American notions into the vain expectation of rocking a man in the cradle of a child z . Johnson recounted the number of his opponents with indifference. He wrote for that government which had been generous to him. He was too proud to call upon Lord Bute, or leave his name at his house 2 , though he was told it would be agreeable to his Lordship, for he said he had performed the greater difficulty, for he had taken the pension.
The last popular work, to him an easy and a pleasing one, was the writing the lives of our poets, now reprinted in four octavo volumes. He finished this business so much to the satisfaction of the booksellers that they presented him a gratuity of one hundred pounds, having paid him three hundred pounds as his price 3 . The Knaptons made Tindal a large present on the success of his translation of Rapin's history 4 . But an unwritten space must be found for what Johnson did respecting Shakspeare. For the writer and reader observe a disorder of time in this page. He took so many years to publish his edition, that his subscribers grew displeased and clamorous for their books 5 , which he might have prevented. For he was able to do a great deal in a little time. Though for collation he was not fit. He could not pore long on a text 6 . It was Columbus at the oar. It was on most
1 ' We may as well think of rock- guineas by this work in the course of ing a grown man in the cradle of an 25 years.' 2b. in. in, n. I. infant.' Burke's Works, ed. 1808, 4 ' I am credibly informed that the iii. 189. Knaptons will get 8 or ; 10,000 by
2 He called on him to thank him that History.' Gentleman' s Magazine^ for the pension. Life, i. 374. See 1734, p. 490. They had a share also Hawkins, p. 394, and ante, i. 418. in Johnson's Dictionary. Life, i. 183.
3 He received 200 guineas by s Ib. 1.319; ante, i. 422. agreement, 100 guineas as a present, 6 * The collator's province is safe and ^100 for revising a new edition. and easy. ... I collated such copies Life, iii. in; iv. 35, n. 3; Letters, as I could procure, but have not ii. 275. The booksellers' generosity found the collectors of these rarities was not great, for Johnson in his very communicative. By examining work had gone far beyond their ex- the old copies I soon found that the pectations and his own intention later publishers, with all their boasts (Life, iv. 35, n. i), while the sum of diligence, suffered many passages which he had asked for was absurdly to stand unauthorised, and contented small. He might, says Malone, have themselves with Rowe's regulation
had 1,500 guineas. The booksellers, of the text These corruptions I
he adds, ' have probably got 5,000 have often silently rectified. . . . Con- literary
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