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Biographical Introduction

BOOKSHOPS in the early eighteenth century were not to be found in every country town. But at Lichfield there lived a bookseller, one Michael Johnson, whose knowledge of the volumes which he offered for sale was appreciated by the patrons of literature throughout Staffordshire and Worcestershire. In a letter written from Nentham to Lord Gower's chaplain in 1716, it is said: "Johnson, the Lichfield librarian, is now here; he propagates learning all over the diocese, and advanceth knowledge to its just height; all the clergy here are his pupils, and suck all they have from him." Old Johnson, indeed, was held in such esteem that he was made one of the magistrates of Lichfield, and at his house, which is still pointed out to the visitor at Lichfield, his eldest son, Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent men of his period, was born on the 18th of September 1709.

The boy was born with scrofula, and in his third year was taken by his father to London to be touched by the royal hand. Queen Anne was the last of English sovereigns to encourage the superstition that the royal touch was a specific for this malady. Johnson recollected "the queen in diamonds and a long black hood." An operation which was afterwards performed disfigured his face, and for a time he lost

the sight of one eye. Though of great muscular strength his body was unsound. Writing in his seventy-third year Johnson himself says: "My health has been from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease.”

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Johnson was sent to the free school of his native city. "My master," he used to say, whipt me very well. Without that, I should have done nothing." At the age of fifteen he went to a school at Stourbridge, where he obtained a knowledge of classical literature. Describing his school life he says: "At one I learnt much in the school but little from the master; in the other I learnt much from the master but little from the school." From sixteen to eighteen he remained at home, ransacking his father's shelves, though he read without any definite plan. The bookselling business had declined, and the family affairs were sinking into hopeless embarrassment. clared that his parents never tried to profits of trade, or the cost of living." nineteenth year he was entered, with the assistance of a wealthy neighbour, as a commoner at Pembroke College, Oxford. He received little or no assistance from his patron, and for three years struggled along in great poverty, until his father's insolvency obliged him abruptly to quit the University without taking a degree. Shortly after his return to Lichfield his father died, and Johnson started life as an usher in a school at Market Bosworth.

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Johnson found teaching irksome, and left the school to live with a friend at Birmingham. He translated Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia from the French, and received for his first literary work the sum of five guineas. He became the warm admirer of Mrs

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