part of the history of the Idler : For No. 39. Nec genus ornatus unum, quod quamque decebit Eligat OV. ARS AM. iii. 135. No. 17. Surge tandem, Carnifex-MECENAS No. 88. Hodie quid egisti? to AUGUSTUS. Oh jus CIC. No. 22. Oh nomen dulce libertatis ! eximium nostræ civitatis. No. 62. 64. Quid faciam? præscribe. Quiescas. HOR. SAT. ii. 3. 5. * From the information of Mr. Nichols, who printed the first edition of the Lives. No. 101. Carpe hilaris-fuget, heu, non revo No. 96. No. 71. canda dies! Qui se volet esse potentem, Fædis submittat habenis. BOETHIUS. TASSO. No. 46. Fugit ad salices, sed se cupit ante videri. VIRG. ECL. iii. 65. During the publication of the Idlers, they were frequently copied into contemporary publications, without any acknowledgement. The author, who, as already mentioned, was also a proprietor of the Universal Chronicle, hurled his vengeance on these pirates in the following "Hue and Cry," which, as coming from Dr. Johnson's pen, may justly be deemed a literary curiosity. Advertisement. "London, Jan. 5, 1759. The proprietors of the paper, entitled "The Idler," having found that those essays are inserted in the newspaper and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays for which a very large price is paid, transferred with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shown. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes we shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens: for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame." The effect of this singular manifesto is not now known; but if "essays for which a large price has been paid," be not words of course, they may prove that the author received an im |