��Essay on
��nobleman ; and his pride, exasperated by disappointment, drew from him the following letter, dated in the month of February, 1755 '
It is said, upon good authority, that Johnson once received from Lord Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds. It were to be wished that the secret had never transpired. It was mean to receive it 2 , and meaner to give it. It may be imagined, that for Johnson's ferocity, as it has been called, there was some foundation in his finances; and, as his Dictionary was brought to a conclusion, that money was now to flow in upon him. The reverse was the case. For his subsistence, during the progress of the work, he had received at different times the amount of his contract ; and when his receipts were produced to him at a tavern-dinner, given by the booksellers, it appeared, that he had been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his due 3 . The
��1 For this letter, which I omit, see Life, 1.261.
Mr. Hussey says : ' Enquiring of Dr. Johnson if it were true that Lord Chesterfield had been much offended at the receipt of his letter, the Doctor replied, " so far from it his Lordship expressed himself obliged to me for it, and did me the honour to say it was the letter of a Scholar and a Gentleman." ' ' Dr. Johnson once spoke to me very warmly in recommendation of Lord Chesterfield, and said that he was the politest man he ever knew ; but added " Indeed he did not think it worth his while to treat me like a Gentleman." '
- On telling him Voltaire's opinion,
that " if ever Lord Chesterfield pub lished anything he would expose his ignorance," Johnson replied, " His Letters betray no want of abilities, but the bad use he has made of them." ' Marginal notes in Mr. H. P. Symonds's copy of the Life.
Voltaire said of the Letters :
��4 Je ne sais si ce n'est pas le meilleur livre d'education qu'on ait jamais fait.' (Euvres de Voltaire, ed. 1821, Ivi. 399.
Davies, in his Life of Garrick, i. 92, shows how at Dublin Chester field did not think it worth his while to treat Garrick like a gentleman.
2 Life, i. 261, n. 3.
Murphy, if we can trust Rogers's account of him, was not entitled to pass so harsh a judgment. Towards the close of his life, till he received a pension of ^200 from the King, he was in great pecuniary difficulties. He had eaten himself out of every tavern from the other side of Temple- Bar to the west end of the town.' He owed Rogers a large sum of money, which he never repaid. ' He assigned over to me the whole of his works ; and I soon found that he had already disposed of them to a book seller.' Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 106.
3 Hawkins, p. 345 ; Life, i. 304 ; ante, p. 388.
In 1781 one-eightieth share of the author
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