In the following year, he was involved in the controversy that arose from Lauder's attack upon the memory of Mil ton. The history of Lauder's forgeries need not be here detailed. It may be necessary, however, to notice, that the extraordinary attempt of that impostor was no sudden ef fort.—He had brooded over it for many years ; and, consi dering the difficulty of the task, came wonderfully well pre pared for the execution of it.Thc depth and artifice of Lauder, and the seeming improbability of any man being capable of such gratuitous and unprincipled malice towards the memo ry of an author who had been fourscore years in his grave, form some apology for Johnson having been, in the first in stance, the dupe of Lauder. Yet it is impossible to advert to the.cheerful promptitude with which Johnson lent his pen to the first support of the forger, without a suspicion that he was well pleased at t he prospect of M ilton's reputation sustain ing a reverse. Sir John Hawkins says, ohe could all along ob serve, that Johnson seemed to approve, not only Lauder's design, but of the argument; and seemed to exult in a persua sion that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery." Lauder, after having from time to time pub lished his fabrications in the Gentleman's Magazine, ven tured at last to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled an Essay on Milton's use and imitations of the Moderns in Pa radise Lost. To this pamphlet, Johnson wrote a preface, expressing a full conviction of Lauder's arguments. But the Rev. Dr. Douglas having clearly detected the impos tor's forgeries, Johnson dictated a letter for Lauder, ad dressed to Dr. Douglas, and acknowledging his fraud in terms of suitable contrition. Johnson's conduct has been praised for doing so.—He could do nothing less, unless he had deliberately resolved to consign his own character to infamy. Though his circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna NVilliains, daughter of a very ingenious Welch Physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived ; and, after her death, having come under his roof to have an ope ration upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an,,apartmcnt from hint during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house. Three days after the conclusion of the Rambler, he lost his wife; whose loss there is every reason to suppose he felt as deeply as he deplored it. When he had recovered from the first shock of this event, he contributed several papers to the Adventurer, then conducted by Dr. Hawkesworth. His dictionary was now drawing to a conclusion ; and Ches terfield, who had left him to struggle with difficulties during the compilation of it, meanly began to court a renewal of his acquaintance, in the hopes of the work being dedicated to him on its appearance. For this purpose he wrote two essays in the World, anticipating the high character of the dictionary, and sent a friend to sound Johnson on the sub ject of the dedication. Johnson, although he had once con descended to be indebted for 101. to his Lordship, treated time shewy patronage of the peer with deserved contempt, and sent him that letter of rebuke which has been so often transcribed, containing these memorable words The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it—till I am solitary, and cannot impart it—till I am known, and do not want it." In 1755, the degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him by the University of Oxford, after which, in Ma), his Dictionary came out. Prom the just value of this great and useful work, we are neither competent nor %5 il ling to detract. Considered as the work of one individual, it is a monument of Herculean strength ; but why. Johnson's lex icographical success is compared with that of the forty French academicians, and even preferred to it, the parallel can only be regarded as an illusion of national prejudice. For promoting works of poetry and imagination in a lan. guage, dictionaries are not the best receipts. The close definition of words deprives them of that halo of indistinct association which delights the fancy—it prunes and trims the vegetation of language beyond the natural wildness of poetry ; but for prose composition—for logical eloquence and for science, dictionaries and close definitions are not only important, but essential. The language of France has owed much more to this species of pruning, for it can not be called cultivation, than our own ; and evidently has owed much more than our own to its Dictionary. Its prose is superior to our own—its poetry incomparably inferior. Without regretting that we have no academy like that of our neighbours, we ought, in justice, to acknowledge, that Johnson has not given, perhaps, even the fortieth part of the distinctness and definition to our tongue that the French academicians have bestowed upon theirs. Johnson had
great reading, and still more sagacity ; but he was a bad ety mologistamd very little acquainted with philological niceties.
In a pecuniary light, he derived very little benefit from the publication of his Dictionary ; for, when it was finished, he had been paid more than the stipulated sum. He was, therefore, still entirely dependent on the exertions of the day for his support ; and it is melancholy to find, that a writer, esteemed an honour to his country, was, in the sub sequent year, (1756,) in his 45th year, under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings. It is no wonder that his constitutional melancholy should at this time have exerted a peculiar sway over his mind.
About this period he was offered a living of considera ble value in Lincolnshire, if he were inclined to enter into holy orders. It was a rectory in the gift of Mr. Langton, the father of one of his most intimate friends ; but he did not accept of it, partly, says Mr. Boswell, I believe, from a conscientious motive, being persuaded that his temper and habits rendered him unfit for that assiduous and fami liar instruction of the vulgar and ignorant, which he held to be an essential duty in a clergyman, and partly, because his love of a London life was so strung, that he would have thought himself an exile in any other place, particularly if residing in the country. In the same year, 1756, he en gaged to superintend a monthly publication, entitled the Literary Magazine, or Universal Register. To this he contributed a great many articles, enumerated by Mr. Bos well, and several reviews of new books. The most celebrated of his reviews, and one of his most finished compositions, both in point or style, argument, and wit, was that of Swathe Jenyns' Free Inquiry into the .Vature and Origin of Evil. This attracted so much attention that the bookseller was encouraged to publish it separately, and two editions were rapidly sold, lie wrote also, in 1756, some essays in the Universal Visitor, another magazine, which lasted only a year. llis proposal for an edition of Shaksteare was again revived, but it did not go to press for many years after.
In April 1758, he began a new periodical prier, entitled the Idler, which came out every Saturday, in a weekly The Universal Chronicle. or Meekly Gazette," published by Newberry. These essays were continued till the April of 1760, amounting in number to one hundred and three, twelve of which wet e contributed by his friends, Mr. T. \Varton, Mr. Langton, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Though evidently the work of the same mimi that produc ed the Rambler ; yet, as his biographer justly remarks," it has less body, and more spirit." Many of these essays were written as hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton re members Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him one evening how long it was till the post went out ; and, on being told about half an hour, then, he exclaimed, we shall do very well. Ile upon this instantly sat down and finish ed an Idler. Mr. Langton having signified a wish to read it : " Sir," said he," you shall not do more than I have done myself." Ile then folded it up, and sent it -oft No. 41 of the Pier alludes to the death of his mother, which took place in 1759. I le had ever been a dutiful son, and had contributed to her support, often when he knew not where to reef nit his finances. On the event of her death, he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, that he might be ena bled to raise a sun: sufficient to defray the expellees of her funeral, and pay some little debts she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he composed it in the evenings of one week—sent it to the press in portions after it was written—and never read it again till at the distance of seve ral years. None of his writings have been so extensively diffused over Europe ; for it has been translated into most, if not into all the languages of modern Europe. Such, at this period, was the state of his finances, that he was oblig ed to break up house-keeping, and retire to chambers, where he lived, says his biographer, Mr. Murphy, in pover ty, total idleness, and the pride of literature. From this unhappy state, he was at length rescued by the grant of a pension of 300./. per annum front his Majesty, in 1762, dur ing the ministry of Lord Bute. When the liberal offer was made, a short struggle of repugnance, to accept of a fa vour from the house of Hanover, and become that charac :cr—" a pensioner," on which he had betowed a sarcastic definition in his Dictionary, was overcome by a sense of the substantial benefit conferred by it. From the dates of John son's political writings, it is pretty clear that his pension was meant as a literary reward, and not as a political hire. That it might afterwards have influenced him to favour the court by the influence of personal gratitude,is not impossible; but there is no reason to believe that it ever made him prosti tute his opinions. These were innately Tory ; and it is easy to conceive how his loyalty, after the last hopes of the Jacobites had expired, might revert with sincere bias to the throne, which had become legitimated by .possession.