It does not appear that Lord Chesterfield showed t any sub stantial proofs of approbation to our Philologer, for that was the professional title he chose z . A small present he would have disdained 2 . Johnson was not of a temper to put up with the affront of disappointment. He revenged himself in a letter to his Lordship, written with great acrimony, and renouncing all acceptance of favour 3 . It was handed about, and probably will be published, for litera scripta manet. He used to say, 'he was mistaken in his choice of a patron, for he had simply been endeavouring to gild a rotten post 4 .'
Lord Chesterfield indeed commends and recommends Mr. Johnson's Dictionary in two or three numbers of the World. Not words alone pleased him. ' When I had undergone/ says the compiler, ' a long and fatiguing voyage, and was just getting into port, this Lord sent out a small cock-boat to pilot me in V The agreement for this great work was for fifteen hundred pounds. This was a large bookseller's venture at that time : and it is in many shares 6 . Robertson, Gibbon, and a few more, have raised the price of manuscript copies. In the course of fifteen years, two and twenty thousand pounds have been paid to four authors 7 .
1 'Philology and biography were 5 Life, i. 260; ante, i. 405.
his favourite pursuits.' Life, iv. 34. 6 Boswell mentions seven partners
'The faults of the book [the Die- in the Dictionary. Life, i. 183. In
tionary} resolve themselves, for the the title-page of the first edition an
most part, into one great fault. eighth, L. Hawes, is mentioned.
Johnson was a wretched etymolo- 7 In 1773 Hawkesworth was paid
gist.' Macaulay's Misc. Writings, 6,000 for Cook's Voyages. Ib. ii.
ed. 1871, p. 382. Perhaps he was 247, n. 5. In 1768 Robertson was
not worse than some of the most paid ^3,400 for the first edition of
learned of his contemporaries. Phi- his Charles V. For the second edi-
lology, as a science, did not yet tion he was to receive ^400. Letters
exist. Johnson defines it as ' criti- of Hume to Strahan, p. 15. Hume,
cism ; grammatical learning.' for the first two volumes of his His-
2 He had received ten pounds. iory of England (the Stuart period), Life, i. 261. received, it seems, .1,940. At this
3 Ib. i. 261. rate he would have received nearly
4 According to Rebecca Warner ,8,000 for the whole work. ' The (Original Letters, p. 204), Johnson copy-money given me by the book- telling Joseph Fowke about his re- sellers,' he wrote, 'much exceeded fusal to dedicate his Dictionary to anything formerly known in Eng- Chesterfield, said: 'Sir, I found I land.' Ib. pp. 15, 33. How much must have gilded a rotten post.' Gibbon was paid is not, I think,
Johnson's
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