' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488,
and iii. 10.
[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an
aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his
writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities
and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the
winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more
easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained;
and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the
_Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke
of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413.
Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon,
'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on
the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been
'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88),
shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving
each L1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each,
L500 a year.
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