登陆注册
5406800000323

第323章 SAMUEL JOHNSON(12)

As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its peculiar temptations.The literary character, assuredly, has always had its share of faults, vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility.To these faults were now superadded the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress.All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author.The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks.If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused.After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas.He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane.A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars.Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others.Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste; they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort.These men were irreclaimable.They looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of civilised communities.They were as untameable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass.They could no more be broken in to the offices of social man than the unicorn could be trained to serve and abide by the crib.It was well if they did not, like beasts of a still fiercer race, tear the hands which ministered to their necessities.To assist them was impossible;and the most benevolent of mankind at length became weary of giving relief which was dissipated with the wildest profusion as soon as it had been received.If a sum was bestowed on the wretched adventurer, such as, properly husbanded, might have supplied him for six months, it was instantly spent in strange freaks of sensuality, and, before forty-eight hours had elapsed, the poet was again pestering all his acquaintance for twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a subterraneous cookshop.If his friends gave him an asylum in their houses, those houses were forthwith turned into bagnios and taverns.All order was destroyed; all business was suspended.The most good-natured host began to repent of his eagerness to serve a man of genius in distress when he heard his guest roaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the morning.

A few eminent writers were more fortunate.Pope had been raised above poverty by the active patronage which, in his youth, both the great political parties had extended to his Homer.Young had received the only pension ever bestowed, to the best of our recollection, by Sir Robert Walpole, as the reward of mere literary merit.One or two of the many poets who attached themselves to the Opposition, Thomson in particular and Mallet, obtained, after much severe suffering, the means of subsistence from their political friends.Richardson, like a man of sense, kept his shop; and his shop kept him, which his novels, admirable as they are, would scarcely have done, But nothing could be more deplorable than the state even of the ablest men, who at that time depended for subsistence on their writings.Johnson, Collins, Fielding, and Thomson, were certainly four of the most distinguished persons that England produced during the eighteenth century.It is well known that they were all four arrested for debt.Into calamities and difficulties such as these Johnson plunged in his twenty-eighth year.From that time, till he was three or four and fifty, we have little information respecting him; little, we mean, compared with the full and accurate information which we possess respecting his proceedings and habits towards the close of his life.He emerged at length from cock-lofts and sixpenny ordinaries into the society of the polished and the opulent.His fame was established.A pension sufficient for his wants had been conferred on him: and he came forth to astonish a generation with which he had almost as little in common as with Frenchmen or Spaniards.

In his early years he had occasionally seen the great; but he had seen them as a beggar.He now came among them as a companion.The demand for amusement and instruction had, during the course of twenty years, been gradually increasing.The price of literary labour had risen; and those rising men of letters with whom Johnson was henceforth to associate, were for the most part persons widely different from those who had walked about with him all night in the streets for want of a lodging.Burke, Robertson, the Wartons, Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir William Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill, were the most distinguished writers of what may be called the second generation of the Johnsonian age.Of these men Churchill was the only one in whom we can trace the stronger lineaments of that character which, when Johnson first came up to London, was common among authors.Of the rest, scarcely any had felt the pressure of severe poverty.Almost all had been early admitted into the most respectable society on an equal footing.They were men of quite a different species from the dependants of Curll and Osborne.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 金缘未了

    金缘未了

    自盘古开天的那天起,人类就有了生生不息的情爱,感人至深的仁爱。这里要讲述的就是一个有关爱的故事。故事发生在非常遥远的年代。红玲做了一件傻事,简直是天大的傻事!当她明白过来时,太阳已经落下。西方的天空里拥卷着大片大片玫瑰色的云霞。在落日最后的血红中,红玲坐在大路边放声悲号。路上的行人围拢过来,里三层外三层,好奇地问这问那。
  • 请别放手我的爱

    请别放手我的爱

    胡惜蝶高中毕业以后没有继续上学,选择了出去打工,却在异地意外的遇见了那个让她刻骨铭心的人,只是知道他的身份后,她却退怯了……
  • 片警高如意的窝囊事

    片警高如意的窝囊事

    这是一座建于唐代永徽年间的拱形古桥,在十二月的夕阳里,如同一张刚从底片中浑然生成,披彩而出的图画,给人一种亦真亦幻,渐深渐厚的感觉。此时,桥上站着两个人,一个是周小红的妻子,一个是小周亚。见周小红上了桥,娘俩高兴地迎上去。周亚高高举起毛巾为爸爸擦着汗,周妻则把一个炉子和一个大号钢精锅子放在人力货车上,然后将一个电动喇叭挂在周小红的脖子上,接着一家三口,说说笑笑地向桥的另一头走去。
  • 不想和你说再见

    不想和你说再见

    他是话不投机扭头就走的冰山傲娇男,他是与她父仇不共戴天的前任。他与她打了离婚证,他捉她的奸上了头条。她是刻薄讨要赡养费的前妻,她是刷爆他的卡、私藏小鲜肉的“女神经”;她被他被欺瞒,他被她陷害。纯粹恨一个人毫无意义,与其恨,不如让他厌恶的人不得安宁。爱却亦然。治愈系言情天后无处可逃感人力作——就算余生依旧相爱相杀,我却不想和你说再见!全世界都知道他二人的关系分崩离析,大闹到媒体上是诸多丑事。他对她的人生可以只手遮天,却遮不住媒体舆论的大肆渲染。她哪里知道,连她的任意妄为也都是他计划里的一部分……他从来都是这么不动声色地算计她的余生,她却要他余生慢慢来偿还……
  • 世家

    世家

    颂银是佟佳氏正根正枝,佟家统管内务府八十五年,有几代君王,就有几任内大总管。佟佳氏子孙不兴旺,到了银子这辈四个闺女。老大殁了,银子行二,大总管的职务就落在了她肩上。行走紫禁城,银子游刃有余。能干的姑娘讨人喜欢,年纪大了没着落,不要紧的。上头发话了,王公贵族,随意挑选。内务府女总管x白璧儒雅侍卫,没有浓墨重彩,只有淡淡的温情。这世上什么最难得?是真心。能有一个为她赴汤蹈火的人,此生无憾。
  • 中学生珍藏一生的美文

    中学生珍藏一生的美文

    《品悟成长心灵书系》之《中学生珍藏一生的美文(第1季珍藏版)》,书中包括了:《笨小孩的成长》、《精彩极了和糟糕透了》、《少年哀歌》、《我为什么而活着》、《真实的高贵》、《假如给我三天光明》、《我要笑遍世界》、《人人想当别人》、《机会在敲门》、《哨子》、《爱怕什么》、《不死鸟》、《读书示小妹生日书》、《对陌生人的责任》、《回家》等作品。
  • 明伦汇编家范典姊妹部

    明伦汇编家范典姊妹部

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • THE POISON BELT

    THE POISON BELT

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 妖孽倾城:邪妃媚术

    妖孽倾城:邪妃媚术

    说她拐到帝国最温柔的王爷?“什时候的事?我本人怎么不知道!”说她拐到帝国最火爆的王爷!“滚开!竟敢八卦到我头上!”说她拐到像帝国皇上这种A++的极品……她可以对天大喊三声冤枉吗?“冤……”枉还没出口,她傻眼了。“耶?怀孕了!”作者悄悄问了一句:“孩子他爹是谁啊?”啊?是谁啊……不好!准妈妈翻白眼了。哎呀,准妈妈晕过去了。快!快找大夫!这下,他,他,他,到底那个才是宝宝他爹呢?
  • 拽少爷恋上冷千金

    拽少爷恋上冷千金

    儿时的伤害致使她们想复仇,让那些伤害她们的人得到应有的惩罚,付出应有的代价。可往往在复仇路途中总会有出其不意的事情发生,他们相遇相识相爱,可却成为了复仇路途中最大的困难,她们能成功吗?他们会像童话故事中白马王子和灰姑娘幸福的生活下去吗?