Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/44

 first interview seems to have been in 1758 (ib. i. 328). Johnson made Goldsmith's acquaintance in 1761, and must have become known to Burke by the same time. He constantly added friends to his circle, and declared late in life that he thought a day lost in which he did not make a new acquaintance. ‘A man,’ he said, ‘should keep his friendship in constant repair,’ and he scarcely lost a friend, except by death. Some time after the loss of his wife he received into his house Miss Anna Williams, daughter of a Welsh physician, Zachariah Williams, who died 12 July 1755. Miss Williams had come to London, for an operation upon her eyes, during Mrs. Johnson's life. She afterwards became totally blind, and had a permanent apartment in Johnson's house. Her father had invented a method for determining the longitude by means of the variation of the compass, of which Johnson wrote an account in 1755 (published, with an Italian translation, by Baretti; a copy, presented by Johnson, is in the Bodleian Library). Miss Williams was well-educated and intelligent. Johnson took pleasure in her conversation, took her advice, and always treated her with high respect, in spite of her growing ‘peevishness’ in later years. She seems to have had some small means. Lady Knight (see Johnsoniana) says that she was never dependent on Johnson, and that each drew freely on the other's purse. Garrick, however, gave her a benefit, at Johnson's desire, by which she made 200l. (, i. 393), and Mrs. Montagu gave her a small annuity in 1775. Another inmate of Johnson's house from an early period was Robert Levett, who had been waiter in a French coffee-house, picked up a knowledge of physic, and practised among the poor. Johnson had known him from about 1746. He was grotesque, stiff, and silent, according to Boswell (i. 24), and always waited upon Johnson at breakfast. Johnson, however, never treated him as a dependent, and upon his death, 20 Jan. 1782, wrote the most pathetic of his poems. In 1777 or 1778 Johnson took into his house Mrs. Desmoulins (to whom he allowed half a guinea a week), widow of a writing-master and daughter of his godfather, Dr. Swinfen, and a Miss Carmichael, of whom little is known (ib. iv. 222). The party was not harmonious. Williams, said Johnson, ‘hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll [Miss Carmichael] loves none of them.’ Johnson sometimes feared to go home on account of their complaints, says Mrs. Piozzi (Anecdotes, p. 213); but if any one reproached them, he always defended them. His charity to the unprotected was unbounded through life, according to the testimony of Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, Murphy, and even Hawkins (see Mr. Hill's appendix to, vol. iii.). Johnson had also a black servant, Francis Barber, born in Jamaica as a slave of Colonel Bathurst, father of Richard Bathurst. He was freed by the colonel's will, and about 1752 entered Johnson's service. Johnson sent him to school, and Barber left him to go to sea in 1759. Johnson applied to Smollett, who applied to Wilkes, who obtained Barber's discharge by his influence with one of the lords of the admiralty. From this time till Johnson's death Barber continued in his service (ib. i. 238, 348).

The sum due for the dictionary had been advanced, and apparently 100l. more (, p. 78), before the task was completed. Johnson's poverty is shown by a note addressed to Richardson on 16 March 1756, stating that he had been arrested for 5l. 13s. and asking for a loan (ib. p. 86). Richardson sent him six guineas. He undertook to edit the ‘Literary Magazine, or Universal Review,’ of which the first number appeared in May 1756, and contributed a good many essays. A review of Jonas Hanway provoked a retort from the author, and Johnson made the only reply to which he ever condescended. He was defending his favourite tea, of which his potations were enormous. Cumberland's report of his having drunk twenty-five cups at a sitting seems to mark the maximum. Another remarkable article was his attack on Soame Jenyns's ‘Inquiry into the Origin of Evil,’ which gave an occasion for some characteristic utterances. The magazine expired in 1758, Johnson having ceased to write in it. He now took up again, in 1756, his proposed edition of Shakespeare, but dawdled over it unconscionably. On 15 April 1758 appeared the first number of his ‘Idler,’ published on Saturdays in Newbery's ‘Universal Chronicle.’ The last appeared on 5 April 1760. Twelve of the 103 numbers were contributed by friends, including Langton, Thomas Warton, and Reynolds. They were written hastily and were less impressive than the ‘Rambler.’ The first collected edition in 2 vols. appeared in October 1761, and Johnson's two-thirds of the profits produced 84l. 2s. 4d.

In January 1759 (about the 20th) Johnson's mother died at the age of ninety. Johnson had been unable to see her for some years, though he had helped her with money and wrote some very touching letters to her on her deathbed. In order to raise a small sum to meet the expense of her illness and