Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?  The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed, till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.  I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations, where no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the publick should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work, thus far, with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself, with so much exultation,

    My lord,
      your lordship’s most humble
        and most obedient servant,
          Samuel Johnson.”

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, 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.  The author of a book, called Lexiphanes[s], written by a Mr. Campbell, a Scotchman, and purser of a man of war, endeavoured to blast his laurels, but in vain.  The world applauded, and Johnson never replied.  “Abuse,” he said, “is often of service:  there is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence; his name, like a shittlecock [Transcriber’s note:  sic], must be beat backward and forward, or it falls to the ground.”  Lexiphanes professed to be an imitation of the pleasant manner of Lucian; but humour was not the talent of the writer of Lexiphanes.  As Dryden says, “he had too much horse-play in his raillery.”

It was in the summer, 1754, that the present writer became acquainted with Dr. Johnson.  The cause of his first visit is related by Mrs. Piozzi, nearly in the following manner:—­Mr. Murphy being engaged in a periodical paper, the Gray’s inn Journal, was at a friend’s house in the country, and, not being disposed to lose pleasure for business, wished to content his bookseller by some unstudied essay.  He, therefore, took up a French Journal Litteraire, and, translating something he liked, sent