Thus, for instance, taking the first sentence that occurs at the opening of the book, p. 4:'I lived here above a year, and completed my studies in divinity; in which time some letters were received from the fathers of Ethiopia, with an account that Sultan Segned, Emperor of Abyssinia, was converted to the Church of Rome; that many of his subjects had followed his example, and that there was a great want of missionaries to improve these prosperous beginnings. Everybody was very desirous of seconding the zeal of our fathers, and of sending them the assistance they requested; to which we were the more encouraged, because the Emperor's letter informed our Provincial that we might easily enter his dominions by the way of Dancala; but unhappily the secretary wrote Geila for Dancala, which cost two of our fathers their lives.'

Every one acquainted with Johnson's manner will be sensible that there is nothing of it here, but that this sentence might have been composed by any other man.

But in the Preface the Johnsonian style begins to appear; and though use had not yet taught his wing a permanent and equable flight, there are parts of it which exhibit his best manner in full vigour. I had once the pleasure of examining it with Mr. Edmund Burke, who confirmed me in this opinion by his superior critical sagacity, and was, I remember, much delighted with the following specimen :

"The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantic absurdity or incredible fictions. Whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who cannot contradict him.

'He appears, by his modest and unaffected narration, to have described things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to have consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their prey without tears, and his cataracts fall from the rocks without deafening the neighbouring inhabitants.

"The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable barrenness, or blest with spontaneous fecundity; no perpetual gloom, or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described either devoid of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private or social virtues. Here are no Hottentots without religious policy or articulate language; no Chinese perfectly polite and completely skilled in all sciences. He will discover, what will always be discovered by a diligent and impartial inquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found, there is a

and reason; and that the Creator doth not appear partial in His distributions, but has balanced, in most countries, their particular inconveniences by particular favours.'

Here we have an early example of that brilliant and energetic expression, which, upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life, justly impressed the world with the highest admiration.

Nor can any one, conversant with the writings of Johnson, fail to discern his hand in this passage of the Dedication to John Warren, Esq., of Pembrokeshire, though it is ascribed to Warren the bookseller :

'A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity;' nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations. I hope, therefore, the present I now presume to make will not be thought improper, which, however, it is not my business as a dedicator to commend, nor as a bookseller to depreciate.'

It is reasonable to suppose, that his having been thus accidentally led to a particular study of the history and manners of Abyssinia was the remote occasion of his writing, many years afterwards, his admirable philosophical tale, the principal scene of which is laid in that country.

Johnson returned to Lichfield early in 1734, and in August that year he made an attempt to procure some little subsistence by his pen ; for he published proposals for printing by subscription the Latin Poems of Politian;2 Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus, Notas cum historia Latina poeseos a Petrarchæ ævo ad Politiani tempora deductâ, et vitâ Politiani fusius quam antehac enarratâ, addidit SÂM. JOHNSON.3

It appears that his brother Nathaniel had taken up his father's trade; for it is mentioned that 'subscriptions are taken in by the Editor, or N. Johnson, bookseller, of Lichfield.' Notwithstanding the merit of Johnson, and the cheap price at which this book was offered, there were not subscribers enough to ensure a suffi'cient sale; so the work never appeared, and probably never was executed.

We find him again this year at Birmingham, and there is preserved the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave,' the original compiler and editor of the Gentleman's Magazine :

'TO MR. CAVE.

Nov. 25, 1734. 'SIR,-As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defects of your poetical article, you will not be displeased if, in order to the improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of a person who will undertake on reasonable terms sometimes to fill a column.

'His opinion is, that the public would not give you a bad reception, if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical examination would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you admitted not only poems, inscriptions, etc., never printed before, which he will sometimes supply you with, but likewise short literary dissertations in Latin or English, critical remarks on authors ancient or modern, forgotten poems that deserve revival, or loose pieces, like Floyer's, worth preserving. By this method, your literary article-for so it might be calledwill, he thinks, be better recommended to the public than by low jests, awkward buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party.

'If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. Your late offer3 gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the advantage of what I should hint.

'Your letter, by being directed to S. Smith, to be left at the Castle, in Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach

'Your humble servant.'

Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, 'Answered Dec. 2.' But whether anything was done in consequence of it we are not informed.

Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of Olivia Lloyd, a young Quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I have not been

1 Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly shown me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson to him, which were first published in the Gentleman's Magazine, with notes by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally transcribe in the course of this work. BoswELL.

2 Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. Gentleman's Magazine, 1734, p. 197.-BOSWELL.

3 A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 560.-NICHOLS.

able to recover; 1 but with what facility and elegance he could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines which he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector :

VERSES to a LADY on receiving from her a SPRIG of
MYRTLE.

'What hopes, what terrors does thy gift create,
Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate!
The myrtle, ensign of supreme command,
Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand;
Not less capricious than a reigning fair,
Now grants and now rejects a lover's prayer.
In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain,
In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain;
The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads,
The unhappy lover's grave the myrtle spreads;
Oh then the meaning of thy gift impart,
And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart!
Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom,
Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb.'2

His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient; and it is certain that he formed no criminal connection whatsoever. Mr. Hector, who lived with him in his younger days in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect; and that though he loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but

once.

1 He also wrote some amatory verses before he left Staffordshire, which our author appears not to have seen. They were addressed to Miss Hickman, playing on the Spinet.' At the back of this early poetical effusion, of which the original copy, in Johnson's handwriting, was obligingly communicated to me by Mr. John Taylor, is the following attestation:

Written by the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, on my mother, then Miss Hickman, playing on the Spinet. J. Turton.'

Dr. Turton, the physician, the writer of this certificate, who died in April 1806, in his 71st year, was born in 1735. The verses in question, therefore, which have been printed in some late editions of Johnson's poems, must have been written before that year.Miss Hickman, it is believed, was a lady of Staffordshire.

The concluding lines of this early copy of verses have much of the vigour of Johnson's poetry in his maturer years:

'When old Timotheus struck the vocal string,
Ambitious fury fir'd the Grecian king:
Unbounded projects lab'ring in his mind,
He pants for room, in one poor world confin'd.
Thus wak'd to rage by music's dreadful power,
He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour.
Had Stella's gentle touches mov'd the lyre,
Soon had the monarch felt a nobler fire;
No more delighted with disastrous war,
Ambitious only now to please the fair,
Resign'd his thirst of empire to her charms,
And found a thousand worlds in Stella's arms.'
MALONE.

2 Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him. I think it is now just forty years

In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is exceed ingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation and totally concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he became

ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on, "Sit still a moment," says I, "dear Mund, and I'll fetch them thee;" so stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.'-Anecdotes, p. 34.

In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield :-'I know those verses were addressed to Lacy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant.

She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the verses Dr. Johnson gave her, “On a Sprig of Myrtle," which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended for her.' Such was this lady's statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it shows how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond.

I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging that, however often, she is not always inaccurate.

The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement (which may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vols. lxiii. and Ixiv.), received the following letter from Mr. Edmund Hector on the subJect:

DEAR SIR,-I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a lady who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge than to persevere.

'Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of The Myrtle, with the date on it, 1731, which I have enclosed.

the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's death.' Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her mother, his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had seemingly convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation, that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.'

Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson, and her person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents,* as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand, he went to

and to exhibit to the public the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement.

I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing you multos et felices annos, I shall subscribe myself, your obliged humble servant, 'E. HECTOR.

'BIRMINGHAM, Jan. 9, 1794.'-BOSWELL.

1 It appears from Mr. Hector's letter that Johnson became acquainted with her three years before he married her.-MALONE.

2 Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Jervis. Though there was a great disparity of years between her and Dr. Johnson, she was not quite so old as she is here represented, having only completed her forty-eighth year in the month of February preceding her marriage, as appears by the following extract from the parish register of Great Peatling, in Leicestershire, which was obligingly made at my request, by the Hon. and Rev. Mr Ryder, Rector of Lutterworth, in that county :

Anno Dom. 1688-9. Elizabeth, the daughter of William Jervis, Esq., and Mrs. Anne, his wife, born the fourth day of February and mané, baptized 16th day of the same month by Mr. Smith, Curate of Little Peatling. JOHN ALLEN, Vicar.'

The family of Jervis, Mr. Ryder informs me, once possessed nearly the whole lordship of Great Peatling (about 2000 acres), and there are many monuments of them in the church; but the estate is now much reduced. The present representative of this ancient family is Mr. Charles Jervis of Hinckley, Attorney

If you intend to convince this obstinate woman,

3 That in Johnson's eyes she was handsome, appears from the epitaph which he caused to be inscribed on her tombstone not long before his own death, and which may be found in a subsequent page, under the year 1752.-MALONE.

The following account of Mrs. Johnson and her family is copied from a paper (chiefly relating to Mrs. Anna Williams) written by Lady Knight at Rome, and transmitted by her to the late John Hoole,

Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on account of their disparity of years and her want of fortune. But Mrs. Johnson knew too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too tender a parent to oppose his inclinations.

I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good humour. But though Mr. Topham Beauclerk | used archly to mention Johnson's having told him with much gravity, 'Sir, it was a love marriage on both sides,' I have heard from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn [9th July]:-'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.

This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of connubial felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson, though he thus showed a manly firmness, proved a most affectionate and

Esq., the translator of Metastasio, etc., by whom it was inserted in the European Magazine for October 1799:

Mrs. Williams' account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding, and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent. Her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage, perhaps because they, being struggling to get advanced in life, were mortified to think she had allied herself to a man who had not any visible means of being useful to them; however, she always retained her affection for them. While they [Dr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough Square, her son, the officer, knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home. She answered, "Yes, sir, but she is sick in bed." "Oh," says he, "if it's so, tell her that her son Jervis called to know how she did;" and was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress, and, without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to embrace him. When the maid descended, the gentleman was gone, and poor Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure: it was the only time he ever made an effort to see her. Dr. Johnson did all he could to console his wife, but told Mrs. Williams, "Her son is

indulgent husband to the last moment of Mrs. Johnson's life and in his Prayers and Meditations we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her never ceased, even after her death.

He now set up a private academy, for which purpose he hired a large house, well situated near his native city. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736 there is the following advertisement:

At EDIAL, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages by SAMUEL JOHNSON.'

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune, who died early. As yet his name had nothing of that calebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the publication of his London, or his Rambler, or his Dictionary, how would it have burst upon the world! with what eagerness would the great and the wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of SAMUEL JOHNSON! The truth, how ever, is, that he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements, and a conductor in learning by regular gradations, as men of inferior powers of mind. His own acquisitions had been made by fits and starts, by violent irruptions in the regions of knowledge; and it could not be expected that his impatience would be subdued, and his impetuosity restrained, so as to fit him for a quiet guide to novices. The art of communicating instruction, of whatever

uniformly undutiful; so I conclude, like many other sober men, he might once in his life be drunk, and in that fit nature got the better of his pride.""

The following anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are recorded by the same lady:

'One day that he came to my house to meet many others, we told him that we had arranged our party to go to Westminster Abbey: would not he go with us? No," he replied, "not while I can keep out."

Upon our saying that the friends of a lady had been in great fear lest she should make a certain match, he said, "We that are his friends have had great fears for him."

'Dr. Johnson's political principles ran high, both in Church and State. He wished power to the King and to the heads of the Church, as the laws of England have established; but I know he disliked absolute power. And I am very sure of his disappro bation of the doctrines of the Church of Rome; because, about three weeks before we came abroad, he said to my Cornelia, "You are going where the ostentatious pomp of church ceremonies attracts the imagination; but if they want to persuade you to change, you must remember that, by increasing your faith, you may be persuaded to become Turk." It these were not the words, I have kept up to the express meaning.'-MALONE.