LETTERS OF DR. JOHNSON [The following letters have been brought to my notice since the publication of my Letters of Samuel Johnson. Most of them, I believe, are now printed for the first time.] DEAR SIR, TO [SAMUEL RICHARDSON']. [1753,] I have been waiting on you every day and have not done it. I hear you take subscriptions for your two subsequent volumes. 1 From the original in the possession of Messrs. J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London. That this letter was written to Richardson, and in the latter half of 1753, I infer from the following considerations: In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1753, p. 543, in the list of books published in November is 'The History of Sir Charles Grandison, 4 vols. in 8vo, boards, 175.; 12mo, 10s. 6d?' Vol. v. 8vo and vols. v. and vi. 12mo are in the list for December, p. 593. Vol. vi. 8vo and vol. vii. 12mo are in the list for March, 1754, p. 144. The two editions were brought out simultaneously. In my copy of the octavo edition 'second edition' is added to the title-page of vol. vi; in the copy in the British Museum it appears also in vol. i. The book seems to have been published earlier than November. Mrs. Carter wrote on Sept. 21:-' Mr. Richardson has been so good as to send me four volumes of his most charming work.' Carter and Talbot Letters, ii. 141. It is not improbable, however, that he sent her a copy before publication. The two subsequent volumes' mentioned by Johnson were, no doubt, the concluding volumes of Sir Charles Grandison. His next letter shows, however, that it was the edition in seven volumes which he had received. The last three volumes of the edition in 12mo contain the same matter as the last two volumes of the edition in 8vo. Lord Corke, who 'left his name,' is mentioned in the next letter as having seen Johnson or communiIcated with him. I beg to put my name amongst your other friends. If you favour me with a few receipts, I will push them. My Lord Corke did me the honour to leave his name. I went to Mr. Andrew Millar' to enquire where he resides, but could not learn. I am impatient to know. Thursday night. I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM: JOHNSON. Endorsed from Sam: Johnson. SIR, TO [SAMUEL RICHARDSON 2]. I am desired by Miss Williams who has waited several times upon you without finding you at home, and has been hindered by an ilness of some weeks from repeating her visits, to return you her humble thanks for your present. She is likewise desirous to lay before you the inclosed plan which she has meditated a long time, and thinks herself able to execute by the help of an Amanuensis, having long since collected a great number of volumes on these subjects, which indeed she appears to me to understand better than any person that I have ever known. She will however want a few of the late books. She begs that if you think her dictionary likely to shift for itself in this age of dictionaries you will be pleased to encourage her by taking some share of the copy, and using your interest with others to take the rest, or put her in any way of making the undertaking profitable to her. I am extremely obliged by the seventh volume. You have a trick of laying yourself open to objections, in the first part of your work, and crushing them in subsequent parts. A great deal that I had to say before I read the conversation in the latter part, is now taken from me. I wish however that Sir Charles had not compromised in matters of religion3. I Millar had published Lord Corke's Remarks on the Life of Swift. From the original in the possession of Messrs. J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London. It was lately sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. for £6 10s. 3 Richardson in 'a concluding note by the editor' (ed. 1754, vi. 300) I must I must beg leave to introduce to your acquaintance Mr. Adams under whom I had the honour to perform exercises at Oxford', and who has lately recommended himself to the best part of Mankind by his confutation of Hume on Miracles?. My Lord Corke is desirous to see Mr. Falkner's letter to me. I wish you would find it him, as by my desire, and when it is returned, take care to keep it for my justification, for I would not have shewn it, but at his own instigation 3. - says:-' Many there are who look upon his offered compromise with the Porretta family, in allowing the Daughters of the proposed marriage to be brought up by the mother, reserving to himself the Education of the Sons only, as a blot in the character.' To lessen criticism Richardson supplies 'an unlucky omission' in one of the letters. Sir Charles Grandison, vi. 410. Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoirs of Richardson (Clarissa, vol. i. Preface, p. 41), says: "The author valued himself upon his management of this nice negotiation; and, in a letter to one of his French translators, dexterously brings it forward as a proof of his candour and liberality towards the Catholic religion.' I This is no contradiction of the statement that Adams was only Johnson's 'nominal tutor.' Life, i. 79. The 'exercises' were often performed in the hall, no doubt before the Master and Fellows. Ib. i. 60. 3 Ireland was first brought under the Copyright Act by the 41 Geo. III, c. 107. Letters of Hume to Strahan, p. 176. Gibbon suffered from 'the pirates of Dublin.' Misc. Works, i. 223. Boswell's Life of Johnson was reprinted in Dublin in 1792 in 3 vols. 8vo. George Faulkner, the famous Dublin bookseller, was by agreement with Richardson to print and publish Sir Charles Grandison before it was published in London. Only a few sheets had been sent over, when Richardson found out that some booksellers in Dublin had bribed his servants to steal and send them copies of almost the whole work. Faulkner at once shared in the plunder. He also wrote letters to several persons of character in London, endeavouring to justify himself, without having that strict regard to veracity in them which becomes a man of business.' Richardson mentions his letter to Johnson as 'this strange, this inconsistent, this misrepresenting Letter of yours to Mr. .. Sir Charles Grandison, vi. pp. 412-433; Gentleman's Magazine, 1753, p. 465. Lord Corke was the fifth Earl, often mentioned in Boswell as Lord Orrery. For George Faulkner, see Life, v. 44; Letters, i. 13. See post, p. 442. I cannot |