104 Extracts from
��hedge ; and little of the dust that had once settled on his outer garments was ever known to have been disturbed by the brush x . (Page 327.)
The proposal for the Dictionary, and other of his writings, had exhibited Johnson to view in the character of a poet and a philologist: to his moral qualities, and his concern for the interests of religion and virtue, the world were for some time strangers ; but no sooner were these manifested by the publica tion of the Rambler and the Adventurer, than he was looked up to as a master of human life, a practical Christian and a divine ; his acquaintance was sought by persons of the first eminence in literature ; and his house, in respect of the . con versations there, became an academy 2 . One person, in par ticular, who seems, for a great part of his life, to have affected the character of a patron of learned and ingenious men, in a letter which I have seen, made him a tender of his friendship in terms to this effect : ' That having perused many of his writings, and thence conceived a high opinion of his learning, his genius, and moral qualities, if Mr. Johnson was inclined to enlarge the circle of his acquaintance, he [the letter-writer] should be glad to be admitted into the number of his friends, and to receive a visit from him.' This person was Mr. Doding- ton, afterwards lord Melcombe, the value and honour of whose patronage, to speak the truth, may in some degree be estimated by his diary lately published 3 . How Johnson received this
1 Charlotte Burney, writing in 1 777 ' men of letters have here [in London] or 1778, says : ' Dr. Johnson was no place of rendezvous ; and are, immensely smart, for him for he indeed, sunk and forgotten in the had not only a very decent tidy suit general torrent of the world.' Bur- of cloathes on, but his hands, face, ton's Hume, ii. 385. For Johnson's and linen were clean, and he treated * levee ' see ante, i. 414 ; Life, ii. 118. us with his worsted wig, which Mr. 3 Horace Walpole wrote on June 3, Thrale made him a present of, be- 1784 (Letter s,v\\\. 479) : 'A nephew cause it scarce ever gets out of curl, of Lord Melcombe's heir has pub- 'and he generally diverts himself with lished that Lord's Diary. Though laying [sic] down just after he has drawn by his own hand, and certainly got a fresh wig on.' Early Diary of meant to flatter himself, it is a truer F. Burney, ii. 287. portrait than any of his hirelings
2 Hume, in 1767, complained that would have given. Never was such
invitation
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