Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high compliment of
addressing to his Lordship the Plan of his Dictionary, had behaved to
him in such a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The
world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and
as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden
disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day
kept long in waiting in his Lordship's antechamber, for which the reason
assigned was, that he had company with him; and that at last, when the
door opened, out walked Colley Cibber; and that Johnson was so violently
provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that
he went away in a passion, and never would return. I remember having
mentioned this story to George Lord Lyttelton, who told me, he was very
intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and holding it as a well-known truth,
defended Lord Chesterfield, by saying, that 'Cibber, who had been
introduced familiarly by the back-stairs, had probably not been there
above ten minutes.' It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt
concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly
adopted, if not sanctioned, by the authority which I have mentioned; but
Johnson himself assured me, that there was not the least foundation
for it. He told me, that there never was any particular incident which
produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and him; but that his
Lordship's continued neglect was the reason why he resolved to have
no connection with him. When the Dictionary was upon the eve of
publication, Lord Chesterfield, who, it is said, had flattered
himself with expectations that Johnson would dedicate the work to him,
attempted, in a courtly manner, to sooth, and insinuate himself with the
Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which
he had treated its learned authour; and further attempted to conciliate
him, by writing two papers in The World, in recommendation of the work;