death and to discharge some small debts he wrote ‘Rasselas’ in the evenings of one week (Boswell, i. 341, 512–16). He received 100l. for the copyright, and had a present of 25l. more on a second edition. This powerful though ponderous work was apparently the most popular of his writings. It reached a fifth edition in 1775, and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Bengalee, Hungarian, Polish, modern Greek, and Spanish (J. Macaulay, Bibliography of Rasselas). Johnson himself remarked the curious coincidence with Voltaire's ‘Candide.’ On 20 Jan. Johnson promised to deliver ‘Rasselas’ to the printers on Monday (the 25th), and it appeared about the end of March (Boswell, i. 516, vi. xxviii). ‘Candide’ is mentioned by Grimm on 1 April as having just appeared. Each is a powerful assault upon the fashionable optimism of the day, though Voltaire's wit has saved ‘Candide’ from the partial oblivion which has overtaken ‘Rasselas.’ About this time Johnson ‘found it necessary to retrench his expenses.’ He gave up his house in Gough Square; Miss Williams went into lodgings in Bolt Court, Fleet Street; and he took chambers at No. 1 Inner Temple Lane, where he lived in indolent poverty (Murphy, p. 90). Though most of Johnson's literary services to friends were gratuitous, he occasionally received money for such work. Thomas Hervey [q. v.] gave him 50l. for a pamphlet (never published) written in his defence (Boswell, ii. 33), and he received 10l. 10s. from Dr. Madden for correcting his ‘Boulter's Monument.’ Occasional windfalls of this kind must have been of some importance to his finances. Johnson took tea with Miss Williams every night (as Boswell mentions in 1763) before going home, however late he might be. Beyond helping his friends with a few dedications and articles and writing an introduction to the proceedings of a committee for clothing French prisoners (1760), he did little unless he worked at his Shakespeare. On 1 Feb. 1762 he took part in examining into the ridiculous Cock Lane ghost story, and published an account of the detection of the cheat in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (xxxii. 81).
After the accession of George III a few pensions were given to literary persons, chiefly, it seems, to hangers-on of the Bute ministry. Thomas Sheridan and Murphy, who were common friends of Johnson and Wedderburne (afterwards Lord Loughborough), suggested to Wedderburne to apply to Bute on behalf of Johnson. Other friends appear to have concurred in the application, and a pension of 300l. a year was granted in July 1762. Johnson, who had said in his dictionary that a pension in England was ‘generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country,’ hesitated as to the propriety of accepting the offer. Reynolds, whom he consulted, told him, of course, that the definition would not apply to him; and the scruple was probably of the slightest. Bute assured Johnson emphatically that the grant was solely for what he had done, not for anything that he was to do. There is no reason for doubting either Bute's sincerity or Johnson's. The opposition writers naturally made a little fun out of the pension. Johnson laughed at the noise, and wished that his pension were twice as large and the noise twice as great (Boswell, i. 429). Johnson was requested to write pamphlets by ministers, and received materials from the ministry for writing upon the Falkland Islands. It is probable that he felt some obligations as a pensioner, in spite of the assurances given him at the time; but the pamphlets clearly expressed his settled convictions. The first was not written for seven years after this time, and he received nothing for them except from the booksellers (ib. ii. 147). No imputation can be made upon his independence, though the impulse to write would hardly have come to him had it not been for his connection with the government.
The pamphlets thus written were ‘The False Alarm’ (1770), upon the expulsion of Wilkes and the seating of his opponent Luttrell; ‘Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands’ (1771), in answer to the Junius letter of 30 Jan. 1771 (Junius took no notice of the attack); ‘The Patriot’ (1774), written on behalf of Thrale, then candidate for Southwark at the general election (ib. ii. 286); and ‘Taxation no Tyranny’ (1775), in answer to the address of the American congress. The first edition of the Falkland Islands pamphlet was stopped by Lord North, after some copies had been sold, in order to suppress a sneer at George Grenville (‘if he could have got the money’ [the Manilla ransom] ‘he could have counted it’) (see Boswell, ii. 136; and Junius' Letters, 1812, ii. 199). The ministry cut out at least one insulting passage from the American pamphlet (Boswell, ii. 313). The pamphlets are written forcibly and with less than the usual mannerism; but they have in general the natural defect of amateur political writing. They are interesting as expressions of Johnson's sturdy toryism, his conviction of the necessity of subordination and of the frivolity of popular commonplaces about liberty. He hated whigs, not so much because they had dif-
