was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to
suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed
his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My
daughter-in-law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with sincere
benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having
gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and
took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place, where,
if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a diversity of
good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the heart. . . .

'May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or some other place nearer
to, Sir, your most affectionate humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'


The accession of George the Third to the throne of these kingdoms,
opened a new and brighter prospect to men of literary merit, who had
been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign. His
present Majesty's education in this country, as well as his taste and
beneficence, prompted him to be the patron of science and the arts;
and early this year Johnson, having been represented to him as a very
learned and good man, without any certain provision, his Majesty was
pleased to grant him a pension of three hundred pounds a year. The Earl
of Bute, who was then Prime Minister, had the honour to announce this
instance of his Sovereign's bounty, concerning which, many and various
stories, all equally erroneous, have been propagated: maliciously
representing it as a political bribe to Johnson, to desert his avowed
principles, and become the tool of a government which he held to be
founded in usurpation. I have taken care to have it in my power to