fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the powers of my mind be not debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any criminal act." Johnson was so far fortunate, that the respectable character of his parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest years, secured him a kind reception in the best families at Lichfield. Among these I can mention Mr Howard, Dr Swinfen, Mr Simpson, Mr Levett, Captain Garrick, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above all, Mr Gilbert Walmesley,* Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease, Dr Johnson has, in his life of Edmund Smith, thus drawn in the glowing colours of gratitude : "Of Gilbert Walmesley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope, that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. "He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy, yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart, I honoured him and he endured me. "He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind. His belief of revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his principles; he grew first regular, and then pious. "His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great, and what he did not immediately know, he could, at least, tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning, and such his copiousness of communication, that it may be doubted whether a day now passes, in which I have not some advantage from his friendship. "At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive hours, with companions such as are not often found-with one who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life; with Dr James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man? I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure." In these families he passed much time in his early years. In most of them, he was in the company of ladies, particularly at Mr Walmesley's, whose wife and sisters-in-law, of the name * Mr Warton informs me, "that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged 17, in 1698; and is the author of many Latin verse translations in the "Gentleman's Magazine." One of them is a translation of "My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent," &c. He died August 3rd, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in the cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr Seward, one of the Prebendaries. of Aston, and daughters of a baronet, were remarkable for good breeding; so that the notion which has been industriously circulated and believed, that he never was in good company till late in life, and consequently had been confirmed in coarse and ferocious manners by long habits, is wholly without foundation. Some of the ladies have assured me, they recollected him well when a young man, as distinguished for his complaisance. And that his politeness was not merely occasional and temporary, or confined to the circles of Lichfield, is ascertained by the testimony of a lady, who, in a paper with which I have been favoured by a daughter of his intimate friend and physician, Dr Lawrence, thus describes Dr Johnson some years afterwards : 66 As the particulars of the former part of Dr Johnson's life do not seem to be very accurately known, a lady hopes that the following information may not be unacceptable. "She remembers Dr Johnson on a visit to Dr Taylor, at Ashbourne, some time between the end of the year '37, and the middle of the year '40; she rather thinks it to have been after he and his wife were removed to London. During his stay at Ashbourne, he made frequent visits to Mr Meynell, at Bradley, where his company was much desired by the ladies of the family, who were, perhaps, in point of elegance and accomplishments, inferior to few of those with whom he was afterwards acquainted. Mr Meynell's eldest daughter was afterwards married to Mr Fitzherbert, father to Mr Alleyne Fitzherbert, lately minister to the court of Russia. Of her, Dr Johnson said, in Dr Lawrence's study, that she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human being. At Mr. Meynell's he also commenced that friendship with Mrs Hill Boothby, sister to the present Sir Brook Boothby, which continued till her death. The young woman whom he used to call Molly Aston, was sister to Sir Thomas Aston, and daughter to a baronet; she was also sister to the wife of his friend, Mr Gilbert Walmesley. Besides his intimacy with the above-mentioned persons, who were surely people of rank and education, while he was at Lichfield he used to be frequently at the house of Dr Swinfen, a gentleman of very ancient family in Staffordshire, from which, after the death of his elder brother, he inherited a good estate. He was, besides, a physician of very extensive practice; but for want of due attention to the management of his domestic concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of his daughters, Mrs Desmoulins, afterwards found an asylum in the house of her old friend, whose doors were always open to the unfortunate, and who well observed the precept of the Gospel, for he 'was kind to the unthankful and to the evil.'" In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, to which it appears, from one of his little * The words of Sir John Hawkins, p. 316. fragments of a diary, that he went on foot, on the 16th of July.—“Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes petii." But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he was assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has been honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd, who was his scholar 10; for Mr Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730,* more than a year before Johnson left the University. This employment was very irksome to him in every respect, and he complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend, Mr Hector, who was now settled as a surgeon at Birmingham. The letters are lost; but Mr Hector recollects his writing "that the poet had described the dull sameness of his existence in these words, 'Vitam continet una dies' (one day contains the whole of my life); that it was unvaried as the note of the cuckoo; and that he did not know whether it was more disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules.” His general aversion to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a disagreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the school, in whose house, I have been told, he officiated as a kind of domestic chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness; and, after suffering for a few months such complicated misery, he relinquished a situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aversion, and even a degree of horror. But it is probable that at this period, whatever uneasiness he may have endured, he laid the foundation of much future eminence by application to his studies. Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr Hector to pass some time with him at Birmingham, as his guest, at the house of Mr Warren, with whom Mr Hector lodged and boarded. Mr Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade, by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the newspaper of which Warren was proprietor. After very diligent inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early specimens of that particular mode of writing by which Johnson afterwards so greatly distinguished himself. He continued to live as Mr Hector's guest for about six months, and then hired lodgings in another part of the town, finding himself as well situated at Birmingham as he supposed he could be anywhere, while he had no settled plan of life, and very scanty means of subsistence. He made some valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom were Mr Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards married, and Mr Taylor, who by his ingenuity in mechanical inventions, and his success in trade, acquired an immense fortune. But the comfort of being near Mr Hector, his old schoolfellow and intimate friend, * See "Gent. Mag.," Dec. 1784, p. 957. was Johnson's chief inducement to continue here. In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or whether he derived from it any pecuniary advantage, I have not been able to ascertain. He probably got a little money from Mr Warren; and we are certain that he executed here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr Hector has favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned that he had read at Pembroke College a "Voyage to Abyssinia," by Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, and that he thought an abridgment and translation of it from the French into English might be an useful and profitable publication, Mr Warren and Mr Hector joined in urging him to undertake it. He accordingly agreed; and the book not being to be found in Birmingham, he borrowed it of Pembroke College. A part of the work being very soon done, one Osborn, who was Mr Warren's printer, was set to work with what was ready, and Johnson engaged to supply the press with copy as it should be wanted, but his constitutional indolence soon prevailed, and the work was at a stand. Mr Hector, who knew that a motive of humanity would be the most prevailing argument with his friend, went to Johnson, and represented to him, that the printer could have no other employment till this undertaking was finished, and that the poor man and his family were suffering. Johnson, upon this, exerted the powers of his mind, though his body was relaxed. He lay in bed with the book, which was a quarto, before him, and dictated while Hector wrote. Mr Hector carried the sheets to the press, and corrected almost all the proof sheets, very few of which were ever seen by Johnson. In this manner, with the aid of Mr Hector's active friendship, the book was completed, and was published in 1735, with London upon the title-page, though it was in reality printed at Birmingham, a device too common with provincial publishers. For this work he had from Mr Warren only the sum of five guineas. This being the first prose work of Johnson, it is a curious object of inquiry how much may be traced in it of that style which marks his subsequent writings with such peculiar excellence; with so happy an union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity. I have perused the book with this view, and have found that here, as I believe in every other translation, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's own style; for the language of translation being adapted to the thoughts of another person, insensibly follows their cast, and as it were runs into a mould that is ready prepared 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 inarticulate 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 mixture of vice and virtue, a contest of passion 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 anyone, 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; † Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus, Notas cum historia Latina poeseos à Petrarchæ ævo ad Politiani tempora deducta, et vitâ Politiani fusius quam antehac enarratâ, addidit SAM JOHNSON."‡ 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 sufficient 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":— "SIR, "TO MR CAVE. Nov. 25, 1734. "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, &c., • See "Rambler," No. 103. May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, "in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, defor says, mítatem oris excellentis ingenii præstantiâ compensavit." Com. ment. de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel." 1718, p. 200. The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. 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. 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 called, will, 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 offer + 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 to 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 able to recover; 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 "What hopes, what terrors does thy gift create, * Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. 1734, p. 197. "Gent. Mag.," A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell." See "Gent. Mag.," vol. iv. P. 560.-N. 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 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 Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured 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. In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation and totally concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he became 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 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 compli ment 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 in accurate. The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement (which may be found in the "Gent. Mag.," 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 true history (which I could swear to) is as follows:Mr Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He showed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. "I most solemnly declare, at that time, Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my clothes of. "If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, 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." 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 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, 12 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 indulgent husband to the last moments 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 celebrity 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, however, 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 into 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 kind, is much to be valued; and I have ever thought that those who devote themselves to this employment, and do their duty with diligence and success, are entitled to very high respect from the community, as Johnson himself often maintained. Yet I am of opinion, that the greatest abilities are not only not required for this office, but render a man less fit for it. While we acknowledge the justness of Thomson's beautiful remark, "Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by "a mind at ease,” a mind at once calm and clear: but that a mind gloomy and impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of time in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and error in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential requisite in a preceptor. Horace paints the character as bland: 66 -Ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima." Johnson was not more satisfied with his situation as the master of an academy, than with that of the usher of a school; we need not wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy above a year and a half. From Mr Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner and uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and in particular, the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bedchamber, and peep through the key-hole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar appellation of Tetty or Tetsey, which, like Betty or Betsey, is provincially used as a contraction for Elizabeth, her Christian name, but which to us seems ludicrous, when applied to a woman of her |