Johnson
observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set
of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The
fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written
too much." The _Lives_ were soon published in a separate edition; when,
for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred
guineas.' Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ viii. 416. See _ante_, iii. 111. In Mr.
Morrison's _Collection of Autographs_ &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's
receipt for 100_l_., from the proprietors of _The Lives of the Poets_
for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783.
'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great
impudence to put _Johnson's Poets_ on the back of books which Johnson
neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the
Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."'
The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and
Yalden. _Ante_, under Dec. 29, 1778.
[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his
_History_:--'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy,
has been sent to the press.
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