and most humble servant,

  Samuel Johnson.

  Gough square, 16 March.”

In the margin of this letter, there is a memorandum in these words:  “March 16, 1756, sent six guineas.  Witness, Wm. Richardson.”  For the honour of an admired writer it is to be regretted, that we do not find a more liberal entry.  To his friend, in distress, he sent eight shillings more than was wanted.  Had an incident of this kind occurred in one of his romances, Richardson would have known how to grace his hero; but in fictitious scenes, generosity costs the writer nothing.

About this time Johnson contributed several papers to a periodical miscellany, called The Visiter, from motives which are highly honourable to him, a compassionate regard for the late Mr. Christopher Smart.  The criticism on Pope’s epitaphs appeared in that work.  In a short time after, he became a reviewer in the Literary magazine, under the auspices of the late Mr. Newbery, a man of a projecting head, good taste, and great industry.  This employment engrossed but little of Johnson’s time.  He resigned himself to indolence, took no exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends.  Authors, long since forgotten, waited on him, as their oracle, and he gave responses in the chair of criticism.  He listened to the complaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, “who,” he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, “lived men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when.”  He believed, that he could give a better history of Grub street than any man living.  His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening.  During the whole time he presided at his tea-table.  Tea was his favourite beverage; and, when the late Jonas Hanway pronounced his anathema against the use of tea, Johnson rose in defence of his habitual practice, declaring himself “in that article, a hardened sinner, who had for years diluted his meals with the infusion of that fascinating plant; whose tea-kettle had no time to cool; who, with tea, solaced the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed the morning.”

The proposal for a new edition of Shakespeare, which had formerly miscarried, was resumed in the year 1756.  The booksellers readily agreed to his terms:  and subscription-tickets were issued out.  For undertaking this work, money, he confessed, was the inciting motive.  His friends exerted themselves to promote his interest; and, in the mean time, he engaged in a new periodical production, called The Idler.  The first number appeared on Saturday, April 15, 1758 and the last, April 5, 1760.  The profits of this work, and the subscriptions for the new edition of Shakespeare, were the means by which he supported himself for four or five years.  In 1759, was published Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.  His translation of Lobo’s Voyage to Abissinia, seems to have pointed out that country for the scene