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leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys,) a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an author is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend; who, I trust, will, by a true and fair delineation, be vindicated both from the injurious misrepresentations of this author, and from the slighter aspersions of a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him.

There is, in the British Museum, a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr. Birch, on the subject of biography, which, though I am aware it may expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it :

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"I shall endeavour," says Dr. Warburton, "to give you what satisfaction I can in any thing you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton, and am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux are indeed strange insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau, where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of disinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a book, and, what's worse, it proves a book without a life; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his tedious stuff? You are the only one (and I speak it without a compliment) that by the vigour of your style and sentiments, and the real importance of your materials, have the art (which one would imagine no! one could have missed) of adding agreements to the most agreeable subject in the world, which is literary history.- Nov. 24. 1737.”1

Instead of melting down my materials into one mass, and constantly speaking in my own person, by which I might have appeared to have more merit in the execution of the work, I have resolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Gray. Wherever narrative is necessary to explain, connect, and supply, I furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in the chronological series of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly as I can, year by year, I produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes,

of Johnson (published in 1787) is by no means so inaccurate or unsatisfactory as he misrepresents it. He borrowed largely from it, and it contains a great deal of Johnsonian life which Mr. Boswell had not the opportunity of seeing. Sir John died in 1789.- CROKER.

letters, or conversation, being convinced that this mode is more lively, and will make my readers better acquainted with him, than even most of those were who actually knew him- but could know him only partially; whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which his character is more fully understood and illustrated.

Indeed, I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life, than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought; by which mankind are enabled as it were to see him live, and to "live o'er each scene" with him, as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely preserved. As it is, I will venture to say, that he will be seen in this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived.

And he will be seen as he really was; for I profess to write not his panegyric, which must be all praise, but his life; which, great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was, is indeed subject of panegyric enough to any man in this state of being; but in every picture there should be shade as well as light; and when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himself recommended, both by his precept and his example :

"If the biographer writes from personal know

ledge, and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and

tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyric, and not to be known from one another but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. 'Let me remember,' says Hale, when I find myself pity due to the country.' If we owe regard to the inclined to pity a criminal, that there is likewise a memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth."Rambler, No. 60.

What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is the quantity it contains of Johnson's Conversation; which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently instructive and entertaining; and of which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion have been received with so much approbation. that I have good grounds for supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample communications of a similar nature.

1 Brit. Mus. 4320. Ayscough's Catal. Sloane MSS.BOSWELL

In the "Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides;" separatel published in 1785, but which I have incorporated under it proper date in the general" Life of Johnson."-CROKER.

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 I 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 Ζήλωσις 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 I 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 dim semper miraturi,-whose candour and genius will, to the end of time, be by his writings preserved

admiration.

“There are many invisible circumstances, which, whether we read as enquirers after natural or moral Anowledge, 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 Tolent 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, be expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the dleness of suspense; and all the plans and enter

Wha Whitehead lived with William, third Earl of Jersey, and Anne Egerton, his countess.- WRIGHT.

2 Paaren's Life of Alexander; Langhorne's translation. - BOSWELL.

3 Kimchi was a Spanish rabbi, who died in 1240. One

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 with any degree of point, should perish. For friend thought it worth his while to express, 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. I.) 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 10s., was not comparatively contemptible; for no one, except the bishop and dean, gave so much as 10. 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 Jolinson, 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.2 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, 8 nior 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.) 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.

But

3 See post, 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 no twenty-five, and she is turned fifty. If she had any prudence this request had never been made to me. Where are you means of subsistence? Porter has died poor, in consequenc of his wife's expensive habits. You have great talents, bu as yet have turned them into no profitable channel.”. 'Mother, I have not deceived Mrs. Porter; I have told he the worst of me; that I am of mean extraction; that I hav no money; and that I have had an uncle hanged."' She re plied, 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 deserve hanging." (Seward's Letters, vol. i. p. 45.) This accou was given to Mr. Boswell, who, as Miss Seward could n

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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 JOHNSON'S mother was a woman of disshare of wealth, of which, however, he after- tinguished understanding. I asked his old wards lost the greatest part, by engaging un- school-fellow, Mr. Hector, a surgeon, of Birsuccessfully in a manufacture of parch-mingham5, if she was not vain of her son. ment. 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 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 1 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 deeered by fame if a very near ancestor of his, who was a ative of that country, did not find to his cost that a tree was t quite such a rarity in his days." (P. 18. ed. 1779.) There Beemis no reason whatsoever to believe that any of Dr. John's family were natives of Scotland.-CROKER.

One of the most curious and important chapters in the story of the human mind is still to be written, that of Here4ntary Insanity. The symptomatic facts by which the disease Eight 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 Bally 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 Eight be possible, by early and systematic treatment, to avert ertigate the disease which, there is reason to suppose, is now often unknown or mistaken;-legally, it would be deuratie to have any additional means of discriminating between Fit and misfortune, and of ascertaining, with more precision, the time hounds which divide moral guilt from what may be physical errors; and in the highest and most impant of all the springs of human thought or action, it ld be consolatory and edifying to be able to distinguish, greater certainty, rational faith and judicious piety, from the enthusiastic confidence or the gloomy despondence of rdered imaginations. The memory of every man who has dived not inattentively in society will furnish him with instaces to which such considerations as these might have be fully applied. But in reading the life of Doctor Johsen (who was conscious of the disease and of its cause, and of whose blood there remains no one whose feelings can

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Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a Stranger.
She departed this Life
20th of September, 1694.

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 exciseable 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 he 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 Ercise, 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, Et. 85. He was, therefore, about the same age as Johnson. - 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 toryisin, 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.-CHOKER. 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." ✦

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,

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