James's Square, both too poor to pay for a
night's lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and determined to
stand by their country; so shabby in dress at another time, that when he
dined at Cave's, his bookseller, when there was prosperous company, he
could not make his appearance at table, but had his dinner handed to him
behind a screen.
Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased in mind as
well as in body, he had been resolutely self-dependent, and proudly
self-respectful; he had fulfilled his college vow, he had "fought his way
by his literature and his wit." His Rambler and Idler had made him the
great moralist of the age, and his Dictionary and History of the English
Language, that stupendous monument of individual labor, had excited the
admiration of the learned world. He was now at the head of intellectual
society; and had become as distinguished by his conversational as his
literary powers. He had become as much an autocrat in his sphere as his
fellow-wayfarer and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage, and had
been humorously dubbed by Smollett, "The Great Cham of Literature."
Such was Dr. Johnson, when on the 31st of May, 1761, he was to make his
appearance as a guest at a literary supper given by Goldsmith, to a
numerous party at his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169