202] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it in 

 useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of 

 publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encourage- 

 ment, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, 

 for I never had a patron before. 



" The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and 

 found him a native of the rocks. 



" Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a 

 man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the 

 ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have 

 been pleased to take of iny labours, had it been early, had been 

 kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot en- 

 joy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, 

 and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to 

 confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be 

 willing that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, 

 which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. 



" Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligations 

 to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I 

 shall conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have long been 

 wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself 

 with so much exultation. 



MY LORD, 

 " Your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, 



" SAMUEL JOHNSON." 



This spirited and contemptuous rejection of the untimely aid of 

 Lord Chesterfield, was probably very mortifying to the vanity of a 

 nobleman who was ambitious to be looked up to as the Mecaenas 

 of the age ; but Johnson having thrown down the gauntlet, ex- 

 pressed his opinion of his Lordship with his strong sarcastic hu- 

 mour. " This man," said he, " I thought had been a Lord among 

 wits, but I find he is only a wit among Lords." When Lord 

 Chesterfield's celebrated Letters to his natural son were published, 

 Johnson censured them for the laxity of principle with which they 

 are imbued. " They teach," said he, ** the morals of a whore, and 

 the manners of a dancing-master ;" and it is remarkable that later 

 writers on morality, particularly Cowper, have condemned that 

 work in still severer terms. 



Mr. Cave died in 1754, and Johnson recorded the merit of his 

 old friend in a very elegant biographical sketch of him, which was 

 published in the Gentleman's Magazine. From that time Johnson 



