The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [87]
On Lord LOVAT’s Execution.
‘Pity’d by gentle minds Kilmarnock died;
The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side;
Radcliffe, unhappy in his crimes of youth,
Steady in what he still mistook for truth,
Beheld his death so decently unmov’d,
The soft lamented, and the brave approv’d.
But Lovat’s fate indifferently we view,
True to no King, to no religion true:
No fair forgets the ruin he has done;
No child laments the tyrant of his son;
No tory pities, thinking what he was;
No whig compassions, for he left the cause;
The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave!a
This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having become joint patentee and manager of Drury-lane theatre, Johnson honoured his opening of it with a Prologue,∗ which for just and manly dramatick criticism, on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence,b is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to the Distressed Mother, it was, during the season, often called for by the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it have been so often repeated, and are so well recollected by all the lovers of the drama and of poetry, that it would be superfluous to point them out. In the Gentleman’s Magazine for December this year, he inserted an ‘Ode on Winter,’ which is, I think, an admirable specimen of his genius for lyrick poetry.
But the year 1747 is distinguished as the epoch, when Johnson’s arduous and important work, his DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, was announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan or Prospectus.
How long this immense undertaking had been the object of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated difficulty. He told me, that ‘it was not the effect of particular study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly.’ I have been informed by Mr. James Dodsley, that several years before this period, when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert’s shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, ‘I believe I shall not undertake it.’ That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his Plan, is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits; and we find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the writers whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities, were selected by Pope; which proves that he had been furnished, probably by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that eminent poet had contributed towards a great literary project, that had been the subject of important consideration in a former reign.
The booksellers who contracted with Johnson, single and unaided, for the execution of a work, which in other countries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch, Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds.
The Plan was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of his Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success. There is, perhaps in every thing of any consequence, a secret history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. Johnson told me,a ‘Sir, the way in which the Plan of my Dictionary came to be inscribed to Lord Chesterfield, was this: I had neglected to write it by