216
DWIGHT MACDONALD
portage or anything else the publishers thought might go. Dr.
Johnson was one of them in his impoverished youth, and his
letter to Lord Chesterfield (who had neglected Johnson while
the dictionary was being compiled and who now tried to wangle
a dedication) was the consummate expression of the change.
Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited
in
your
outward rooms or was repulsed from your door; during which time
I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is
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 favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for
I never had a patron before ...
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
ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have
been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early had been kind.
But it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy 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 unwilling that the
public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Prov–
idence has enabled me to do for myself ... For I have long been
wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself
with such exultation, my lord-
Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
SAM. JOHNSON
This Declaration of Independence, written eleven years before
our own, made a similar point: Sam. Johnson found the noble
lord as superfluous to his existence as the American colonists did
His Britannic Majesty.
It must be .added that, however defective as a patron, Lord
Chesterfield reacted in the grand manner. Far from crushing
him, the muted thunders of Johnson's letter seem to have de–
lighted him as a connoisseur. When the bookseller Dodsley called
