I am in no great haste for an Answer. You may look into the book at leisure, for I do not expect that you should catch [at] it with the eagerness with which the world catches at yours x .
I am, Sir,
Your most humble servant,
SAM: JOHNSON.
Feb. 3, 1755.
Pray favour me with an account of the translations of Clarissa which you have, I have a desire to borrow some of them 2 .
��To [? GEORGE HAY S , ESQ., D.C.L.]. SIR,
I should not have easily prevailed upon myself to trouble a Person in your high station with a request, had I not observed that Men have commonly benevolence in proportion to their capacities, and that the most extensive minds are most open to solicitation.
I had a Negro Boy named Francis Barber, given me by a Friend 4 whom I much respect, and treated by me for some
1 Johnson, writing to Richardson On his second flight Johnson sought about Clarissa, said : ' Though the Smollett's aid in procuring his dis- story is long every letter is short.' charge from the navy which he had Letters ; i. 21. entered. Smollett applied to Wilkes.
2 'Johnson, when he carried Mr. 'Mr. Wilkes (writes Boswell), who Langton to see Richardson, professed upon all occasions has acted, as a that he could bring him out into private gentleman, with most polite conversation, and used this allusive liberality, applied to his friend Sir expression, " Sir, I can make him George Hay, then one of the Lords rear." But he failed ; for in that in- Commissioners of the Admiralty; and terview Richardson said little else Francis Barber was discharged, as than that there lay in the room a he has told me, without any wish of translation of his Clarissa into Ger- his own.' Life, i. 348.
man.' Life, iv. 28. It is most likely that it was to Sir
3 From the original in the posses- George Hay, at that time Dr. Hay, sion of Mr. R. B. Adam of Buffalo. that this letter was written.
Francis Barber had run away from 4 Dr. Bathurst. ' Barber was born Johnson's service three years earlier in Jamaica, and was brought to than the date of this letter, but had re- England in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, turned. Life, i. 239, n. ; Letters, i. 66. father of Johnson's very intimate
years
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