THE LIFE OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

SIR LESLIE STEPHEN

[From the Dictionary of National Biography.]

JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709-1784), lexicographer, son of Michael Johnson, bookseller at Lichfield, by his wife Sarah (Ford), was born at Lichfield on 18 Sept. (N.S.) 1709, and was baptised 17 Sept. (i.e. 28 Sept. N.S.), according to the parish register (Gent. Mag. October 1829; cf. A. L. READE's The Reades of Blackwood Hill . . . with account of Dr. Johnson's ancestry, 1906). The father, born in 1656, remembered the publication of 'Absalom and Achitophel' in 1681 (JOHNSON, Life of Dryden). He transmitted to his son a powerful frame and 'a vile melancholy.' Besides keeping his shop (now preserved as a public memorial) at Lichfield he sold books occasionally at Birmingham, at Uttoxeter, and at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. He was churchwarden in 1688, sheriff of Lichfield (then a county) in 1709, junior bailiff in 1718, and senior bailiff in 1725. As became a bookseller in a cathedral town, he was a high churchman, and something of a Jacobite. Unbusinesslike habits or a speculation in the 'manufacture of parchment' brought him into difficulties. His wife, born in 1669 at King's Norton, Worcestershire, is described as 'descendant of an ancient race of yeomanry in Warwickshire.' They married on 9 June 1706 (ib. ii. 384), and had, besides Samuel, a son Nathanael, born in 1712, who died in 1737.

Strange stories were told of Samuel's precocity. It is said that before he was three years old he insisted upon going to church to hear Sacheverell preach (BOSWELL, Life, by Hill, i. 39). His father was foolishly proud of him, and passed off an epitaph on Good Master Duck,' really written by himself, as Samuel's composition at the age of three. The child suffered from scrofula, which disfigured his face and injured or destroyed the sight of one eye. He was 'touched' by Queen Anne, and he retained a vague recollection of a 'lady in diamonds and a long black hood' (PIOZZI, Anecdotes, p. 10). He learnt his letters at a dame-school under one Jane Brown, who published a spelling-book, and ‘dedi

cated it to the Universe,' which, however, has preserved no copies. He next learnt Latin in Lichfield school. After two years he was under the head-master, Hunter, who was a brutal but efficient teacher. Johnson afterwards valued the birch as a less demoralising incentive than emulation. His force of mind and character already secured respect, and three of his school-fellows used regularly to carry him to school. One of them, named Hector, survived to give information to Boswell. He was indolent and unwieldy, unable to join in games, and 'immoderately fond' of reading the old romances, a taste which he retained through life. In the autumn of 1725 (HAWKINS) he visited an uncle, Cornelius Ford, a clergyman, who wasted considerable ability by convivial habits (JOHNSON, Life of Fenton). Ford was struck by the lad's talents, and kept him till the next Whitsuntide. He was then excluded from the Lichfield school, and sent, by Ford's advice, to a school at Stourbridge under a Mr. Wentworth, whom he is also said to have assisted in teaching. After a year he returned home, and spent two years in 'lounging.' It was at this time probably that he refused, out of pride, to attend his father to Uttoxeter market. On the same day some fifty years later he performed penance for this offence by visiting Uttoxeter market and standing bareheaded for an hour in the rain on the site of his father's bookstall (BOSWELL, iv. 373; R. WARNER, Tour through the Northern Counties; for some slight discrepancies in these statements see Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xi. 1, 91, 193). He read a great deal in a desultory fashion, and said afterwards (BOSWELL, Letters, p. 34) that he knew as much at eighteen as he did at fifty-two. He had written verses, of which Boswell gives specimens (one of them inserted in the Gent. Mag. for 1743, p. 378), and had no doubt made a reputation among his father's customers at Lichfield. A 'neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbet,' according to Hawkins (p. 9), offered to send Johnson to Oxford to read with his son, who had entered Pembroke College in 1727. Johnson was entered as a commoner on 31 Oct. 1728. According to Hawkins a disagreement with Corbet followed, and Johnson's supplies from this source were stopped after a time. The dates, however, are confused. Hawkins and Boswell say that Johnson remained three years at Oxford. The college books show him to have resided

continuously till 12 Dec. 1729, after which he only resided for a few brief periods, and his name was removed on 8 Oct. 1731 (see appendix to HILL'S Dr. Johnson, his Friends and his Critics). Johnson's tutor was a Mr. Jorden. He despised Jorden's lectures, though he respected the kindliness of the lecturer. Johnson seems to have surprised the college authorities by the extent of his reading, and a Latin translation of Pope's 'Messiah,' performed as a Christmas exercise, spread his reputation in the university, and was printed in 1731 in an Oxford 'Miscellany' brought out by J. Husbands, a fellow of Pembroke. Pope, to whom it was shown by George, son of Dr. Arbuthnot, is said to have paid it a high compliment (HAWKINS, p. 13). Johnson was said by William Adams (1706-1789) [q. v.], who succeeded Jorden as tutor, to have been a 'gay and frolicsome fellow,' and generally popular at Oxford. Johnson told Boswell, upon hearing this, that he was only 'mad and violent.' He was 'miserably poor,' meant to 'fight his way by his literature and wit, and so disregarded all authority.' He was occasionally insubordinate (BOSWELL, i. 59, 271), but amenable to kindness. He suffered from hypochondria, of which (ib. p. 63) he had a violent attack at Lichfield during the vacation of 1729. He frequently, says Boswell, walked from Lichfield to Birmingham and back in order to overcome his melancholy by violent exertion. He wrote an account of his case in Latin, and laid it before his godfather, Dr. Swinfen, who was so much struck by its ability that, to Johnson's lasting offence, he showed it to several friends. While at Oxford he took up the 'Serious Call' of William Law [q. v.], by which he was profoundly affected. He had previously fallen into indifference to religious matters, and was even ‘a lax talker against religion.' From this time his religious sentiments were always strong, though he continued to reproach himself with carelessness in practice. His poverty exposed him to vexations. His schoolfellow, John Taylor, afterwards J. Taylor of Ashbourne, proposed to become his companion at Pembroke, but upon Johnson's advice went to Christ Church to be under a Mr. Bateman, regarded as the best tutor at Oxford. Johnson used to get Bateman's lectures from Taylor, till he observed that the Christ Church men laughed at his wornout shoes. Some one placed a new pair of shoes at his door,

when he 'threw them away with indignation.' Johnson read Greek and 'metaphysics' at Oxford in his usual desultory fashion, and, in spite of his sufferings, retained a warm regard for his college and the university.

Johnson's poverty no doubt caused his premature departure. He returned at the end of 1729 to Lichfield, where his father died in December 1731. The father was on the verge of bankruptcy, though not actually bankrupt. Johnson in July 1732 received' 20l. from the estate, all that he could expect until his mother's death, and had therefore to 'make his own fortune' (Diary, quoted by BOSWELL, i. 80). He had some friends at Lichfield, especially Dr. Swinfen, Garrick's father, and Gilbert Walmsley, whom he describes with warm gratitude in the 'Life of Edmund Smith.' He also was on friendly terms with Miss Hill Boothby [q. v.], to whom he wrote affectionate letters in her last illness (first published in Piozzi's Letters), and with Miss 'Molly Aston,' the loveliest creature he ever saw (Boswell, i. 83; Piozzi, Anecd. p. 157). He now tried for some scholastic employment, though the dates are rather confused, and was (probably in the first part of 1732) usher at Market Bosworth school. On 30 Oct. 1731 he describes himself as 'still unemployed,' having failed in an application for an ushership at his old school at Stourbridge. On 16 July (apparently 1732) he says that he walked to Market Bosworth (BOSWELL, i. 84-5), and on 27 July he had recently left the house of Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the Bosworth school. He can hardly have been usher, as Hawkins says, under Anthony Blackwall [q. v.], who died 8 April 1730. His life at Bosworth, whatever the date, was miserable. Dixie, to whom he acted as chaplain, treated him harshly, and he always spoke of the monotonous drudgery with 'the strongest aversion, and even a degree of horror.' A letter from Addenbrooke, dean of Lichfield, recommending him for a tutorship about this time, is given in 'Notes and Queries,' 6th ser. x. 421. He gave up the place after a few months, and went to live with an old schoolfellow, Hector, who was boarding at Birmingham with a Mr. Warren, the chief bookseller of the place and publisher of the 'Birmingham Journal.' Johnson is said to have contributed to this paper, besides giving other help to Warren. He translated Lobo's 'Voyage to Abyssinia,'

for which Warren gave him five guineas. It was published in 1735. About 1734 he returned to Lichfield, and there made proposals for publishing Politian's Latin poems, with notes and a life. He addressed a letter to Edward Cave [q. v.] from Birmingham, dated 25 Nov. 1734, proposing to write a 'literary article' for the 'Gentleman's Magazine.'

Johnson had been introduced by Hector to a Henry Porter, a mercer at Birmingham. He was brother-in-law of Johnson's old master, Hunter (NICHOLS, Lit. Illustr. vii. 363). Porter was buried on 3 Aug. 1734, leaving a widow (born 4 Feb. 1688-9), whose maiden name was Jarvis, with a daughter, Lucy (baptised 8 Nov. 1715), and two sons. Miss Seward told Boswell that Johnson had been in love with the daughter, whom she identified as the object of some verses written by him at Stourbridge. Hector emphatically denied this (see controversy in Gent. Mag. vols. liii. and liv., partly reprinted in NICHOLS's Lit. Illustr. vii. 321–64). After Porter's death Johnson married Mrs. Porter, 9 July 1735. It was, as he told Beauclerk, 'a love marriage on both sides,' and, though outsiders mocked, the strength of Johnson's affection was unsurpassable. Though his face was scarred, his ‘huge structure of bones . . . hideously striking, his head wigless, his gesticulations grotesque,' Mrs. Porter at once recognised him as the 'most sensible man' she had ever seen. She was twenty

years his senior. Her appearance is chiefly known from Garrick's

comic descriptions to Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi. She was, he told Boswell, fat, with red painted cheeks, fantastic dress, and affected manners. Mrs. Piozzi, however, to whom he described her as a 'little painted puppet,' saw a picture of her at Lichfield, 'very pretty,' and, according to her daughter, 'very like.' The pair rode from Birmingham to be married at St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, and on the way Johnson showed his bride, by refusing to alter his pace at her bidding, that he would not be treated like a dog, which she had learnt from 'the old romances' to be the correct mode of behaving to lovers. The author of 'Memoirs. of Johnson' (1785) says that she brought him 700l. or 800l., and Mr. Timmins ('Dr. Johnson in Birmingham,' from Transactions of Midland Institute, 1876) shows that she had 100l. in the hands of an attorney. Mrs. Johnson's small fortune probably enabled