Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/394

 ��Essay on

��the reader, who wishes to gratify his curiosity, is referred to the fourteenth volume of Johnson's works, published by Stockdale \ The lives of Boerhaave, Blake, Barratier, Father Paul, and others, were, about that time, printed in the Gentleman's Magazine 2. The subscription of fifty pounds a year for Savage was completed 3 ; and in July, 1739, Johnson parted with the companion of his midnight-hours, never to see him more. The separation was, perhaps, an advantage to him, who wanted to make a right use of his time, and even then beheld, with self-reproach, the waste occasioned by dissipation. His absti nence from wine and strong liquors began soon after the departure of Savage 4. What habits he contracted in the course of that acquaintance cannot now be known. The ambition of excelling in conversation, and that pride of victory, which, at times, disgraced a man of Johnson's genius, were, perhaps, native blemishes 5. A fierce spirit of independence, even in the midst of poverty, may be seen in Savage ; and, if not thence transfused by Johnson into his own manners, it may, at least, be supposed to have gained strength from the example before him. During that connection there was, if we believe Sir John Hawkins, a short separation between our author and his wife 6 ; but a reconciliation soon took place. Johnson loved her, and shewed his affection in various modes of gallantry, which Garrick used to render ridiculous by his mimicry. The affectation of soft and fashionable airs did not become an unwieldy figure : his admiration was received by the wife with the flutter of an antiquated coquette ; and both, it is well known, furnished matter for the lively genius of Garrick 7.

��1 Works, v. 329 ; vi. 89.

2 Life, i. 139, 140, 147, 153.

3 Johnson, in his Life of Savage, says, ' the subscription did not amount to fifty pounds a year ; ' in his Life of Pope he states that Pope raised for him forty pounds. Works, viii. 173, 318.

4 It had begun before, though it might have been interrupted. Ante, P-37i,- 3-

��5 Murphy makes ' the ambition of excelling in conversation' a blemish.

6 ' While he was in a lodging in Fleet Street she was harboured by a friend near the Tower.' Hawkins, p. 89. See Life, i. 163, n. 2. In ' the exact list of his places of resi dence' which he gave to Boswell (Ib. iii. 405, n. 6) he does not men tion Fleet Street.

7 Ib. i. 99.

It

�� �� �