The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [134]
‘SIR, – Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular regard from you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my sense of your favours;a but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus distinguished by you.
‘I am ashamed to tell you that my Shakspeare will not be out so soon as I promised my subscribers; but I did not promise them more than I promised myself. It will, however, be published before summer.
‘I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, and have hitherto left very few passages unexplained; where I am quite at a loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by commentators.
‘I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them, with more importunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be opportunity. I once printed them at length in the Chronicle, and some of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the Gray’s-Inn Journal) introduced them with a splendid encomium.
‘Since the Life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather all those that have anything of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me. I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,
‘London, March 8, 1758.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum, which I take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style. I love to exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend by various eminent hands.
‘Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had an interview with him in Gough-square, where he dined and drank tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he there found about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs and one arm. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams’s history, and shewed him some volumes of his Shakspeare already printed, to prove that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney’s opening the first volume, at the Merchant of Venice, he observed to him, that he seemed to be more severe on Warburton than Theobald. “O poor Tib.! (said Johnson) he was ready knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him.” “ But, Sir, (said Mr. Burney,) you’ll have Warburton upon your bones, won’t you?” “ No, Sir; he’ll not come out: he’ll only growl in his den.” “ But you think, Sir, that Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald?” “ O, sir, he’d make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices! The worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there’s nothing to be said.” Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed “To the most impudent Man alive.” He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton’s book against Bolingbroke’s Philosophy? “No, Sir, I have never read Bolingbroke’s impiety, and therefore am not interested about its confutation.”
On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled The Idler,∗ which came out every Saturday in a weekly news-paper, called The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette, published by Newbery. These essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their