and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her con versation agreeable, and even desirable. To relieve and appease melancholy reflections, Johnson took her home to his house in Gough-square x . In 1755, Garrick gave her a benefit-play, which produced two hundred pounds 2 . In 1766, she published, by subscription, a quarto volume of Miscellanies, and increased her little stock to three hundred pounds 3 . That fund, with Johnson's protection, supported her through the remainder of her life 4 .
During the two years in which the Rambler was carried on, the Dictionary proceeded by slow degrees. In May 1752, having composed a prayer preparatory to his return from tears and sorrow to the duties of life 5 , he resumed his grand design, and went on with vigour, giving, however, occasional assistance to his friend Dr. Hawkesworth in the Adventurer, which began soon after the Rambler was laid aside. Some of the most valuable essays in that collection were from the pen of Johnson 6 . The Dictionary was completed towards the end of 17545 anc ^ Cave being then no more 7 , it was a mortification to the author
��great and goodly hospital is become and follies of men.' Warton's Pope's
a den of thieves ! the master a tyran- Works, ix. 345.
nical oppressor; the servants fraud- According to Percy, ' Hawkesworth
ulent managers, and the poor gentle- usually sent Johnson each paper to
men-pensioners great sufferers from prefix a motto before it was printed.'
their first entrance even to their Anderson's fohnson, ed. 1815, p. 190.
graves.' Gent. Mag., 1787, p. 1 158. Chalmers (British Essayists, vol. xix.
1 Murphy misrepresents the mo- Preface, p. 38) states that ' Johnson live of Johnson's kindness. Life, i. revised his Adventurers for the 232. second edition with the same at-
2 Life, i. 393, . I ; Letters, i. 53-6. tention he bestowed on the Rambler?
3 Life, ii. 26 ; Letters, ii. 334, This is untrue ; scarcely a change n. 3. can be found.
4 For many years she had a small 7 Cave died on January 10, 1754. pension from Mrs. Montagu. Letters, Letters, i. 56, n. 2. According to ii. 336. the Life of Johnson, published by
5 Ante, p. 12. Kearsley in 1785, p. 47, Cave was
6 Life, i. 252. Dr. Warton says the husband of the woman ' who that 'the title The Adventurer, it fraudulently made a purse for her- seems, alluded to its being a kind of self ' (Life, iv. 319). The money she Knight Errantry to attack the vices had laid out in India bonds.
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