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p. 11.

out to him a mountain, which I observed resembled a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy, by showing me, that it was indeed pointed at the top, but that one side of it was larger than the other. And the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree, that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress. When I found that he saw the romantick beauties of Ilam, in Derbyshire, much better than I did, I told him that he resembled an able performer upon a bad instrument. How false and contemptible then are all the remarks which have been made to the prejudice either of his candour or of his philosophy, founded upon a supposition that he was almost blind. It has been said that he contracted this grievous malady from his nurse. [His own ac- Account count was, that Dr. Swinfen1 told him, that the scrofulous sores which afflicted him proceeded from the bad humours of his nurse, whose son had the same distemper, and was likewise short-sighted, but both in a less degree (than he). His mother thought his diseases derived from her family. She visited him every day, and used to go different ways, that her assiduity might not expose her to ridicule, and often left her fan or glove behind, that she might have a pretence for coming back unexpected, but she never discovered any token of neglect. In ten weeks he was taken home a poor diseased infant, almost blind. Dr. Swinfen used to say, that he never knew any child reared with so much difficulty.] His mother,-yielding to the superstitious notion which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the virtue of the regal touch; a notion which

[Samuel Swinfen, who took a degree of doctor of medicine from Pembroke College in 1712.—HALL.]

[His mother and Dr. Swinfen were both perhaps wrong in their conjecture as to the origin of the disease; he more probably inherited it from his father, with the morbid melancholy which is so commonly an attendant on scrofulous habits.-ED.]

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Account our kings encouraged, and to which a man of such P. 16. inquiry and such judgment as Carte could give credit-carried him to London [in Lent, 1712], where he was actually touched by queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Lichfield. Johnson used to talk of this very frankly; and Mrs. Piozzi has preserved his very picturesque description of the scene, as it remained upon his fancy. Being asked if he could remember queen Piozzi, Anne,-" He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood." This touch, however, was without any effect. I ventured to say to him, in allusion to the political principles in which he was educated, and of which he ever retained some odour, that "his mother had not carried him far enough; she should have taken him to ROME1."

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p. 16.

[The following is his own recollection of this jourAccount ney."I was taken to London to be touched for the evil by queen Anne. I always retained some memory of this journey, though I was then but thirty months old. I remember a boy crying at the palace when I went to be touched. My mother was at Nicholson's, the famous bookseller in Little Britain. I remembered a little dark room behind the kitchen, where the jack-weight fell through a hole in the floor, into which I once slipped my leg.

66

Being asked, 'on which side of the shop was the counter?' I answered, on the left from the entrance,' many years after, and spoke, not by guess but by memory. We went in the stage-coach, and returned in the waggon, as my mother said, because my cough was violent. The hope of saving a few shillings was no slight motive; for she, not having

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been accustomed to money, was afraid of such ex- Account penses as now seem very small. She sewed two guineas p. 16. in her petticoat, lest she should be robbed.

"We were troublesome to the passengers; but to suffer such inconveniences in the stage-coach was common in these days, to persons in much higher rank. She bought me a small silver cup and spoon, marked SAM. J., lest if they had been marked S. J., (Sarah being her name), they should, upon her death, have been taken from me. She bought me a speckled linen frock, which I knew afterwards by the name of my London frock. The cup was one of the last pieces of plate which dear1 Tetty sold in our distress. I have now the spoon. She bought at the same time two tea-spoons, and till my manhood she had no more."]

He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield. He told me she could read the black letter, and asked him to borrow for her, from his father, a bible in that character. When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave of him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present of gingerbread, and said he was the best scholar she ever had. He delighted in mentioning this early compliment; adding, with a smile, that "this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive." His next instructor in English was a master, whom when he spoke of him to me, he familiarly called Tom Brown, who, said he, published

2

66

ED.]

[His wife, whom he called by this familiar contraction of Elizabeth When Dr. Johnson, at an advanced age, recorded all these minute circumstances, he contemplated, we are told, writing the history of his own life, and probably intended to develope, from his own infant recollections, the growth and powers of the faculty of memory, which he possessed in so remarkable a degree. From the little details of his domestic history he perhaps meant also to trace the progressive change in the habits of the middle classes of society. But whatever may have been his motive, the Editor could not properly omit what Johnson thought worth preserving-ED.]

VOL. I.

C

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a spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE; but, I fear, no copy of it can now be had."

can make the same In the spring of 1719,

He began to learn Latin with Mr. Hawkins, usher or under-master of Lichfield school, “a man (said he) very skilful in his little way." With him he conAccount tinued two years, and [perhaps, four months. “The p. 25,26. time," he added, " till I had computed it, appeared much longer by the multitude of incidents and of novelties which it supplied, than many important thoughts which it produced. Perhaps it is not possible that any other period impression on the memory." his class was removed to the upper school, and put under Holdbrook, a peevish and ill-tempered man. They were removed sooner than had been the custom, for the head-master, intent on his boarders, generally left the town-boys too long in the lower school; the earlier removal of Johnson's class was caused by a reproof of the town-clerk; and Hawkins complained that he had lost half his profit. At this removal Johnson says that he cried, but the rest were indifferent. He] then rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter', the head-master, who, according to his account, "was very severe, and wrong-headedly severe. He used (said he) to beat us unmercifully; and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence; for he would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as for neglecting to know it. He would ask a boy a question, and if he did not answer it, he would beat

1["Mr. Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the sportsman; he was a very severe disciplinarian and a great setter of game. Happy was the boy who could inform his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain pledge of his pardon."-Davies' Life of Garrick, vol. i. p. 3. He was a prebendary in the Cathedral of Lichfield, and grandfather to Miss Seward. One of this lady's complaints against Johnson was, that he, in all his works, never expressed any gratitude to his preceptor. It does not appear that he owed him much; for besides the severity of his discipline, it seems that he was inattentive to that class of boys to which Johnson belonged, and it also appears, that he refused to readmit him after one of the vacations, on some pretence now forgotten.-ED.]

him, without considering whether he had an opportunity of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he would call up a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not expect to be asked. Now, sir, if a boy could answer every question, there would be no need of a master to teach him."

It is, however, but justice to the memory of Mr. Hunter to mention, that though he might err in being too severe, the school of Lichfield was very respectable in his time. The late Dr. Taylor, Prebendary of Westminster, who was educated under him, told me that "he was an excellent master, and that his ushers were most of them men of eminence; that Holdbrook, one of the most ingenious men, best scholars, and best preachers of his age, was usher during the greatest part of the time that Johnson was at school. Then came Hague, of whom as much might be said, with the addition that he was an elegant poet. Hague was succeeded by Green, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, whose character in the learned world is well known. In the same form with Johnson was Congreve, who afterwards became chaplain to Archbishop Boulter, and by that connexion obtained good preferment in Ireland. He was a younger son of the ancient family of Congreve, in Staffordshire, of which the poet was a branch. His brother sold the estate. There was also Lowe, afterwards Canon of Windsor.

Indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time: he said, "My master whipt me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing." He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say,