Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/409

 Johnson's Life and Genius.

��Johnson received into his service Frank, the black servant, whom, on account of his master, he valued to the end of his life x. At the time of instituting the club in Ivy-lane, Johnson had projected the Rambler" 2 . The title was most probably suggested by the Wanderer ; a poem which he mentions, with the warmest praise, in the Life of Savage 3 . With the same spirit of independence with which he wished to live, it was now his pride to write. He communicated his plan to none of his friends 4 : he desired no assistance, relying entirely on his own fund, and the protection of the Divine Being, which he implored in a solemn form of prayer, composed by himself for the occasion 5 . Having formed a resolution to undertake a work that might be of use and honour to his country, he thought, with Milton, that this was not to be obtained ' but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that [who] can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send [sends] out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases 6 .'

��1 Life, i. 239 ; iv. 401 ; ante, p. 291. f Soon after the decease of Mrs. John son the father of Dr. Bathurst ar rived in England from Jamaica, and brought with him a negro-servant, a native of that island, whom he caused to be baptised and named Francis Barber, and sent for instruc tion to Barton upon Tees in York shire ; upon the decease of Captain Bathurst, for so he was called, Francis went to live with his son, who wil lingly parted with him to Johnson. The uses for which he was intended to serve this his last master were not very apparent, for Diogenes himself never wanted a servant less than he seemed to do ... He placed him at a school at Bishop Stortford, and kept him there five years; and, as Mrs. Williams was used to say, who would frequently reproach him with his indiscretion in this instance, ex pended .300 in an endeavour to have him taught Latin and Greek.'

��Hawkins, pp. 326-8. Francis en tered Johnson's service a fortnight after Mrs. Johnson's death. Life, i. 239.

2 According to Nichols (Lit. Anec. ix. 501) the Club was known as the Ramblers' Club. If so the name must have been given some time after its foundation.

See Life, i. 202 for the origin of the name of The Rambler. In the list of Periodical Publications in Nichols's Lit. Anec.\\\\.^^ is a paper under this name published in 1712.

3 ' From a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable advantage ; nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Works, viii. 131.

4 Hawkins, p. 265.

5 Ante, p. 9.

6 The Reason of Church Govern-

Having

�� �