The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08. Samuel Johnson

23

He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelor’s degree in 1704: but it appears, by the list of Cambridge graduates, that he removed, in 1726, to Trinity hall. N.

24

1717. M.

25

Ford was Johnson’s relation, his mother’s nephew, and is said to have been the original of the parson in Hogarth’s Modern Midnight Conversation. See Boswell, i. and iii. Ed.

26

July 16.

27

Spence.

28

Shiels, Dr. Johnson’s amanuensis, who says, in Cibber’s Lives of the Poets, that he received this anecdote from a gentleman resident in Staffordshire. M.

29

Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare. Dr. J.—Holdsworthy is probably meant.

30

Spence.

31

This mishap of Gay’s is said to have suggested the story of the scholar’s bashfulness in the 157th Rambler; and to similar stories in the Adventurer and Repton’s Variety. Ed.

32

It was acted seven nights. The author’s third night was by command of their royal highnesses. R.

33

Spence.

34

Ibid.

35

Ibid.

36

Ibid.

37

To Trinity college. By the university register it appears, that he was admitted to his master’s degree in 1679; we must, therefore, set the year of his birth some years back. H.

38

We need not remark to any of our readers, but to those who are not Oxford men, that Pullen’s name is now remembered in the university, not as a tutor, but by the venerable elm tree which was the term of his morning walks. “I have the honour to be well known to Mr. Josiah Pullen, of our hall above-mentioned, (Magdalen hall,) and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington lull, in his cheerful company.” Guardian, No. 2. Ed.

39

The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.

40

This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.

41

Not long after.

42

Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.

43

This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 780. R.

44

Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenæ Cantab, in Mus. Brit.

45

William.

46

An allusion of approbation is made to the above in Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 58. Ed.

47

The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

“MR. URBAN

“As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory, as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and, therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea, in Wales.

“From that period to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters and those of his friends; some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin.

“It may be reasonably, imagined that others may have the same design, but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected that they will supply from invention the want of intelligence, and that under the title of the Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may, therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them, in your magazine, that my account will be published, in octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.”

48

This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon’s Review.

The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords:

Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.

49

See Mr. Boswell’s doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. Ed.

50

On this circumstance, Boswell founds one of his strongest arguments against Savage’s being the son of lady Macclesfield. “If there was such a legacy left,” says Boswell, “his not being able to obtain payment of it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person. The just inference should be, that, by the death of lady Macclesfield’s child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed; and, therefore, that Johnson’s Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.” With respect for the legal memory of Boswell, we would venture to urge, that the forma pauperis is not the most available mode of addressing an English court; and, therefore, Johnson is not clearly proved wrong by the above argument brought against him. Ed.

51

He died August 18th, 1712 R.

52

Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.

53

Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.

54

See the Plain Dealer.

55

The title of this poem was the Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, 1717. J. B.

56

Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets.    Dr. J.

57

This play was printed first in 8vo.; and afterwards in 12mo. the fifth edition.    Dr. J.

58

Plain Dealer,    Dr. J.

59

As it is a loss to mankind when any good action is forgotten, I shall insert another instance of Mr. Wilks’s generosity, very little known. Mr. Smith, a gentleman educated at Dublin, being hindered by an impediment in his pronunciation from engaging in orders, for which his friends designed him, left his own country, and came to London in quest of employment, but found his solicitations fruitless, and his necessities every day more pressing. In this distress he wrote a tragedy, and offered it to the players, by whom it was rejected. Thus were his last hopes defeated, and he had no other prospect than of the most deplorable poverty. But Mr. Wilks thought his performance, though not perfect, at least worthy of some reward, and, therefore, offered him a benefit. This