Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/375

Rh I have never been able to find out in what author a line that is often quoted is to be found—

Probably it is in some modern Latin poem.

[Here is recorded the introduction of Dr. Johnson to Lord Chesterfield. The slight of being kept waiting in his hall, &c, which from being generally known, is not necessary to reprint. It appears that Malone heard these and other particulars not through the medium of Boswell, but previous to their acquaintance.]

Lord C. is supposed to have had Johnson in his thoughts in his description of a very awkward literary man in one of his letters to his son.

Johnson was also offended that his lordship, though engaged in writing occasionally in the periodical paper called the World, did not recommend the English Dictionary to the public till it was on the verge of publication. A few weeks before it appeared he wrote two essays in its favour. “While I was floating on a tempestuous ocean” (said Johnson on that occasion) “he would not afford me the smallest succour; but when I had got within sight of land, and almost touched the shore, he sent out two little frigates to my assistance.”

Soon afterwards he wrote a letter to Lord Chesterfield not inferior to any of his compositions; but he was prevailed upon not to print it. “In my first address to your lordship” (says he in some part of it) “having exhausted all the compliments that an uncourtly and sequestered scholar could devise, I