abuse he was ever armed, by a reflection, that I have heard him utter: Alas! reputation would be of ' little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it ;'-and he defied all attacks on his writings, by an answer of Dr. Bentley to one who threatened to write him down,- that no author ' was ever written down but by himself.'

His steady perfeverance in this refolution afforded him great fatisfaction whenever he reflected on it it; and he would often felicitate himself, that, throughout his life, he had had firmness enough to treat with contempt the calumny and abuse as well of open as concealed enemies, and the malevolence of those anonymous fcriblers, whofe trade is flander, and wages infamy.

Had Pope pursued the fame conduct, and forborne his revenge on Theobald, Cibber, and others who had provoked him, he had enjoyed his muse and that philofophical tranquility which he did but affect, and lived and died with dignity. The younger Richardfon once told me, that, upon the publication of Cibber's fecond letter, he came to his father's houfe in Lincoln's-inn fields, and, upon entering the room where he was painting, with a countenance that spoke the anguifh of his foul, exclaimed,

So, I find another letter is come out :' but, continued he, such things are fport to me:' in which affertion we may suppose him to be as fincere as that poet of whom a story goes, that, talking with a friend, of the critics, he said, he had a way of dealing with them ; for, whenever they condemned his verfes, he laughed at it. Do you so?' fays his friend, then, let me tell

you,

you, you live the merrieft life of any man in Eng• land.'

That Bentley's obfervation is founded in truth and a knowledge of mankind, is proved by the rank which Sir Richard Blackmore now holds among the English poets. At the time when he lived, the wits were in confederacy against him; and fo many are the lampoons, epigrams, and other fatirical compofitions extant, tending to blast his reputation as a poet*, that the reader of them would incline to think, that in all his works there is fcarce a good line or fentiment, All this, as Johnson relates, Blackmore forefaw, and, with a dignity of mind that merits praise, despised: the confequence is, that his poem, intitled Creation,' is not written down, but yet lives in the ef teem of every judicious reader, and in that most elegant encomium, which Mr. Addison has bestowed on it in the Spectator; and Dennis, one, of the feverest of critics, has given it greater praise than he ever vouchfafed to any modern compofition, faying, that it is ‘a philosophical poem, which has equalled that of Lu<cretius in the beauty of its verfification, and infinitely furpaffed it in the folidity and ftrength of its reafoning.'

To be infenfible of, and undisturbed by, the envy and malice of others, is one of the strongest proofs of a great mind, and, as it is the most justifiable, fo is it the fevereft revenge we can take; for what fight can be more ridiculous, than that of a crea

See the works of Mr. Thomas Brown, in 4 vols. 12mo. and Pope and Swift's mifcellany.

+ No. 339.

ture

tufe venting its rage on a fubject a fubject that cannot feel? To live in the dread of flander, and to regulate our conduct by the opinions, the whifpers, the furmifes, or threats of either foolish or wicked men, is the worst of all flavery: of him who cannot defy every attempt of this kind to disturb his peace, but must be whining and complaining of that enmity which, perhaps, does him honour, and fcribbling to refute those calumnies which no one will believe, it may be faid, as we fay of a man labouring under a mortal disease: He is no man for this world.' If he chooses a contrary courfe to that above-recommended, he does the work of those that hate him, and will be fure to feel the pangs of refentment, and forego the enjoyment of a tranquil mind, and a confcience void of offence, fo feelingly described in this fentence of lord Bacon: Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in Charity, reft in Providence, and turn upon the poles of Truth.'

If Johnson could ever be faid to be idle, now was the time. He had, for nine years, been employed in his great work, and had finished it: he had closed the Rambler; and the Adventurer was closed on him. He had it now in his choice to reaffume some one or other of those various literary projects, which he had formed in the early part of his life, and are enumerated in a foregoing page of these memoirs; but the powers of his mind, diftended by long and fevere exercise, became relaxed, and required rest to bring them to their tone, and it was fome time before he could refolve on any employment, fuited to his abilities, that carried with it any profpect of pleasure,

or

or hope of reward. This remiffion of his labour, which feemed to be no more than nature herself called for, Johnson, in those fevere audits to which it was his practice to fummon himself, would frequently condemn, ftyling it a waste of his time, and a mifapplication of the talents with which he was gratefully confcious that God had endowed him. Yet herein was he greatly mistaken; for though Milton fays of the fervants of God,

thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without reft;'

he adds, that

They also serve who only stand and wait.'

Sonnet on his blindness.

Johnson's intellectual faculties could never be unemployed: when he was not writing he was thinking, and his thoughts had ever a tendency to the good of mankind;, and that indolence, which, in his hours of contrition, he cenfured as criminal, needed little expiation.

This recefs from literary occupation continued, however, no longer than was abfolutely neceffary. It has already been fhewn, that he was not only a friend to fuch vehicles of literary intelligence as Magazines and other epitomes of large works, but that he was a frequent contributor to them. He had occafionally, for Cave's Magazine, written the lives of Father Paul Sarpi, Boerhaave, the admirals Drake and Blake, Barretier, and divers other eminent perfons; and alfo, fundry philological effays,

effays, particularly a state of the controverfy between Croufaz and Warburton respecting the 'Effay on Man,' and a vifion intitled the Apotheofis of Milton.' Cave being now dead, he ceased to furnish articles for that publication, and either voluntarily offered, or fuffered himself to be retained as a writer in others of a like kind: accordingly, in 1756, he wrote for the Univerfal Visitor, or Monthly Memorialist,' printed for Gardner*, two of three letters therein inferted, on the fubject of agriculture; and in the fame and fubfequent year, he affumed or fubmitted to the office of a reviewer, as it is called, for the publisher of a monthly collection, intitled, The Literary Magazine,' of which one Faden, a printer, was the editor. In this he wrote the addrefs to the public; alfo, reviews of the following books, viz. Soame Jenyns's free enquiry into the nature and origin of evil; Dr. Blackwell's Memoirs of the court of Auguftus; he wrote alfo therein, Obfervations on the state of affairs in 1756, and the Life of the present king of Prussia; and, Hanway's journal coming in his way, which contained in it a fevere cenfure of the practice of tea-drinking, he officially, as I may fay, and with a degree of alacrity proportioned to his avowed love of that liquor, undertook to criticise the book, and refute the arguments of the author.

To render this controverfy intelligible, it is neceffary I should state the grounds on which it proceeded.-Mr. Jonas Hanway had, in the year 1755, undertaken and

The writers in this publication were, Chriftopher Smart, Richard Rolt, Mr. Garrick, and Dr. Percy, now bishop of Dromore. Their papers are figned with the initials of their furnames; Johnson's have this mark.

performed