Boswell finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and Savage were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the streets.... He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when Savage and he walked round St James's-square for want of a lodging, they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and 'resolved they would _stand by their country_.'" A few years later Johnson wrote a _Life_ of his friend, sitting up all night and writing forty-eight of the printed pages at a sitting. "Soon after Savage's _Life_ was published, Mr Harte dined with Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, Cave said, 'You made a man very happy t'other day.'--'How could that be?' says Harte; 'nobody was there but ourselves.' Cave answered, by reminding him that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose to appear; but on hearing the conversation, he was highly delighted with the encomiums on his book." For the copyright of the book Johnson received fifteen guineas. Such money, indeed, as Johnson earned at this time came mostly from Mr Cave. To _The Gentleman's Magazine_ he contributed poems, essays, lives of famous men, translations of foreign works and accounts of debates in Parliament, taking care, in these last, that "the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it." Few of these writings would be remembered if their author had not become famous for other reasons, and we maybe sure that Johnson was dissatisfied with this kind of work. He was an adventurer in literature and an adventurer likes to tackle a big task. Before long he found one big enough. FOOTNOTES: [2] See pages 33, 95. [3] The Spaniards had abused the right of searching merchant vessels granted to them by the treaty of Commerce. In the following year, 1739, after the affair of "Jenkins's ear," Walpole was compelled to yield to the popular demand for war. _The Great Lexicographer_ The title of this chapter sounds dull enough. A dictionary is not generally thought to be lively reading and perhaps we may feel that a man who deliberately set out to write one must have been a dry-as-dust old fellow who went out of his way to explain short and simple words by means of long and complicated phrases more difficult than the words themselves. Well, there is no doubt that Johnson did use long words. He had been brought up on classical authors and, like other writers of the period, often used words of many syllables derived from the Greek or Latin, when simpler words would have done as well.