'
'While this was the talk of the town, (says Dr. Adams, in a letter to
me) I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who finding that I was acquainted
with Johnson, desired me earnestly to carry his compliments to him, and
to tell him that he honoured him for his manly behaviour in rejecting
these condescensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the
treatment he had received from him, with a proper spirit. Johnson was
visibly pleased with this compliment, for he had always a high opinion
of Warburton. Indeed, the force of mind which appeared in this letter,
was congenial with that which Warburton himself amply possessed.'
There is a curious minute circumstance which struck me, in comparing
the various editions of Johnson's imitations of Juvenal. In the tenth
Satire, one of the couplets upon the vanity of wishes even for literary
distinction stood thus:
'Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail,
Pride, envy, want, the GARRET, and the jail.'
But after experiencing the uneasiness which Lord Chesterfield's
fallacious patronage made him feel, he dismissed the word garret from
the sad group, and in all the subsequent editions the line stands--
'Pride, envy, want, the PATRON, and the jail.
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