anything, however slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to express, with any degree of point, should perish. For this almost superstitious reverence I have found very old and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate Secker, in whose tenth sermon there is the following passage :

'Rabbi David Kimchi,1 a noted Jewish commentator, who lived about five hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, "His leaf also shall not wither," from rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That "even the idle talk," so he expresses it, "of a good man ought to be regarded;" the most superfluous things he saith are always of some value. And other ancient authors have the same phrase, nearly in the same sense."

Of one thing I am certain, that, considering how highly the small portion which we have of the table-talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated writers is valued, and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not more, I am justified in preserving rather too many of Johnson's sayings than too few; especially as, from the diversity of dispositions, it cannot be known with certainty beforehand whether what may seem trifling to some, and perhaps to the collector himself, may not be most agreeable to many; and the greater number that an author can please in any degree, the more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind.

To those who are weak enough to think this is a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CÆSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that

' In his book of Apophthegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle.' [Advancement of Learning, Book 1.]

Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the public.

CHAPTER II. 1709-1716.

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September N.S. 1709; and his initiation into the Christian church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth. His father is there styled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the

This rabbi, a Spaniard, died in 1240.

truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they married, and never had more than two children, both sons; Samuel, their first-born, who lived to be the illustrious character whose various excel-. lence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael, who died in his twenty-fifth year.1

Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body, and of a strong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute inquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness. From him, then, his son inherited, with some other qualities, 'a vile melancholy,' which, in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life, at least not sober.'" Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his shop, but by occasionally resorting to several towns in the neighbourhood, some of which were at a considerable distance from Lichfield. At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of England were very rare: so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield; and being a man of good sense, and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of which, however, he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment. He was a zealous high-churchman and royalist, and retained his attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by casuistical arguments of expediency and necessity, to take the oaths imposed by the prevailing power.

There is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantic, but so well authenticated that I shall not omit it. A young woman of Leek, in Staf

Nathanael was born in 1712, and died in 1737. Their father, Michael Johnson, was born at Cubley, in Derbyshire, in 1656, and died at Lichfield in 1731, at the age of seventy-six. Sarah Ford, his wife, was born at King's-Norton, in the county of Warwick, in 1669, and died at Lichfield in January 1759, in her ninetieth ycar.-MALONE,

2 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 213. -BOSWELI...

fordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a violent passion for him; and though it met with no favourable return, followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he was informed that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger, he, with a generous humanity, went to her and offered to marry her; but it was then too late: her vital power was exhausted; and she actually exhibited one of the very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in the Cathedral of Lichfield; and he, with a tender regard, placed a stone over her grave with this inscription :

Here lies the body of

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a Stranger.

She departed this life 20th of September 1694.

Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished understanding.1 I asked his old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, surgeon, of Birmingham, if she was not vain of her son. He said, 'She had too much good sense to be vain, but she knew her son's value.' Her piety was not inferior to her understanding; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world afterwards derived so much benefit. He told me, that he remembered distinctly having had the first notice of Heaven, 'a place to which good people went,' and Hell, 'a place to which bad people went,' communicated to him by her, when a little child in bed with her; and that it might be the better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson, their manservant. He not being in the way, this was not

1 It was not, however, much cultivated, as we may collect from Dr. Johnson's own account of his early years, published by R. Phillips, Svo, 1805, a work undoubtedly authentic, and which, though short, is curious, and well worthy of perusal. 'My father and mother,' says Johnson, 'had not much happiness from each other. They seldom conversed for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs; and my mother, being unacquainted with books, cared not to talk of anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better companions. She might have sometimes introduced her unwelcome topic with more success, if she could have diversified her conversa

tion. Of business she had no distinct conception; and therefore her discourse was composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. Neither of them ever tried to calculate the profits of trade, or the expenses of living. My mother concluded that we were poor, because we lost by some of our trades; but the truth was, that my father, having in the early part of his life contracted debts, never had trade sufficient to enable him to pay them and to maintain his family: he got something, but not enough. It was not till about 1768 that I thought to calculate the returns of my father's trade, and by that estimate his probable pro. fits. This, I believe, my parents never did.'-MALONE.

done; but there was no occasion for any artificial aid for its preservation.

In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his grave, every minute particular, which can throw light on the progress of his mind, is interesting. That he was remarkable, even in his earliest years, may easily be supposed; for, to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham, 'That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and the ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt; for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour.'

In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much attention to incidents which the credulous relate with eager satisfaction, and the more scrupulous or witty inquirer considers only as topics of ridicule: yet there is a traditional story of the infant Hercules of Toryism, so curiously characteristic, that I shall not withhold it. It was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye, of Lichfield :

'When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, John. son was not quite three years old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much-celebrated preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to church, and in the midst of so great a crowd. He answered, Because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young as he was, he believed he had caught the public spirit and zeal for Sacheverel, and would have stayed for ever in the church, satisfied with beholding him.'

Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit, and impetuosity of temper, which never forsook him. The fact was acknowledged to me by himself, upon the authority of his mother. One day, when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home, had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so near-sighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel, before he ventured to step over it. His schoolmistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, and beat her as well as his strength would permit.

Of the power of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible, the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his stepdaughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her by his mother. When he was a child in petticoats, and had learned to read, Mrs. Johnson one morning put the Common Prayer Book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up-stairs, leaving him to study it; but by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?" said she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and he repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice.

But there has been another story of his infant precocity generally circulated, and generally believed, the truth of which I am to refute upon his own authority. It is told that, when a child of three years old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the following epitaph :

Here lies good master duck,

Whom Samuel Johnson trod on;
If it had lived, it had been good luck,
For then we'd had an odd one.'

There is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines in it what no child of three years old could produce, without an extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration; yet Mrs. Lucy Porter, Dr. Johnson's stepdaughter, positively maintained to me, in his presence, that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote, for she had heard it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain an authentic relation of facts, and such authority may there be for error; for he assured me that his father made the verses, and wished to pass them for his child's. He added, 'My father was a foolish old man; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children.'1

Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the scrofula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much,

1 This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with which she has been pleased to favour

me:

These infant numbers contain the seeds of those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his character; of that poetic talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful fruits: for, excepting his orthographic works, everything which Dr. Johnson wrote was poetry, whose essence consists, not in numbers or in jingle, but in the strength and glow of a fancy to which all the stores of nature and art stand in prompt administration; and in an eloquence which conveys their blended illustrations in a language "more tuneable than needs or rhyme or verse to add more harmony."

The above little verses also show that superstitious bias which "grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength," and of late years particularly injured his happiness, by presenting to him the gloomy

that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. There is amongst his prayers one inscribed, 'When my EYE was restored to its use,

which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it." I supposed him to be only nearsighted: and, indeed, I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him sce and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed 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 romantic beauties of

Islam, 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 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 our king encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte could give credit, carried him to London, 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

side of religion, rather than that bright and cheering one which gilds the period of closing life with the light of pious hope.'

This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But, like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is indeed a fiction. -BOSWELL.

1 Johnson's Prayers and Meditations, p. 27.-Bos

WELL.

2 Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said, 'The dog was never good for much.'

BURNEY.

3 Edward the Confessor is said to be the first king who touched in order to heal.

He was only thirty months old when he was taken to London to be touched for the evil. During this visit, he tells us, his mother purchased for him a smalı silver cup and spoon. The cup,' he affectingly adds, 'was one of the last pieces of plate which dear Tetty sold in her distress. I have now the spoon. She bought at the same time two teaspoons, and till my manhood she had no more. ' - MALONE.

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 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 Rome.'

CHAPTER III. 1716-1731.

JOHNSON was first taught to read English by Dame Chiver, 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 a spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE; but I fear no copy of it can now be

had.'

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 continued two years, and then rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter, the head-master, who, according to his account, 'was very severe, and wrongheadedly 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 him, without considering whether he had an opportunity of knowing how to answer it. 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.'

For

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 Holbrook, 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 connection 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. Lang. ton that, while Hunter was flogging his boys un. mercifully, he used to say, 'And this I do to save you from the gallows.' Johnson upon all occasions expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod. 'I would rather,' said he, 'have the rod to be the general terror to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, If you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped and gets his task, and there's an end on 't: whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.'

When Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who were remarkably well behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correction, he exclaimed, in one of Shakspeare's lines, a little varied,1

Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty.'

That superiority over his fellows which he maintained with so much dignity in his march through life, was not assumed from vanity and ostentation, but was the natural and constant effect of those extraordinary powers of mind, of which he could not but be conscious by comparison; the intellectual difference, which in other cases of comparison of characters is often a matter of undecided contest, being as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tiptoe; he only did not stoop. From