of any obligation, though it was probably calculated that he would in case of need, be the more ready, as actually happened, to use his pen in defence of authority.  He had not compromised his independence and might fairly laugh at angry comments.  “I wish,” he said afterwards, “that my pension were twice as large, that they might make twice as much noise.”  “I cannot now curse the House of Hanover,” was his phrase on another occasion:  “but I think that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover and drinking King James’s health, all amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year.”  In truth, his Jacobitism was by this time, whatever it had once been, nothing more than a humorous crotchet, giving opportunity for the expression of Tory prejudice.

“I hope you will now purge and live cleanly like a gentleman,” was Beauclerk’s comment upon hearing of his friend’s accession of fortune, and as Johnson is now emerging from Grub Street, it is desirable to consider what manner of man was to be presented to the wider circles that were opening to receive him.

CHAPTER III

JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS.

It is not till some time after Johnson had come into the enjoyment of his pension, that we first see him through the eyes of competent observers.  The Johnson of our knowledge, the most familiar figure to all students of English literary history had already long passed the prime of life, and done the greatest part of his literary work.  His character, in the common phrase, had been “formed” years before; as, indeed, people’s characters are chiefly formed in the cradle; and, not only his character, but the habits which are learnt in the great schoolroom of the world were fixed beyond any possibility of change.  The strange eccentricities which had now become a second nature, amazed the society in which he was for over twenty years a prominent figure.  Unsympathetic observers, those especially to whom the Chesterfield type represented the ideal of humanity, were simply disgusted or repelled.  The man, they thought, might be in his place at a Grub Street pot-house; but had no business in a lady’s drawing-room.  If he had been modest and retiring, they might have put up with his defects; but Johnson was not a person whose qualities, good or bad, were of a kind to be ignored.  Naturally enough, the fashionable world cared little for the rugged old giant.  “The great,” said Johnson, “had tried him and given him up; they had seen enough of him;” and his reason was pretty much to the purpose.  “Great lords and great ladies don’t love to have their mouths stopped,” especially not, one may add, by an unwashed fist.