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That the conversation of a celebrated man, if his talents have been exerted in conversation, will best display his character, is, I trust, too well established in the judgment of mankind, to be at all shaken by a sneering observation of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Mr. William Whitehead, in which there is literally no Life, but a mere dry narrative of facts. I do not think it was quite necessary to attempt a depreciation of what is universally esteemed, because it was not to be found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's pen; for, in truth, from a man so still and so tame as to be contented to pass many years as the domestic companion of a superannuated lord and lady', conversation could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimneypiece, or the fantastic figures on a gilt leather

screen.

If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers:Οὔτε ταῖς ἐπιφανεστάταις πράξεσι πάντως ἔνεστι

δήλωσις ἀρετῆς ἢ κακίας, ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα βραχὺ πολλάκις, καὶ ῥῆμα, καὶ παιδιά τις ἔμφασιν ἤθους ἐποίησεν μᾶλλον ἢ μάχαι μυριόνεκροι, παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισται, καὶ πολιορκία πόλεων : — Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles."

To this may be added the sentiments of the very man whose life I am about to exhibit:

"The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, where exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is, with great propriety, said by its author to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi,-whose candour and genius will, to the end of time, be by his writings preserved

in admiration.

There are many invisible circumstances, which, whether we read as enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science or increase our virtue, are more important than public occurrences. Thus, Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot, in his account of Catiline, to remark, that his walk was now quick, and again dow, as an indication of a mind revolving with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a striking lecture on the value of time, by informing us, that when he had made an appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the adleness of suspense; and all the plans and enter

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prises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world, than that part of his personal character, which represents him as careful of his health, and negligent of his life.

"But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account imagine themselves writing a life, when they exhibit than might be collected from public papers, but and have so little regard to the manners or behaviour a chronological series of actions or preferments; of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.

"There are, indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight, and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but which give excellence to biography are of a volatile must expect little intelligence; for the incidents and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession of copies will lose all resemblance of the original." [Rambler, No. 60.] I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness, on some occasions, of my detail of Johnson's conversation, and how happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule, by men of superficial understanding, and ludicrous fancy; but I remain firm and confident in my opinion, that minute particulars are frequently characteristic, and always amusing, when they relate to a distinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that any thing, 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 3, 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.

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Of one thing I am certain, that, considering how highly the small portion which we have of

wonders that Secker's good sense should have condescended to quote this far-fetched and futile interpretation of the simple and beautiful metaphor by which the Psalmist illustrates the prosperity of the righteous man. - CROKER.

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 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 I.]

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

SAMUEL JOHNSON' was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N.S. 1709; and his initiation into the Christian

He derived, no doubt, his christian name from his godfather, Doctor Samuel Swinfen, a gentleman of landed property in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, who happened to lodge in Michael Johnson's house at the time of the birth of the child, in whose welfare he seems ever after to have taken a lively interest. This, and some other circumstances subsequently mentioned, I have found, since my first edition, in a small volume entitled "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson," published in 1785, anonymously; but the writer seems to have received information from Dr. Swinfen's daughter, Mrs. Desmoulins, and Johnson's early friend, Mr. Elphinstone. Dr. Swinfen took a degree of Doctor of Medicine from Pembroke College, in 1712, and attained considerable eminence in his profession. CROKER.

2 The title Gentleman had still, in 1709, some degree of its original meaning, and as Mr. Johnson served the office of sheriff of Lichfield in that year, he seems to have been in some measure entitled to it. The Doctor, at his entry on the books of Pembroke college, and at his matriculation, designated himself as filius generosi. There seems, however, considerable difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory opinion as to Michael Johnson's real condition and circumstances. That in the latter years of his life he was poor, is certain; and Dr. Johnson (in the "Account of his early Life," see Appendix No. 1.) not only admits the general fact of poverty, but gives several instances of what may be called indigence: yet, on the other hand, there is evidence that for near fifty years he occupied a respectable rank amongst his fellow-citizens, and appears in the annals of Lichfield on occasions not bespeaking poverty. In 1687, a subscription for recasting the cathedral bells was set on foot, headed by the bishop, dean, &c., aided by the neighbouring gentry: Michael Johnson's name stands the twelfth in the list; and his contribution, though only 108., was not comparatively contemptible; for no one, except the bishop and dean, gave so much as 101. Baronets and knights gave a guinea or two, and the great body of the contributors gave less than Johnson. (Harwood's Lichfield, p. 69.) In 1694, we find him burying in the cathedral, and placing a marble stone over a young woman in whose fate he was interested. His house, a handsome one, and in one of the best situations in the town, was his own freehold and he appears to have added to it, for we find in the books of the corporation the following entry: "1708, July 18. Agreed, that Mr. Michael Johnson, bookseller, have a lease of his encroachment of his house in Sadler's Street, for forty years, at 2s. 6d. per an."

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 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 excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael, who died in his twenty-fifth year.

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 enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, and 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'

"3

And this lease, at the expiration of the forty years, was renewed to the Doctor as a mark of the respect of his fellowcitizens. In 1709, Michael Johnson served the office of sheriff of the county of the city of Lichfield. Nor is it any derogation from the respectability of a county-town tradesman that he should let part of his house in lodgings to the principal physician of the city. In 1718, he was elected junior bailiff; and in 1725, senior bailiff, or chief magistrate. Thus respected and apparently thriving in Lichfield, the following extract of a letter, written by the Rev. George Plaxton, chaplain to Lord Gower, will show the high estimation in which he was held in the neighbouring country: "Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716. Johnson, the Lichfield librarian, is now here; he propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth knowledge to its just height; all the clergy here are his pupils, and suck all they have from him; Allen cannot make a warrant without his precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance sine directione Michaelis." (Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1791.) But on the whole it seems probable that the growing expenses of a family, and losses in trade, had in his latter years reduced Mr. Johnson, from the state of competency which he had before enjoyed, to very narrow circumstances. — CROKER.

3 See pust, September 16. 1773.- BOSWELL. Miss Seward who latterly showed a great deal of malevolence towards Johnson, delighted to repeat a story that one of his uncles had suffered the last penalty of the law." Shortly after Mr. Porter's death, Johnson asked his mother's consent to marry the old widow. After expressing her surprise at a request so extraordinary —No, Sam, my willing consent you will never have to so preposterous an union. You are not twenty-five, and she is turned fifty. If she had any prudence, this request had never been made to me. Where are your means of subsistence? Porter has died poor, in consequence of his wife's expensive habits. You have great talents, but as yet have turned them into no profitable channel." . Mother, I have not deceived Mrs. Porter; I have told her the worst of me; that I am of mean extraction; that I have no money; and that I have had an uncle hanged.' She replied, that she valued no one more or less for his descent that she had no more money than myself; and that, thoug? she had not had a relation hanged, she had fifty who deserves hanging.'" (Seward's Letters, vol. i. p. 45.) This accoun was given to Mr. Boswell, who, as Miss Seward could no

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

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 un-school-fellow, Mr. Hector, a surgeon, of Birsuccessfully 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.

2

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 Staffordshire, 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

have known it of her own knowledge, asked the lady for her authority. Miss Seward, in reply, quoted Mrs. Cobb, an old friend of Johnson's, who resided at Lichfield. To her, then, Boswell addressed himself; and, to his equal surprise and satisfaction, was answered that Mrs. Cobb had not only never told such a story, but that she had not even ever heard of it. -Gent. Mag. vol. 63. p. 1009.) It is painful to have to add, that notwithstanding this denial, Miss Seward persisted in her story to the last. The report as to the hanging was probably derived from a coarse passage in the Rev. Donald M Nicol's Remarks on Dr. Johnson's "Journey to the Hebrides." "But whatever the Doctor may insinuate about the present scarcity of trees in Scotland, we are much deceived by fame if a very near ancestor of his, who was a native of that country, did not find to his cost that a tree was Lot quite such a rarity in his days." (P. 18. ed. 1779.) There seems no reason whatsoever to believe that any of Dr. Johnson's family were natives of Scotland.-CROKER.

One of the most curious and important chapters in the history of the human mind is still to be written, that of Hereditary Insanity. The symptomatic facts by which the disease might be traced are generally either disregarded from ignorance of their real cause and character, or, when observed, carefully suppressed by domestic or professional delicacy. This is natural, and even laudable; yet there are several important reasons why the obscurity in which such facts are usually buried may be regretted. Morally, we should wish to know, as far as may be permitted to us, the nature of our own intellect, its powers, and its weaknesses; -medically, it might be possible, by early and systematic treatment, to avert or mitigate the disease which, there is reason to suppose, is Bow often unknown or mistaken;-legally, it would be desirable to have any additional means of discriminating between guilt and misfortune, and of ascertaining, with more precision, the nice bounds which divide moral guilt from what may be called physical errors; and in the highest and most important of all the springs of human thought or action, it would be consolatory and edifying to be able to distinguish, with greater certainty, rational faith and judicious piety, from the enthusiastic confidence or the gloomy despondence of disordered imaginations. The memory of every man who has lived not inattentively in society will furnish him with instances to which such considerations as these might have been usefully applied. But in reading the life of Doctor Johnson (who was conscious of the disease and of its cause, and of whose blood there remains no one whose feelings can

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a Stranger.
She departed this Life

20th of September, 1694.

JOHNSON'S mother was a woman of distinguished understanding. I asked his old

mingham5, 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

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be now offended), they should be kept constantly in view; not merely as a subject of general interest, but as elucidating and explaining many of the errors, peculiarities, and weaknesses of that extraordinary man. - CROKER.

2 In this undertaking, nothing prospered; they had no sooner bought a large stock of skins, than a heavy duty was laid upon that article, and, from Michael's absence by his many avocations as a bookseller, the parchment business was committed to a faithless servant, and thence they gradually declined into strait circumstances. Gent. Mag., vol. Iv. p. 100. CROKER.

3 Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines "EXCISE, a hateful tax, levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid:" and, in the Idler (No. 65.), he calls a Commissioner of Excise "one of the lowest of all human beings." This violence of language seems so unreasonable, that I was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity; this mention of the trade in parchment (an erciseable article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield: "July 27. 1725. The Commissioners received yours of the 22d instant, and since the justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the tanner, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the Board direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that be may be prosecuted in the Exchequer." It does not appear whether he offended again, but here is a sufficient cause of his son's animosity against Commissioners of Excise, and of the allusion in the Dictionary to the special jurisdiction under which that revenue is administered. The reluctance of the justices to convict will appear not unnatural, when it is recollected that M. Johnson was, this very year, chief magistrate of the city. - CROKER.

4 The romantic part of this story does not seem otherwise authenticated than by an assertion in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 55, p. 100, on, as it would seem, the very doubtful authority of Miss Seward, that Doctor Johnson had told it. Admitting that he did so, it is to be observed that the fact happened fifteen years before his birth; and his father may be excused if he gave to his wife and son a romantic account of an affair of this nature. CROKER. 5 He died Sept. 2. 1794, the same age as Johnson.

t. 85. He was, therefore, about CROKER.

to Thomas Jackson, their man-servant': he not being in the way, this was not 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, Johnson 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 staid for ever in the church, satisfied with beholding him.” 2

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 nearsighted, 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 school

1 Mrs. Piozzi with more probability, calls him a workman. -CROKER.

2 The gossiping anecdotes of the Lichfield ladies are all apocryphal. Sacheverel, by his sentence, pronounced in Feb. 1710, was interdicted for three years from preaching; so that he could not have preached at Lichfield while Johnson was under three years of age. Sacheverel, indeed, made a triumphal progress through the midland counties in 1710; and it appears by the books of the corporation of Lichfield, that he was received in that town and complimented by the attendance of the corporation "and a present of three dozen of wine," on the 16th of June, 1710; but then the "infant Hercules of toryism" was just nine months old. - CROKER. 3 Piozzi's Anecdotes, and Sir John Hawkins's Life.BOSWELL.

4 This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external evidence, has, nevertheless, upon supposition of

mistress, 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 step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her by his mother. When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt 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 repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice.

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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 3 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 step-daughter, 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." 4

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 of 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 side of religion,

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, 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 (P. & M. p. 27.)," which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it. I supposed him to be only near-sighted; 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 see 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.2 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 kings encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte3 could give creditcarried 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 talk of this very frankly; and Mrs. Piozzi has preserved his very picturesque description of

rather than that bright and cheering one which gilds the period of closing life with the light of pious hope." This is 10 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. Mr. Boswell, when be wrote this flattering note, was endeavouring to propitiate Miss Seward; but she was obstinate, and maintained a very wrong-headed hostility and paper war with him on this and a similar subject (the Verses on a Sprig of Myrtle), on which the was wrong every way. CROKER.

! Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said, "The dog was never good for much."- BURNEY. 1 So, he says-in his own "Account of his early Life" -Dr. Swinfen informed him; but his mother thought it was derived from her family. 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.- CROKER.

3 In consequence of a note, in vindication of the efficacy of the royal touch, which Carte admitted into the first volume of his History of England, the corporation of London with

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 "[—to the Pretender].

CHAPTER II. 1716-1728.

Johnson at Lichfield School. - Boyish Days.- Removed to Stourbridge. Specimens of his School Exercises and early Verses. He leaves Stourbridge, and passes two Years with his Father. He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield. 5 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."

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drew their subscription, and the work instantaneously fell into almost total, but certainly undeserved, neglect. NICHOLS. Hawkins repeats, after several old writers, that this healing gift was derived to our princes from Edward the Confessor; but the Kings of France claimed the same privilege, which they exercised under this modest formula.-Le roi te touche. Dieu te gucrisse.-CROKER.

4 It appears, by the newspapers of the time, that on the 30th of March, 1712, two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne. WRIGHT.

5 She lived in Dam Street, at the north corner of Quoniam's Lane.-Harwood. CROKER.

6" 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.-CROKER.

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