tions, which he called indignation, and others jealousy; but wrote upon the play and the dedication such criticism as malignant impatience could pour out in haste.’ Settle’s play, when it was published, was embellished with ‘sculptures.’ ‘These ornaments,’ says Johnson, ‘seem to have given poor Dryden great disturbance.’
‘Poor Lyttelton’ is a longer story. The words gave deep offence to Lyttelton’s admirers, especially in blue-stocking circles. Mr. William Weller Pepys, writing to Mrs. Montagu, laments that ‘our dear and respectable friend should be handed down to succeeding generations under the appellation of poor Lyttelton.’ ‘Mrs. Vesey sounded the trumpet,’ says Horace Walpole, and ‘at a blue-stocking meeting held by Lady Lucan, Mrs. Montagu and Dr. Johnson kept at different ends of the chamber, and set up altar against altar there.’ The passage in the Life of Lyttelton which caused these broils describes the reception of the Dialogues of the Dead. ‘When they were first published,’ Johnson wrote, ‘they were kindly commended by the Critical Reviewers, and poor Lyttelton with humble gratitude returned, in a note which I have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.’ We have not read the note, so we cannot judge. Boswell dares to dispute Johnson’s opinion on this point of conduct. An upright man, he says, who has been arraigned on a false charge, may, when he is acquitted, make a bow to the jury.
I quote these two expressions of contempt, because they indicate in brief Johnson’s code for an author. The approbation of the public is important; and a man should not affect to despise it. But it ranks with money and other external goods; he must not abase himself to gain
