The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield.Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste.He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords.He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since become Secretary of State.He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant.During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door.
Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his Dictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world.During the seven years which he passed in the drudgery of penning definitions and making quotations for transcription, he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more agreeable kind.In 1749 he published the Vanity of Human Wishes, an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal.It is in truth not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or to the modern poet.The couplets in which the fall of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with the wonderful lines which bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of the fall of Sejanus, the laurels on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, the statues rolling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of the disgraced minister running to see him dragged with a hook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before it is hurled into the Tiber.It must be owned too that in the concluding passage the Christian moralist has not made the most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of the sublimity of his Pagan model.On the other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles;and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumeration of the miseries of a literary life must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero.
For the copyright of the Vanity of Human Wishes Johnson received only fifteen guineas.
A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage.His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the first place among actors, and was now, after several years of almost uninterrupted success, manager of Drury Lane Theatre.The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind.They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly.
Nature had made them of very different clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both.Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head.Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper.Johnson saw with more envy than became so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn.Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in common, and sympathised with each other on so many points on which they sympathised with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by death.Garrick now brought Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author, yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience.
The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation.After nine representations the play was withdrawn.It is, indeed, altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author.He had not the slightest notion of what blank verse should be.A change in the last syllable of every other line would make the versification of the Vanity of Human Wishes closely resemble the versification of Irene.The poet, however, cleared, by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in his estimation.
