very good humour...I have had from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn: 'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.

This is what Boswell, who was a married man, calls "a manly firmness," though he admits that it was "a singular beginning.

"Sir," said Johnson to a friend years afterwards "it was a love marriage on both sides."

"In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736," says Boswell, "there is the following advertisement:

'At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON.'

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune who died early.'

Boswell (though he has a kind word of patronage for successful schoolmasters) evidently thought

that his hero's brains were too good, and his temper too bad, for the profession of teaching; moreover, David Garrick was the kind of boy who is the despair of his teacher, the delight of his schoolfellows, and the hero of school stories.

The truth about Johnson as a schoolmaster, according to Boswell, was that "he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements...as men of inferiour powers of mind...The art of communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued; and I have ever thought that those who devote themselves to this employment, and do their duty with diligence and success, are entitled to very high respect from the community, as Johnson himself often maintained. Yet I am of opinion that the greatest abilities are not only not required for this office, but render a man less fit for it. While we acknowledge the justness of Thomson's beautiful remark,

'Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

And teach the young idea how to shoot!' we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by 'a mind at ease,' a mind at once calm and clear; but that a mind gloomy and impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of time in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and errour in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential requisite in a Preceptor.... From Mr Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils.

His oddities of manner, and uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment... and, in particular, the young rogues used to... turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name ...Tetty or Tetsey...which seems to us ludicrous, when applied to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr Garrick described her to me as very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastick in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. I have seen Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimickry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter.'

The "exquisite talent of mimickry" is not popular amongst schoolmasters and the academy for young gentlemen was closed after a year and a half.

Again, what was Johnson to do? He had tried teaching and failed; he had written a little, but could not hope to get money or fame by selling translations to country booksellers; he had married a wife. The next step was the decisive one: Johnson now thought of trying his fortune

in London,"

R. B. J.

18

"I

Johnson comes to London

CAME to London" said Johnson in later years "with two-pence half-penny in my pocket."

Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, "eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?"

JOHNSON, "Why yes; when I came with twopence half-penny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in thine.

Master and pupil had travelled together; Garrick was to 'complete his education' at an academy kept by a Mr Colson, but it was well for Johnson that he "knew how he could live in the cheapest manner. His first lodgings were at the house of Mr Norris, a staymaker, in Exeter-street, adjoining Catherine-street, in the Strand. 'I dined (said he) very well for eight-pence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New-street, just by. Several of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day; but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for six-pence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing.

Johnson was, as Boswell says, "an adventurer in

literature." What kind of place was this London of 1737, this "great field of genius and exertion, where" according to Boswell "talents of every kind have the fullest scope, and the highest encouragement"?

Here are two pictures. The first is an account of an ordinary day's doings by a stranger staying in Pall Mall:

"We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven or go to tea-tables. About twelve the beau monde assembles in several coffee or chocolate houses... all so near to one another that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are carried to these places in chairs, which are here very cheap, a guinea a week, or one shilling per hour, and your chair-men serve you for porters to run on errands... If it is fine weather we take a turn in the park till two, when we go for dinner... Ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, but there are good French ones in Suffolk Street. The general way here is to make a party at the coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of some great man. After the play the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's coffee-houses near adjoining, where there is playing at picquet and the best of conversation till midnight.... Or if you like rather the company of ladies, there are assemblies at most people of quality's houses."

The second is by an Irish painter whom Johnson had met at Birmingham and who had "practised