man may love and be loved, and at the fame time affociate with the loofeft women. His morality, in respect that it refolves virtue into good affections, in contradiction to moral obligation and a sense of duty, is that of lord Shaftesbury vulgarifed, and is a fyftem of excellent ufe in palliating the vices moft injurious to fociety. He was the inventor of that cant-phrafe, goodnefs of heart, which is every day used as a fubftitute for probity, and means little more than the virtue of a horfe or a dog; in fhort, he has done more towards corrupting the rifing generation than any writer we

know of.

He afterwards wrote a book of the fame kind, but of a lefs mischievous tendency, his Amelia.' For each of these he was well paid by Andrew Millar the bookfeller, and for the laft he got fix hundred pounds.

Dr. Tobias Smollet, another writer of familiar romance, and a dealer with the bookfellers, was originally a furgeon's mate, and ferved at the fiege of Carthagena. His first publication of this kind was The adventures of Roderick Random,' and his next those of Peregrine Pickle, in which is introduced the hiftory of a well-known woman of quality, written, as it is faid, by herself, under the name of lady Frail. These, and other compofitions of the like kind, Smollet fold to the bookfellers at fuch rates as enabled him to live without the exercife of his profefiion. He had a hand in The univerfal hiftory,' and tranflated Gil Blas and alfo Telemachus. The fuccefs of the former of these tempted him to tranflate Don Quixote,' which, as he understood not the Spanish language, he could only do through the medium of the French and

the former English verfions, none of which do, as it is faid, convey the humour of the original. It might feem that Jarvis's tranflation was one impediment to such an undertaking; but that, though it gives the fense of the author, was performed by perfons whose fkill in the language was not great. The fact is, that Jarvis laboured at it many years, but could make but little progress, for being a painter by profeffion, he had not been accustomed to write, and had no ftyle. Mr. Tonfon the bookfeller feeing this, fuggefted the thought of employing Mr. Broughton, the reader at the Temple church, the author and editor of fundry publications, who, as I have been informed by a friend of Tonson, fat himself down to study the Spanish language, and, in a few months, acquired, as was pretended, fufficient knowledge thereof, to give to the world a tranflation of Don Quixote in the true fpirit of the original, and to which is prefixed the name of Jarvis.

I might here speak of Richardson as a writer of fictitious hiftory, but that he wrote for amufement, and that the profits of his writings, though very great, were accidental. He was a man of no learning nor reading, but had a vivid imagination, which he let loose in reflections on human life and manners, till it became fo diftended with fentiments, that for his own eafe, he was neceffitated to vent them on paper. In the original plan of his Clariffa,' it was his design, as his book feller once told me, to continue it to the extent of twenty-four volumes, but he was, with great difficulty, prevailed on to comprise it in fix. The character of Richardfon as a writer is to this day undecided, otherwife than by the avidity with which his publications are by fome readers perufed, and the

fale

fale of numerous editions. He has been celebrated as a writer fimilar in genius to Shakespeare, as being acquainted with the inmoft receffes of the human heart, and having an abfolute command of the paffions, fo as to be able to affect his readers as himself is affected, and to intereft them in the fucceffes and difappointments, the joys and forrows of his characters. Others there are who think that neither his 'Pamela,' his Clariffa,' nor his Sir Charles Grandifon' are to be numbered among the books of rational and inftructive amusement, and they are not to be compared to the novels of Cervantes, or the more fimple and chafte narrations of Le Sage, that they are not just reprefentations of human manners, that in them the turpitude of vice is not ftrongly enough marked, and that the allurements to it are reprefented in the gayest colours; that the texture of all his writings is flimfy. and thin, and his ftyle mean and feeble; that they have a general tendency to inflame the paffions of young people, and to teach them that which they need not to be taught; and that though they pretend to a moral, it often turns out a bad one. The cant terms of him and his admirers are fentiment and fentimentality.

Johnson was inclined, as being perfonally acquainted with Richardfon, to favour the former opinion of his writings, but he seemed not firm in it, and could at any time be talked into a disapprobation of all fictitious relations, of which he would frequently fay they took no hold of the mind.

I am tired of adducing inftances of men who lived by the profeffion of writing and thought it an eligible one, and fhould now proceed to relate the fubfequent events of Dr. Johnfon's life, and mark the

ftate

ftate of his mind at different periods, but that I find myself detained by a character, which, as it wêre, obtrudes itself to view, and is of importance enough to claim notice.

Laurence Sterne, a clergyman and a dignitary of the cathedral church of York, was remarkable for a wild and eccentric genius, resembling in many refpects that of Rabelais. The work that made him first known as a writer, was, The life and opinions

of Triftram Shandy,' a whimsical rhapfody, but abounding in wit and humour of the licentious kind. He too was a fentimentalift, and wrote sentimental journies and fentimental letters in abundance, by which both he and the bookfellers got confiderably. * Of the writers of this class or fect it may be observed, that being in general men of loofe principles, bad œconomists, living without forefight, it is their endeavour to commute for their failings by profeffions of greater love to mankind, more tender affections and finer feelings than they will allow men of more regular lives, whom they deem formalifts, to poffefs. Their generous notions fuperfede all obligation: they are a law to themfelves, and having good hearts and abounding in the milk of human kindnefs, are above thofe confiderations that bind men to that rule of conduct which is founded in a fense of duty. Of this new fchool of morality, Fielding, Rouffeau, and Sterne are the principal

• Of his converfation, his morals, and the fenfe he entertained of the clerical profeffion, a judgment may be formed by the following faying of Johnson's. See his works, Vol. IX. Page 214. I was, fays he, but once in the company of Sterne, and then his only attempt at merriment was the difplay of a drawing too grossly indecent to have delighted even in a brothel.

teachers

teachers, and great is the mischief they have done by their documents.

To thefe I might add the names of fundry perfons of the fame occupation, the authors of the Univer fal history in twenty-fix folio volumes, but that only a few of them are at this diftance of time known: thofe are Pfalmanaazar, George Sale, the above Dr. Campbell, and Mr. George Shelvocke, who, of a boy bred to the fea, became a man of learning, a travelling tutor, and at length attained to the lucrative employment of fecretary of the poft-office. Of thefe men it may be faid that they were miners in literature, they worked, though not in darkness, under ground; their motive was gain; their labour filent and inceffant.

From the above enumeration of characters and particulars it may be inferred, that Johnson's indolence and melancholy were diseases of his mind, and not the neceffary confequence of the profeffion he had taken up, that he faw human life through a falfe medium, and that he voluntarily renounced many comforts, gratifications, and even pleasures, obviously in his power. One effort however he made to foothe his mind and palliate the fatigue of his labours, which I here relate.

The great delight of his life was converfation and mental intercourfe. That he might be able to indulge himself in this, he had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club that met weekly at the King's head, a famous beef-steak houfe, in Ivy-lane near St. Paul's, évery Tuesday evening. Thither he conftantly reforted, and, with a difpofition to pleafe and be pleafed, would pass thofe hours in a free and unrestrained in

terchange