satire, recommended him to Lord Gower, probably as having interest with the trustees; and Gower wrote to a friend of Swift (1 May 1739) in order to obtain a M.A. degree from Dublin. Johnson, as Gower reported, would rather die upon the road to an examination (if required) ‘than be starved to death in translating for booksellers, which has been his only subsistence for some time past.’ The application failed, and the want of a degree was also fatal to an application made by Johnson for leave to practise as an advocate at Doctors' Commons.
Cave meanwhile had accepted his proposed translation of Father Paul's history, and in 1738–9 he received 49l. 7s. on account of work done upon it; but it fell through in consequence of a project for a translation of the same book by another Samuel Johnson. In the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ of 1739 he wrote a ‘Life of Father Paul,’ and continued to contribute various small articles. A squib against Walpole, called ‘Marmor Norfolciense,’ April 1739, was not very lively, and seems to have failed, though Hawkins tells a story (contradicted by Boswell) that warrants were issued against the author. Pope refers to it as ‘very Humerous’ in a note sent to Richardson the painter, with ‘London,’ in which he says that Johnson's convulsive infirmities made him ‘a sad spectacle.’ In 1742 Johnson was employed by Thomas Osborne, a bookseller, to catalogue the library of Edward Harley, second earl of Oxford [q. v.] Osborne, treating Johnson with insolence, was knocked down for his pains. ‘I have beat many a fellow,’ as Johnson told Mrs. Piozzi, ‘but the rest had the wit to hold their tongues’ (Boswell, i. 154; Piozzi, Anecd. p. 233). A folio Septuagint of 1594 was shown at a bookseller's shop in 1812 as the weapon with which the deed was performed (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 446). Except his contributions to the ‘Magazine,’ and a letter (1 Dec. 1743) in which he takes upon himself a debt owed by his mother, little is preserved about Johnson till in February 1744 his very powerful life of Savage (who died 1 Aug. 1743) was published by one Roberts. The book was written with great rapidity, forty-eight octavo pages at a sitting. It gives a striking account of miseries in which Johnson was himself a sharer. Savage and Johnson had passed nights in roaming the streets without money to pay for a lodging, and on one such occasion passed the time in denouncing Walpole, and resolved to ‘stand by their country.’ It seems possible that for a time Johnson had to part from his wife, who may have found a refuge with friends (Boswell, i. 163; Hawkins, pp. 53 sq.), though Hawkins kindly suggests that Johnson's ‘irregularities’ were the cause of the temporary separation.
A period follows of such obscurity that Croker ventured the absurd hypothesis that Johnson was in some way implicated in the rebellion of 1745. A pamphlet of observations upon ‘Macbeth,’ with remarks upon Hanmer's edition of Shakespeare and proposals for a new edition by himself, was published in 1745. Warburton two years later, in the preface to his own ‘Shakespeare,’ excepted Johnson's remarks from a sweeping condemnation of other critics, as written by a ‘man of parts and genius,’ and Johnson was grateful for praise given ‘when praise was of value.’ Warburton met Johnson once (Boswell, iv. 48), and was so pleased as to ‘pat him.’ He afterwards told Hurd, however, that Johnson's ‘Shakespeare’ showed ‘as much folly as malignity’ (Letters to Hurd, p. 367). Johnson was deterred by Warburton's edition, or diverted by a new undertaking, from attempting ‘Shakespeare’ at present. In 1747 he issued the plan of his dictionary, inscribed to Lord Chesterfield. The inscription, as Johnson said, was the accidental result of his agreeing, at Dodsley's request, to write it in order to have a pretext for delay. The wording implies, however, that some communication had passed between them. The booksellers who undertook the enterprise (including Dodsley, Millar, and the Longmans) agreed to pay 1,575l. for the copyright. The payment included the whole work of preparing for the press; and Johnson lost 20l. on one occasion for a transcription of some leaves which had been written on both sides. He employed six amanuenses, five of whom, as Boswell is glad to record, were Scotsmen. From a letter published by Mr. Hill (Boswell, vi. xxxv) it appears that they received 23s. a week, which he agreed to raise to 2l. 2s., not, it is to be hoped, out of the 1,575l. To all of them he afterwards showed kindness when in distress. He began (Hawkins, p. 175) by having an interleaved copy of the dictionary of Nathan Bailey [q. v.], then the most in use. He read through all the books to be quoted, marked the sentences, and had them transcribed by his clerks on separate slips of paper. After they had been arranged he added definitions and etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and others. The work was done in a house in Gough Square, near the printers, which was visited by Carlyle and described in his article on Johnson. While the dictionary was still in preparation Johnson published his ‘Vanity of Human Wishes’ in January 1749. He received fifteen guineas for the copyright. In this and subsequent
