HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [213 



.10,000. about one-third of which she had laid out in building a 

 stately house, and making a handsome garden, in an elevated situ- 

 ation in Lichfield. Johnson, when here by himself, used to live at 

 her house. She reverenced him, and he had a paternal tenderness 

 for her. He expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, 

 who, he said, were " the most sober, decent, people in England, 

 the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest 

 English." 



" Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield, 

 I found, however, two strange manufactures for so inland a place, 

 sailcloth, and streamers for ships ; and I observed them making 

 some saddle-cloths and dressing sheep-skins ; but, upon the whole, 

 the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened. " Surely, 

 Sir/' said I, " your are an idle set of people/' ' Sir/ said Johnson, 

 ' we are a city of philosophers : we work with our heads, and make 

 the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands/ We went 

 and viewed the museum of Mr. R. Greene, apothecary here, who 

 told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. Johnson's." 



Dr. Johnson had now for some years relaxed in his literary la- 

 bours, probably from a consciousness that he had performed his 

 duty as a moralist and public writer ; but a circumstance occurred 

 in 1777, which again called into full exertion all his intellectual 

 powers. At a meeting of about forty of the most opulent booksel- 

 lers of London, who were proprietors of the copyrights in the works 

 of our most eminent poets, it was agreed that an elegant arid uni- 

 form edition of the whole should be printed, with a concise account 

 of the Life of each author by Dr. Johnson, and that a deputation of 

 three publishers should wait upon him with proposals. The Doctor 

 readily engaged in a task so congenial to his taste, added the 

 names of Watts, Blackmore, Pomfret, and Yalden, to the list pro- 

 posed to him, demanded two hundred guineas for his biographical 

 ketches ; and in April the new edition of the poets was sent to the 

 press. 



In May 1777, he was applied to by the friends of Dr. William 

 Dodd, a clergyman, who was convicted of forgery ; and willingly 

 contributed whatever could be suggested by humanity to prevent 

 the disgraceful public execution of a minister of the church of Eng- 

 land. Dr. Johnson wrote nine different papers on this subject, in a 

 style of pathetic, but ineffectual, eloquence ; for the delinquent 

 underwent the sentence of the law, and afforded by his fall a memo- 

 rable example of the danger of deviating from the path of rectitude. 



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