and might fairly laugh at angry comments. "I wish," he said afterwards,
"that my pension were twice as large, that they might make twice as much
noise." "I cannot now curse the House of Hanover," was his phrase on
another occasion: "but I think that the pleasure of cursing the House of
Hanover and drinking King James's health, all amply overbalanced by
three hundred pounds a year." In truth, his Jacobitism was by this time,
whatever it had once been, nothing more than a humorous crotchet, giving
opportunity for the expression of Tory prejudice.

"I hope you will now purge and live cleanly like a gentleman," was
Beauclerk's comment upon hearing of his friend's accession of fortune,
and as Johnson is now emerging from Grub Street, it is desirable to
consider what manner of man was to be presented to the wider circles
that were opening to receive him.



CHAPTER III


JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS.


It is not till some time after Johnson had come into the enjoyment of
his pension, that we first see him through the eyes of competent
observers. The Johnson of our knowledge, the most familiar figure to all
students of English literary history had already long passed the prime
of life, and done the greatest part of his literary work. His character,
in the common phrase, had been "formed" years before; as, indeed,
people's characters are chiefly formed in the cradle; and, not only his