HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [205 



speare, he was agreeably surprised with the information that his 

 Majesty had been pleased to grant him a pension of o300. a-year, 

 as a reward for his literary merit; and certainly royal munificence 

 could not have been more honourably employed. No proviso ac- 

 companied this annuity, for the independence of Johnson's mind was 

 so well known, that any intimation of his services being required 

 by the Government, would have occasioned his indignant rejection 

 of a pension offered on such terms. That he afterwards defended 

 some of the measures of Government is well known, but that was his 

 own spontaneous and voluntary act ; and it was not till 1770 that 

 his first political pamphlet, " The False Alarm," was published. 

 Soon afterwards he received a diploma from Trinity College, Dub- 

 lin, which conferred upon him the highest academical honour, that 

 of Doctor of Laws. This unsolicited mark of distinction from that 

 learned body, was very gratifying to Johnson, who was thus 

 unexpectedly raised to a degree of literary eminence and compe- 

 tence, the due reward of his successful exertion of great and useful 

 talents. He now rented a house in a court in Fleet-street, which 

 has since been called " Johnson's Court," and allotted an apart- 

 ment to Miss Williams, a blind woman, of considerable talents and 

 agreeable colloquial powers. She had been left in a state of indi- 

 gence by her father, who was a physician, and on the recommenda- 

 tion of Miss Lucy Porter, Johnson took her under his protection, 

 procured her a benefit play from Garrick,and assisted, her in publish- 

 ing a volume of poems; she thus obtained about c300. and with this 

 fund became the inmate of our author's house, where she passed 

 the remainder of her days, protected and cheered by his friendship. 

 In 1762 Doctor Johnson received another inmate under his hospi- 

 table roof, a Mr. Levett, a medical man, who acted in the capacity 

 of surgeon and apothecary to his friend till the time of his death, 

 which happened on the 17th of January 1782, nearly three years 

 before the demise of Dr. Johnson. 



Thus, in the 53d year of his age, and the zenith of his reputation, 

 Dr. Johnson had no longer occasion to " provide for the day that 

 was passing over him ;" and like all great men who, like the lion 

 described by Milton, had vigorously disencumbered themselves of 

 surrounding obstructions, he now arose to that eminence which shed 

 a lustre on the literature of his country. While in a state of com- 

 parative indigence, no patron came forward to distinguish, cherish, 

 and establish his merit ; but when fortune smiled, the ingenious, 

 the gay, and the great, thought it a privilege to associate with the 



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