After so many effays and volumes of Johnsoniana, what remains for the prefent writer? Perhaps, what has not been attempted; a fhort, yet full, a faithful, yet temperate hiftory of Dr. John fon. SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, September 7, 1709, O. S*. His father, Michael Johnfon, was a bookseller in that city; a man of large athletic make, and violent paffions; wrong-headed, pofitive, and at times afflicted with a degree of melancholy, little fhort of madness. His mother was fifter to Dr. Ford, a practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of PARSON FORD, the fame who is reprefented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Converfation. In the Life of Fenton, Johnson fays, that "his abilities, "inftead of furnishing convivial merriment to "the voluptuous and diffolute, might have ena"bled him to excel among the virtuous and the *This appears in a note to Johnson's Diary, prefixed to the first of his prayers. After the alteration of the ftile, he kept his birth-day on the 18th of September, and it is accordingly marked September 7. "wife." "wife." Being chaplain to the Earl of Chefterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embaffy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote. "You fhould go," faid "if to your many vices you the witty peer, Pray, my Lord, "what is that ?" " Hypocrify, my dear Doc"tor." Johnfon had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the age of twentyfeven or twenty-eight. Michael Johnson, the father, was chofen in the year 1718 Under Bailiff of Lichfield, and in the year 1725 he ferved the office of the Senior Bailiff. He had a brother of the name of Andrew, who, for fome years, kept the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was never thrown or conquered. Michael, the father, died December 1731, at the age of feventy-fix; his mother at eighty-nine, of a gradual decay, in the year 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice. Johnfon did not delight in talking of his relations. "There is "little pleasure," he said to Mrs. Piozzi, “in "relating the anecdotes of beggary. Johnfon derived from his parents, or from an unwholesome nurse, the diftemper called the King's Evil. The Jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch; and accordingly Mrs. Johnfon prefented her fon, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient all the healing virtue in her power. He was afterwards cut for that fcrophulous humour, and the under part of his face was feamed and diffigured by the operation. It is fuppofed, that this disease deprived him of the fight of his left eye, and alfo impaired his hearing. At eight years old, he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the Free-school at Lichfield, where he was not remarkable for diligence or regular application. Whatever he read, his tenacious memory made his own. In the fields with his fchool-fellows he talked more to himfelf than with his companions. In 1725, when he was about fixteen years old, he went on a visit to his coufin Cornelius Ford, who detained him for fome months, and in the mean time affifted him in the claffics. The general 5 general direction for his ftudies, which he then received, he related to Mrs. Piozzi. σε Ούτ “tain," fays Ford, "fome general principles ❝ of every science he who can talk only on "one subject, or act only in one department, is "feldom wanted, and, perhaps, never wished "for; while the man of general knowledge "can often benefit, and always please." This advice Johnson feems to have pursued with a good inclination. His reading was always defultory, feldom refting on any particular author, but rambling from one book to another, and, by hafty fnatches, hoarding up a variety of knowledge. It may be proper in this place to mention another general rule laid down by Ford for Johnson's future conduct: "You will "make your way the more eafily in the world, 66 as you are contented to difpute no man's claim to converfation-excellence: they will, "therefore, more willingly allow your preten. "fions as a writer." "But," fays Mrs. Piozzi, “the features of peculiarity, which mark "a character to all fucceeding generations, are "flow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with her ufual vivacity, "Can one, on such an occafion, forbear recol lecting 66 lecting the predictions of Boileau's father, "who faid, ftroking the head of the young ❝ fatirift, this little man has too much wit, "but he will never fpeak ill of any one' ?" On Johnson's return from Cornelius Ford, Mr. Hunter, then Mafter of the Free-school at Lichfield, refused to receive him again on that foundation. At this diftance of time, what his reasons were, it is vain to enquire; but to refuse affiftance to a lad of promifing genius must be pronounced harsh and illiberal, It did not, however, ftop the progrefs of the young ftudent's education. He was placed at another school, at Stourbridge in Worcesterfhire, under the care of Mr. Wentworth, Having gone through the rudiments of claffic literature, he returned to his father's house, and was probably intended for the trade of a bookfeller. He has been heard to fay that he could bind a book. At the end of two years, being then about nineteen, he went to affift the ftudies of a young gentleman, of the name of Corbet, to the Univerfity of Oxford; and on the 31st of October, 1728, both were entered of Pembroke College; Corbet as a gentleman commoner, |