What was honourable pride in Johnson was, indeed, simple arrogance in Savage.  He asked favours, his biographer says, without submission, and resented refusal as an insult.  He had too much pride to acknowledge, not not too much to receive, obligations; enough to quarrel with his charitable benefactors, but not enough to make him rise to independence of their charity.  His pension would have sufficed to keep him, only that as soon as he received it he retired from the sight of all his acquaintance, and came back before long as penniless as before.  This conduct, observes his biographer, was “very particular.”  It was hardly so singular as objectionable; and we are not surprised to be told that he was rather a “friend of goodness” than himself a good man.  In short, we may say of him as Beauclerk said of a friend of Boswell’s that, if he had excellent principles, he did not wear them out in practice.

There is something quaint about this picture of a thorough-paced scamp, admiringly painted by a virtuous man; forced, in spite of himself, to make it a likeness, and striving in vain to make it attractive.  But it is also pathetic when we remember that Johnson shared some part at least of his hero’s miseries.  “On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of The Wanderer, the man of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and curious observations; the man whose remarks on life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senators, and whose delicacy might have polished courts.”  Very shocking, no doubt, and yet hardly surprising under the circumstances!  To us it is more interesting to remember that the author of the Rambler was not only a sympathizer, but a fellow-sufferer with the author of the Wanderer, and shared the queer “lodgings” of his friend, as Floyd shared the lodgings of Derrick.  Johnson happily came unscathed through the ordeal which was too much for poor Savage, and could boast with perfect truth in later life that “no man, who ever lived by literature, had lived more independently than I have done.”  It was in so strange a school, and under such questionable teaching that Johnson formed his character of the world and of the conduct befitting its inmates.  One characteristic conclusion is indicated in the opening passage of the life.  It has always been observed, he says, that men eminent by nature or fortune are not generally happy:  “whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those, whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded because they were more generally observed, and have in reality been only more conspicuous than those of others, not more frequent or more severe.”