circumstances, has made an interesting and agreeable narrative[750].

The _Dictionary_, we may believe, afforded Johnson full occupation this
year. As it approached to its conclusion, he probably worked with
redoubled vigour, as seamen increase their exertion and alacrity when
they have a near prospect of their haven.

[Page 257: Lord Chesterfield's neglect.]

[Page 258: Lord Chesterfield's flattery. A.D. 1754.]

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[751], 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 Gibber; 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 'Gibber, 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