Samuel Johnson - The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08

This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.

Not long after.

Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.

This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 780. R.

Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenæ Cantab, in Mus. Brit.

William.

An allusion of approbation is made to the above in Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 58. Ed.

The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

“MR. URBAN

“As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory, as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and, therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea, in Wales.

“From that period to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters and those of his friends; some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin.

“It may be reasonably, imagined that others may have the same design, but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected that they will supply from invention the want of intelligence, and that under the title of the Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may, therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them, in your magazine, that my account will be published, in octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.”

This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon’s Review.

The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords:

Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.

See Mr. Boswell’s doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. Ed.

On this circumstance, Boswell founds one of his strongest arguments against Savage’s being the son of lady Macclesfield. “If there was such a legacy left,” says Boswell, “his not being able to obtain payment of it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person. The just inference should be, that, by the death of lady Macclesfield’s child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed; and, therefore, that Johnson’s Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.” With respect for the legal memory of Boswell, we would venture to urge, that the forma pauperis is not the most available mode of addressing an English court; and, therefore, Johnson is not clearly proved wrong by the above argument brought against him. Ed.

He died August 18th, 1712 R.

Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.

Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.

See the Plain Dealer.

The title of this poem was the Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, 1717. J. B.

Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets. Dr. J.

This play was printed first in 8vo.; and afterwards in 12mo. the fifth edition. Dr. J.

Plain Dealer, Dr. J.

As it is a loss to mankind when any good action is forgotten, I shall insert another instance of Mr. Wilks’s generosity, very little known. Mr. Smith, a gentleman educated at Dublin, being hindered by an impediment in his pronunciation from engaging in orders, for which his friends designed him, left his own country, and came to London in quest of employment, but found his solicitations fruitless, and his necessities every day more pressing. In this distress he wrote a tragedy, and offered it to the players, by whom it was rejected. Thus were his last hopes defeated, and he had no other prospect than of the most deplorable poverty. But Mr. Wilks thought his performance, though not perfect, at least worthy of some reward, and, therefore, offered him a benefit. This favour he improved with so much diligence, that the house afforded him a considerable sum, with which he went to Leyden, applied himself to the study of physick, and prosecuted his design with so much diligence and success, that, when Dr. Boerhaave was desired by the czarina to recommend proper persons to introduce into Russia the practice and study of physick, Dr. Smith was one of those whom he selected. He had a considerable pension settled on him at his arrival, and was one of the chief physicians at the Russian court. Dr. J.

A letter from Dr. Smith, in Russia, to Mr. Wilks, is printed in Chetwood’s History of the Stage. R.

“This,” says Dr. Johnson, “I write upon the credit of the author of his life, which was published in 1727;” and was a small pamphlet, intended to plead his cause with the publick while under sentence of death “for the murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson’s coffee-house, at Charing-cross, price 6d. Roberts.” Savage sent a copy of it to Mrs. Carter, with some corrections and remarks. See his letter to that lady in Mrs. Carter’s life by Mr. Pennington, vol. i. p. 58.

Chetwood, however, has printed a poem on her death, which he ascribes to Mr. Savage. See History of the Stage, p. 206

In 1724.

Printed in the late collection of his poems.

It was acted only three nights, the first on June 12,1723. When the house opened for the winter season it was once more performed for the author’s benefit, Oct. 2. R.

To Herbert Tryst, esq. of Herefoulshire. Dr. J.

The Plain Dealer was a periodical paper, written by Mr. Hill and Mr. Bond, whom Savage called the two contending powers of light and darkness. They wrote, by turns, each six essays; and the character of the work was observed regularly to rise in Mr. Hill’s weeks, and fall in Mr. Bond’s. Dr. J.