him in his literary, endeavour to exhibit him in his religious, moral, and economical character, adverting first to fuch particulars' refpecting the course of life he had chofen, and the evils to which it exposed him, as feem properly to belong to the first member of the above divifion.

As the narrowness of his father's circumstances had fhut him out of those profeffions for which an univerfity education is a neceffary qualification, and his project of an academy had failed, he had, as to his course of life, no choice but idleness or the exercise of his talents in a way that might afford him fubfiftence, and provide for the day that was paffing over him, so that the profeffion of an author was the only one in his power to adopt. That it was far from an eligible one, he had in fome degree experienced, and his averfion to labour magnified the evils of it, by bringing to his recollection the examples of Amhurft, of Savage, of Boyfe, and many others,

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The lives of thefe three perfons as they exhibit an example of the diftreffes to which idleness and the want of moral principles may expofe men of parts, may be an useful caveat to young men of the rifing generation, and prove a more powerful persuasive to industry, economy, and the right ufe of great talents, than the moft laboured argument. That of Savage prefents itself to view in the works of Johnson: those of the other two are elsewhere to be found, and an abridgement of each of them is inferted, for the fame reason that beacons are erected to point out rocks and fhoals to ignorant or benighted perfons.

Nicholas Amhurft was born at Marden in Kent; but in what year is uncertain: he received his education in Merchant-Taylors' fchool in London, and was thence removed to St. John's college, Oxford; but expelled for the libertinifm of his principles and the irregularity of his conduct. After this expulfion, for which very different causes were affigned by him and those who enforced

from which he inferred, that flavery and indigence were its infeparable concomitants, and reflecting on the

it, he fatirized the learning and difcipline of the university, and expofed the characters of its moft refpectable members, in a poem called Oculus Britanniæ,' and in his Terræ Filius,' a work compounded of wit and fcurrility. He, foon after, quitted Oxford, came to London, and published a volume of mifcellanies: he wrote many fatirical and malignant poems, and tranflated fome of Mr. Addifon's Latin pieces; but his chief fame arofe from his conducting the Craftsman,' in which he was made the tool of oppo fition. For fome extraordinarily indifcreet ufe of his libelling powers, the printers of this paper were seized, and Mr. Amhurst, with a view of being confidered as the victim of his party, and more than indemnified for all he fhould fuffer, surrendered himself; but the profecution dropped, and he was disappointed. Upon the famous compromife of 1742, no terms were stipulated by his friends for him who had been the inftrument of their fuccefs; the reflection whereon is thought to have precipitated his end; for he died in a few months after, as is faid, of a broken heart, and was indebted to the bounty of Franklin the printer for a grave.

Samuel Boyfe, the fon of an English diffenting minister, was born in 1708, and educated at a private school in Dublin. At eighteen. he was fent to Glasgow, and before he had completed his nineteenth year, married the daughter of a tradefman there. His father, for a confiderable time, fupported his natural extravagance, which his wife, who was diffolute and vicious, rendered fill more burthenfome. This refource failing, he went to Edinburgh, where his poetical abilites procured him many friends, particularly the countess of Eglinton and lord Stormont, who affifted him in his exigencies, and were disposed to continue their bounty; but Boyfe's character and deportment repelled kindnefs. His talents were great: he had a genius for poetry, for painting, and mufic; yet it was fo obfcured by a mean and fordid temper, that many knew him intimately without difcovering his abilities: his chofen acquaintances were fuch as could not ferve him: he was intoxicated whenever he had the means to avoid ftarving, and was voluptuous, luxurious, and boundlessly expenfive, without the leaft tafte for what is elegant. The contempt he drew on himself at Edinburgh made him

refolve

the lives and conduct of thefe men, might fear that it had a neceffary tendency to corrupt the mind, and

render

refolve on quitting it for London, whither thofe who had been his patrons gave him very valuable recommendatory letters; but he flighted them, and preferred fubfifting by precarious donations. In the year 1740 he was reduced to the want of neceffary apparel, and having pawned whatever he could exift without, was confined by his indigence to a bed which had no fheets: here, to procure food, he wrote; his posture fitting up in bed, his only covering a blanket, in which a hole was made to admit of the employment of his arm.

In 1742, while in a fpunging-houfe, he was driven to folicit Cave for fome temporary relief, and to procure it, wrote the following horrible description of the fituation into which his neglect of œconomy and his want of common prudence had plunged him.

• I wrote you yesterday an account of my unhappy cafe. I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, because I have not money to pay for my bed two nights paft, which is ufually paid beforehand; and I am loth to go into the counter, till I

• fee

render the followers of it, with refpect to religion, tô politics, and even to morality, altogether indifferent. Nor could he be ignorant of that mortifying dependence which the profeffion itself expofes men to, a profeffion that leads to no preferment, and for its

fee if my affair can poffibly be made up. I hope, therefore, you will have the humanity to fend me half a guinea for support, till I can finish your papers in my hands. The ode on the British • nation I hope to have done to day, and want a proof copy of that ⚫ part of Stowe you defign for the prefent magazine, that it may be • improved as far as poffible from your affiftance. Your papers are ⚫ but ill transcribed. I agree with you as to St. Augustine's cave.

I humbly intreat your answer, having not tasted any thing fince • Tuesday evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my ⚫ back for the charge of the bed, so that I must go into prison naked, ⚫ which is too fhocking for me to think of.

• Received from Mr. Cave the fum of half a guinea by me, confinement, S. Boyfe.'

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The miseries of his confinement did not teach him difcretion: he was released, but his wants were little abated, and he made use of the most difgraceful arts to excite charity: he fometimes raised subscriptions for non-existent poems, and fometimes employed his wife to give out that he was dying. He was afterwards engaged, at a very low rate, in the compilation of an historical view of the tranfactions of Europe, by Mr. Henry of Reading; at which place his wife died. To fignify his forrow for her death, he tied a black ribbon round the neck of a lap-dog, which, to acquire the character of a man of taste, he used to carry in his arms. After he left Reading, he grew more decent in his dress and behaviour; but his health was then declining, and in May 1749 he died in an obfcure lodging near Shoe-lane, and was buried at the charge of the parish.

most

most laborious exertions confers no greater a reward than a fupply of natural wants.

Ralph, a writer of this class, and who had formed fome fuch connections as would have flattered the hopes of any man, was the tool of that party of which the late lord Melcombe laboured to be the head. To ferve the interests of it, he wrote a periodical paper, and a voluminous hiftory of England, fraught with such principles as he was required to diffeminate. This man, in a pamphlet intitled 'The case of authors by profeffion,' has enumerated all the evils that attend it, and fhewn it to be the laft that a liberal mind would choose.

All this Johnfon knew and had duly weighed: the leffer evils of an author's profeffion, fuch as a dependence on bookfellers, and a precarious income, he was able to endure, and the greater, that is to fay, the prostitution of his talents, he averted; for, whatever facrifices of their principles fuch men as Waller, Dryden, and others, have made in their writings, or to whatever lengths they may have gone in panegyrics or adulatory addreffes, his integrity was not to be warped: his religious and political opinions he retained and cherished; and in a fullen confidence in the strength of his mental powers, disdained to folicit patronage by any of the arts in common ufe with writers of almost every denomination. That this firmness was not affected, will appear by a retrofpect to the methods he took for the attainment of knowledge, and the fettling his notions as to the great duties of life.

His courfe of ftudy at the univerfity was irregular and defultory, and fcarcely determined as to its object. Mathematics

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