render the followers of it, with refpect to religion, to politics, and even to morality, altogether indifferent. Nor could he be ignorant of that mortifying dependence which the profeffion itself expofes men to, a profeffion that leads to no preferment, and for its ⚫ will have the humanity to fend me half a guinea for support, ⚫ till I can finish your papers in my hands. The ode on the British nation I hope to have done to day, and want a proof copy of that part of Stowe you defign for the prefent magazine, that it may be improved as far as poffible from your affistance. Your papers are but ill transcribed. I agree with you as to St. Auguftine's cave. I humbly intreat your anfwer, having not tasted any thing fince Tuesday evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge of the bed, so that I muft go into prifon naked, which is too fhocking for me to think of. I am, with fincere regard, . Sir, Your unfortunate humble fervant, • Crown coffee-house, Grocer's alley, Poultry, July 21, 1742. S. BOYS E.' • Received from Mr. Cave the fum of half a guinea by me, in confinement, S. Boyfe.' The miseries of his confinement did not teach him difcretion: he was released, but his wants were little abated, and he made ufe of the most difgraceful arts to excite charity: he fometimes raifed fubfcriptions for non-existent poems, and fometimes employed his wife to give out that he was dying. He was afterwards engaged, at a very low rate, in the compilation of an hiftorical view of the tranfactions of Europe, by Mr. Henry of Reading; at which place his wife died. To fignify his forrow for her death, he tied a black ribbon round the neck of a lapdog, which, to acquire the character of a man of taste, he used to carry in his arms. After he left Reading, he grew more decent in his dress and behaviour; but his health was then declining, and in May 1749 he died in an obfcure lodging near Shoe-lane, and was buried at the charge of the parish. moft most laborious exertions confers no greater a reward than a fupply of natural wants. Ralph, a writer of this clafs, and who had formed fome fuch connections as would have flattered the hopes of any man, was the tool of that party of which the late lord Melcombe laboured to be the head. To serve the interest of it, he wrote a periodical paper, and a voluminous hiftory of England, fraught with fuch principles as he was required to diffeminate. This man, in a pamphlet intitled The cafe of authors by profeffion,' has enumerated all the evils that attend it, and fhewn it to be the laft that a liberal mind would choose. : All this Johnfon knew and had duly weighed the leffer evils of an author's profeffion, fuch as a dependence on bookfellers, and a precarious income, he was able to endure, and the greater, that is to say, the prostitution of his talents, he averted; for, whatever facrifices of their principles fuch men as Waller, Dryden, and others, have made in their writings, or to whatever lengths they may have gone in panegyrics or adulatory addreffes, his integrity was not to be warped his religious and political opinions he retained and cherished; and in a fullen confidence in the strength of his mental powers, difdained to folicit patronage by any of the arts in common ufe with writers of almost every denomination. That this firmness was not affected, will appear by a retrofpect to the methods he took for the attainment of knowledge, and the fettling his notions as to the great duties of life. His course of study at the university was irregular and desultory, and scarcely determined as to its object. Mathematics M Mathematics and phyfics he had but little relish for, from whence it may be inferred, that his natural powers had received comparatively but small improvement from an academical education. An habitual difpofition to thought and reflection enabled him however upon his leaving it, to attain to that degree of improvement which, in many minds, is not effected without intense application and labour; and the fentiments of piety which he had imbibed in his youth, directed him to those studies, which, without attending to fecular rewards, he thought of greatest importance to his future happiness. In conformity to this motive, he applied himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, and the evidences of religion, to the writings of the fathers and of the Greek moralifts, to ecclefiaftical and civil history, and to claffical literature and philology. The refult of thefe his mental exercifes was a thorough conviction of the truth of the Chriftian religion, an adherence to the doctrine and difcipline of our established church, and to that form of civil government which we number among the bleffings derived to us from the wifdom and bravery of our ancestors, with this farther advantage, that they rooted in his mind thofe principles of religion, morality, and, I will add, loyalty, that influenced his conduct during the remainder of his life. To speak of the first, his religion, it had a tincture of enthusiasm, arifing, as is conjectured, from the fervour of his imagination, and the perufal of St. Auguftine and other of the fathers, and the writings of Kempis and the afcetics, which prompted him to the employment of compofing meditations and devotional exer cifes. cifes. It farther produced in him an habitual reverence for the name of God, which he was never known to utter but on proper occafions and with due refpect, and operated on those that were admitted to his conyerfation as a powerful reftraint of all profane difcourfe, and idle difcuffions of theological queftions ; and, laftly, it infpired him with that charity, meaning thereby a general concern for the welfare of all mankind, without which we are told that all pretenfions to religion are vain. To enable him at times to review his progrefs in life, and to estimate his improvement in religion, he, in the year 1734, began to note down the tranfactions of each day, recollecting, as well as he was able, those of his youth, and interfperfing fuch reflections and resolutions as, under particular circumftances, he was induced to make. This regifter, which he intitled. 'Annales,' does not form an entire volume, but is contained in a variety of little books folded and ftitched together by himself, and which were found mixed with his papers. Some fpecimens of these notanda have been lately printed with his prayers; but to warrant what I have faid, refpecting his religious character, I have felected from the Annales,' and infert in the margin below, an earlier extract than any contained in that collection *. His Friday, Auguft 27th.' (1734-) to at night. This day I have trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning. I read to night in Rogers's fermons. To night I began the breakfast law anew. Sept. 7th, 1736. I have this day entered upon my 28th year. Mayeft thou, O God, enable me for Jefus Chrift's fake, to spend His moral character displayed itself in the fincerity of his friendships, his love of juftice and of truth, and his placability; of all which qualities, the teftimonies in his favour are innumerable. But as the character here proposed to be given him is not intended to palliate his errors in behaviour, truth obliges me to fay, that his outward deportment was in many inflances a juft fubject of cenfure. Before his arrival in town, he was but little accustomed to free converfation with his fuperiors, fo that that kind of fubmiffion he had been used to pay them he seemed to exact from others, and when it was refused him he was petulent, captious, and dogged. His difcourfe, which through life was of the didactic kind, was replete with original fentiments expreffed in the ftrongest and most correct terms, and in fuch language, that whoever could have heard and not feen him, would have thought him reading. For the pleasure he communicated to his hearers, he expected not the tribute of filence: on the contrary, he encouraged others, particularly young men, to speak, and paid a due attention to what they faid; but his prejudices were so strong and deeply rooted, more especially against Scotchmen and whigs, that whoever thwarted him ran the rifque of a fevere rebuke, or at beft became entangled in an unpleasant altercation. He was scarce fettled in town before this dogmatical behaviour, and his impatience of contradiction, became this in fuch a manner that I may receive comfort from it at the hour of death, and in the day of judgment. Amen. 'I intend to-morrow to review the rules I have at any time laid down, in order to practise them.' a part |