40 JOHNSON. 



teemed, indeed treated with unusual observance. He 

 ascribed his neglect by the great to a wrong cause ; 

 " Lords and ladies don't like," he said, " to have their 

 mouths stopt." The truth is, that in those days no one was, 

 generally speaking, admitted into patrician society merely 

 for the intrinsic merits of his writings or his talk, without 

 having some access to it through his rank, or his political 

 or professional eminence. Nay, even the greatest dis- 

 tinction in some professions could not open those doors 

 on their massive hinges. The first physicians and the 

 first merchants and bankers were not seen at the tables of 

 many persons in the " west end of the town." It is 

 equally erroneous to suppose that Johnson's rough exte- 

 rior, or his uncouth and even unpleasant habits, could 

 have prevented his fame and his conversation from being 

 sought after to adorn aristocratic parties in later times. 

 All these petty obstacles would have been easily got over 

 by the vanity of having such a person to shew, and indeed 

 by the real interest which the display of his colloquial 

 powers would have possessed among a more refined and 

 better educated generation. The only marvel is, that in 

 an age which valued extrinsic qualities so exclusively, or 

 at least regarded sterling merit as nothing without them, 

 the extraordinary deference for rank and for high sta- 

 tion, which Johnson on all occasions shewed, and the 

 respect for it which he was well known really to feel, 

 should have had so little effect in recommending him to 

 those who regarded nothing else. 



It should seem that public bodies partook in no small 

 measure of the same indifferent feelings towards literary 

 eminence, and regarded rather the rank, or at least the 

 academical station, than the intrinsic merits of those upon 



