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 Johnson was now at ease in his circumstances I : he wanted his usual motive to impel him to the exertion of his talents, neces sity, and he sunk into indolence. Whoever called in on him at about mid-day, found him and Levett at breakfast, Johnson in deshabille, as just risen from bed, and Levett filling out tea for himself and his patron alternately, no conversation passing between them. All that visited him at these hours were welcome. A night's rest, and breakfast, seldom failed to refresh and fit him for discourse, and whoever withdrew went too soon 2. His invitations to dinners abroad were numerous, and he seldom balked them. At evening parties, where were no cards, he very often made one; and from these, when once engaged, most unwillingly retired.

In the relaxation of mind, which almost any one might have foreseen would follow the grant of his pension 3, he made little account of that lapse of time, on which, in many of his papers, he so severely moralizes. And, though he was so exact an observer of the passing minutes, as frequently, after his coming from church, to note in his diary how many the service took up in reading, and the sermon in preaching 4 ; he seemed to forget how many years had passed since he had begun to take in sub scriptions for his edition of Shakespeare. Such a torpor had seized his faculties, as not all the remonstrances of his friends were able to cure : applied to some minds, they would have burned like caustics, but Johnson felt them not 5. (Page 435.)

He removed from the Temple into a house in Johnson's court, Fleet-street, and invited thither his friend Mrs. Williams 6. An

1 Through his pension. Ante, i. 4 This diary is not in print.

417 ; Life, i. 372. 2 Id. ii. 1 18. 5 Life, i. 319.

3 This ' relaxation of mind ' pre- 6 She had lived with him in Gough

ceded his pension. He had for some Square (Life, i. 232), but had gone

time been * living in poverty, total into lodgings when he went into

idleness and the pride of literature.' chambers, first in Staple Inn, then

Ante, i. 416. He brought the Idler in Gray's Inn, and lastly in Inner

to an end on April 5, 1760; after that Temple Lane. 7#. i. 350,. 3. In

he did next to nothing for some years. Scotland, referring to his house in

His Shakespeare was not published Johnson's Court, he described him-

till 1765. His pension was granted self as 'Johnson of that Ilk.' Id. ii.

in the summer of 1762. 427, n. 2.

I 2 upper

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