manners, quickened by a vigorous and warm imagination, had happily delineated, though unknown to himself, the members of the Bowling-green Club.
Mr. Murphy likewise used to tell before Dr. Johnson, of the first time they met, and the occasion of their meeting, which he related thus: That being in those days engaged in a periodical paper, he found himself at a friend's house out of town; and not being disposed to lose pleasure for the sake of business, wished rather to content his bookseller by sending some unstudied essay to London by the servant, than deny himself the company of his acquaintance, and drive away to his chambers for the purpose of writing something more correct. He therefore took up a French Journal Literaire that lay about the room, and translating something he liked from it, sent it away without further examination. Time however discovered that he had translated from the French a Rambler of Johnson's, which had been but a month before taken from the English[1]; and thinking it right to make him his personal excuses, he went next day, and found our friend all covered with soot like a chimney-sweeper, in a little room, with an intolerable heat and strange smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in the Alchymist, making æther[2]. 'Come, come (says Dr. Johnson),
- ↑ Life, i. 356. It was in the Gray's Inn Journal for June 15, 1754, that the Rambler, No. 190, appeared in its retranslation. Johnson's opening paragraph is as follows: – 'Among the emirs and visiers, the sons of valour and of wisdom, that stand at the corners of the Indian throne, to assist the counsels or conduct the wars of the posterity of Timur, the first place was long held by Morad the son of Hanuth.' This is given by Murphy: – 'Among the Visiers and Ministers who figured round the Indian throne, and supported by their Prudence and Valour the Lustre and Dignity of the illustrious Race of Timur, Morad, the son of Hanuth, held the most conspicuous rank.'
- ↑ It was not aether but elixir that was made. 'Lungs was a term of art for the under-operators in chemistry, whose business principally was to take care of the fire. So Cowley, in his sketch of a philosophic college, in the number of its members reckons two lungs or chemical servants; and afterwards, assigning their salaries, "To each of the lungs twelve pounds."' Note on The Alchemist, Ben Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, iii. 31. 'As to alchymy Johnson was not a positive unbeliever.' Life, ii. 376. 'Philosophy, with the aid of experience, has at length banished the
