to ferve this his last master were not very apparent, for Diogenes himself never wanted a fervant lefs than he feemed to do the great bufhy wig, which throughout his life he affected to wear, by that clofeness of texture which it had contracted and been fuffered to retain, was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickfet hedge; and little of the duft that had once fettled on his outer garments was ever known to have been disturbed by the brush. In fhort, his garb and the whole of his external appearance was, not to fay negligent, but flovenly, and even fqualid; to all which, and the neceffary confequences of it, he appeared as infenfible as if he had been nurtured at the Cape of Good Hope: he faw that, notwithstanding these offenfive peculiarities in his manners, his conversation had great attractions, and perhaps he might estimate the ftrength of the one by the degree of the other, and thence derive that apathy, which, after all, might have its foundation in pride, and afforded him occafion for a triumph over all the folicitudes refpecting drefs *.

That he was an habitual sloven his best friends cannot deny. When I first knew him, he was little lefs fo than Magliabechi, of whom it is faid, that at meals he made a book ferve him for a plate, and that he very feldom changed his linen, or washed himfelf. It is faid of other scholars and men eminent in literature, of Leibnitz, Poiret, St. Evremond, and Pope, that they were alike uncleanly. Johnfon, as his acquaintance with perfons of condition became more enlarged, and his invitations to dinner-parties increased, corrected, in fome degree, this failing, but could never be faid to be neatly dreffed, or indeed clean; he affected to wear cloaths of the darkest and dirtieft colours, and, in all weathers, black stockings. His wig never fat even on his head, as may be obferved in all the pictures of him, the reafon whereof was, that

Of this negro-fervant much has been faid, by thofe who knew little or nothing of him, in juftification of that partiality which Johnfon fhewed for him, and his neglect of his own neceffitous relations. The following particulars are all that are worth relating of him: He stayed with Johnfon about five years, that is to fay, till 1758, and then left him, but at the end of two years returned, and was taken again into his fervice. His firft mafter had, in great humanity, made him a Chriftian; and his laft, for no affignable reason, nay, rather in defpight of nature, and to unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, determined to make him a fcholar.

He placed him at a fchool at Bifhop-Stortford, and kept him there five years; and, as Mrs. Williams was ufed to fay, who would frequently reproach him with his indifcretion in this inftance, expended three hundred pounds in an endeavour to have him taught Latin and Greek*.

The propofal for the dictionary, and other of his writings, had exhibited Johnfon to view in the character of a poet and a philologift: to his moral qualities, and his concern for the interefts of religion and virtue, the world were for fome time ftrangers; but no fooner were these manifefted by the publication of the Rambler and the Adventurer, than he was looked up to as a master of human life, a practical Chriftian,

he had a twist in his fhoulders, and that the motion of his head, as foon as he put it on, dragged it awry.

* Mrs. Williams, who, with a view to the interest of her friend, was very attentive to the conduct of this his favourite, when fhe took occafion to complain to his master of his misbehaviour, would do it in fuch terms as thefe: This is your fcholar! your philosopher!

upon whom you have spent fo many hundred pounds.'

and

and a divine; his acquaintance was fought by perfons of the first eminence in literature, and his house, in refpect of the conversations there, became an academy. One perfon, in particular, who seems, for a great part of his life, to have affected the character of a patron of learned and ingenious men, in a letter which I have seen, made him a tender of his friendship in terms to this effect: That having perufed many of his writings, and thence conceived a high opinion of his learning, his genius, and moral qualities, if Mr. Johnson was inclined to enlarge the circle of his acquaintance, he [the letter-writer] fhould be glad to be admitted into the number of his friends, and to ' receive a vifit from him.'--This perfon was Mr. Dodington, afterwards lord Melcombe, the value and honour of whose patronage, to fpeak the truth, may in fome degree be estimated by his diary lately published, but better by the account which I mean here to give of his favourites and dependents, with fome of whom I was perfonally acquainted. How Johnson received this invitation I know not: as it was conveyed in very handsome expreffions, it required fome apology for declining it, and I cannot but think he framed one.

One of the earliest of lord Melcombe's clients was Dr. Edward Young, the author of the Satires, of the Night-thoughts, and of the Revenge, a tragedy; aman who, by a strange fatality, could never attain to any of those distinctions in his profeflion, which are generally understood to be the rewards of learning and piety, and must be supposed to have failed by the ardour with which he folicited, and the fervile adulation which he practised to come at them, of which latter difpofition

he

he has given fuch inftances in the dedications of his fatires to the feveral perfons of high rank, to whom they are addreffed, as alfo, in the exordium to each of the Night-thoughts at their firft coming abroad, for in the later edition they are omitted, as are a difgrace to manhood, and must have put the vainest of his patrons to the blush.

Mr. James Ralph was another of his dependents, of whom, as a pretender to genius, much may be learned from the Dunciad. He was the tool of that party, of which his lordfhip laboured in vain to become the leader; and, to ferve its purposes, by inflaming the minds of the people, wrote a weekly paper called the Remembrancer*. For this and other good deeds of the like kind, he is, in the diary above-mentioned, held forth as an exemplar to all writers of his profeffion, and dignified with the character of an honeft man.

Another of thefe men of genius, who enjoyed the favour of Mr. Dodington, was Mr. Paul Whitehead, whofe love for his country, and knowledge of its interefts, became first known by a fatire of his writing entitled, The State Dunces,' which, as he was a patriot, and, as all patriots pretend to be, a firm friend to what they call the conftitution, bears this candid

motto:

Whoever is defirous of being acquainted with the intrigues of contending factions, and the methods of exciting popular difcontent, may receive ample information from the perufal of lord Melcombe's Diary, and will there find, that to effect this purpose, and furnish the unthinking multitude with topics for clamour, the publication of a political news-paper was by him and his party thought expedient. I have been credibly informed, that dean Swift would frequently boaft, that with liberty allowed him for the free exercise of his pen on the measures of government, he was able to write down any miniftry whatever.

I from

I from my foul fincerely hate

Both kings and minifters of state.'

He alfo wrote Manners,' a fatire; a libel of a more general tendency, as including in it many invectives against fome of the nobility, and moft eminent of the dignified clergy.

Of this man, who many years was my neighbour in the country, I know much to blame and fomewhat to commend: he may be fuppofed, in his younger days, to have imbibed that malevolence against the Hanover fucceffion, which was the fentiment of many at the beginning of this century, and by an easy transition, to which the perufal of fuch papers as the Craftfinan, Common-fenfe, and other publications of the time, and, most of all, the converfation of fuch perfons as he chofe for his affociates, might probably lead him, to have engendered in his mind a hatred of all whofe offices in the ftate had made the fupport of government their duty, and a refolution to acquiefce in that fallacious difcrimination of two claffes of men, the one whereof was in, and the other out of power, into the court and country parties.

It is not much to the credit of the latter of thefe two, that fome of the writers on the fide of it were fuch avowed enemies to religion, as might beget, in thofe acquainted with their characters, a fufpicion that, as in the language of politics, there is an alliance between church and ftate, a fimilar relation fubfifts between infidelity and patriotifin, proofs whereof have not been wanting in thefe our late times; for it is evident, that as the injunctions to obedience imply religion, the want thereof, quoad the perfon who is to pay it, vacates the obligation, and leaves him at liberty to form an alliance with the other fide.

Y 6

And