The Literary Journal (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1821. Excerpt: ... city, but, to his great surprise, he found this giant of literature without pen, ink, or paper. Here, he used to write his Idler, himself no bad illustration of the title of his work; for he would frequently lie in bed until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then saturate himself with tea for two or three hours, from that tea-kettle of his "which had no time to cool." "With tea he solaced the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed the morning." Hither also he used to convey those mysterious pieces of dried orange-rind, which so intensely excited the curiosity and wonder of Boswell, and the use of which remains to this day "a marvel and a secret--be it so." Here also he used to muse over his lost Tetty, and pray for her, "as far as it might be lawful for him;" and here his fits of morbid melancholy used to attack him, which rendered life wretched, and death terrible. In these chambers, Murphy communicated to him the first news of his pension, and argued with him that he did not come within his own definition of a pensioner. But the lexicographer shook his head, and made a long pause: a dinner, however, at the Mitre the next day, overcame all his scruples, and he was pensioned accordingly. The Mitre was one of Johnson's favourite resorts, and many anecdotes of his visits there have been recorded by the tenacious memory of his toad-eater Boswell. Here, also, the enraged author levelled a folio at the head of Osborne the bookseller, for giving him the lie; and here, without doubt, he has been compelled to pass many a day impransus. There is another person, whose shade I sometimes fancy I see flitting through the cloisters and along Pump-court to his ancient residence--poor, innocent, vain, clever Goldy Goldsmith, when he first came to reside in the Temple, took chambers on the library ...