LIFE AND CONVERSATIONS

OF

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

CHAPTER I.

PARENTAGE-SCHOOL-DAYS

(1709-1726).

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, 1709. His parents were Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, and Sarah Ford, descended from an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. The following romantic but well-authenticated circumstance in Michael Johnson's early life is worth recording. While he was serving his apprenticeship at Leek, in Staffordshire, a young woman fell passionately in love with him. Although the affection was not returned she followed him to Lichfield, where he had settled as a bookseller and stationer, and took lodgings opposite to the house in which he stayed. When told that the young woman's mind was beginning to give way under the weight of this unrequited affection, Michael generously went to her and made her an offer of marriage; but it was too late. She actually died of love. She was buried in the cathedral of Lichfield; and he, with tender regard, placed a stone over her grave with this inscription:

B

PARENTAGE.

HERE LIES THE BODY OF

MRS. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a Stranger:

She departed this Life

20th of September, 1694.

What pathos, and how many sad and kindly regrets, would seem to have got crowded into the two simple words-" a stranger!" Michael Johnson was a man of large and robust body, and of a mind to match; but there must have been tender fibres in his heart as well; for no one can call forth so much love as this without giving forth much that is loveable. Notwithstanding the tragic result in the young woman's case, it is pleasant to be able to record a little incident like that in the career of the father of a man who is mistakenly supposed to have had but few soft places in his own heart.

Michael, though he may be said to have had his most fixed abode at Lichfield, made occasional visits, in the way of business, to several towns in the neighbourhood. In Birmingham, for example, he used to set up a stall on every market-day; for, out of London, booksellers' shops were few and far between in those days. Old Mr. Johnson thus became pretty widely known, and wherever he was known he was respected highly. Here is an extract from a letter written by Lord Gower's chaplain, and dated "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." This was as it should have been with the father of a man like Samuel Johnson, who inherited not only the strong liking for books but also the desire and the power to spread his knowledge of them abroad. The son's public was destined to be a far larger one, but perhaps it has scarcely proved more enthusiastic or more grateful, than that for which the father worked.

Johnson's mother appears to have been a sensible and pious woman, but not at all bookish. One of Samuel's schoolfellows, when asked if she was not vain of her son, said, "She had too

much good sense to be vain, but she knew her son's value." And as regards her piety, Johnson himself once mentioned that he remembered distinctly hearing his mother tell him, when a little child in bed with her, that Heaven was "a place to which good people went," and Hell "a place to which bad people went." This was the first time he had ever heard of either; and, to fix the information the better in his memory, she had sent the child to repeat what she had told him to Thomas Jackson, their man-servant. Much of what afterwards shot up in various forms in Johnson's later life must have had its seed-time in those bedroom instructions whispered to the child Samuel in the silence of the night.

Notwithstanding the sterling qualities of both parents they do not seem to have worked very well together. "My father and mother," says Johnson, "had not much happiness from each other. They seldom conversed: for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs; and my mother, being unacquainted with books, cared not to talk of anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better companions. She might have sometimes introduced her unwelcome topic with more success, if she could have diversified her conversation. Of business she had no distinct conception; and therefore her discourse was composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. Neither of them ever tried to calculate the profits of trade or the expenses of living. My mother concluded that we were poor, because we lost by some of our trades; but the truth was, that my father having in the early part of his life contracted debts, never had trade sufficient to enable him to pay them, and to maintain his family; he got something, but not enough. It was not till about 1768, that I thought to calculate the returns of my father's trade, and, by that estimate, his probable profits. This I believe my parents never did."

Johnson, in his youth, was much afflicted with the scrofula or king's evil, a distemper which he is absurdly said to have caught from his nurse. This disease had at one time rendered him almost blind; and for many years one of his eyes remained quite useless, though there was nothing peculiar about its appearance to

mark the fact. Among his "Prayers and Meditations" there is one inscribed, "When my EYE was restored to its use," thus indicating a defect which the very closest scrutiny would have failed to perceive. He was near-sighted, but by no means dull-sighted, all his life. At the age of thirty months he had been taken to London to be touched for the evil by Queen Anne: Boswell naïvely remarks that "the touch was of no effect." Being asked, in after life, if he remembered the Queen, Johnson said "he had a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn, recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood." It must not be forgotten that he wanted six months of being three years old at this period. Few persons, we should think, can see any object standing out as distinctly so far along "the dark backward and abysm of time."

Johnson's first place of instruction was a Dame School taught by a widow named Oliver. A servant used to be sent to school to conduct him safely home; but one day it happened that the attendant did not arrive in time, so that Samuel had to set out on his return journey alone. The schoolmistress, however, followed him at a distance, keeping him in view all the way. The difficulties of the march were by no means contemptible; for the little fellow was then so short-sighted that he had to stoop down on his hands and knees to see the kennel before he dared venture to step over it. Yet he strode manfully forward, until, happening to turn round, he observed the Dame dogging him in the rear. This was a slight upon his power of self-government which was not to be borne: he ran back and beat her fiercely with his puny little fists. This stern determination to go alone, and this tendency to beat people who should offend him, remained as master-principles throughout all his future life; so true is it that

"Childhood shows the man

As morning shows the day."

His next teacher was a master, whom he used familiarly to style Tom Brown, adding, "he published a spelling book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE; but I fear no copy of it can now be had" reminding one of the work which some French author had dedicated to POSTERITY, and of which Voltaire quietly remarked that it was "a letter which would never be delivered."

He learned his first Latin with Mr. Hawkins, usher of Lichfield school; "a man," he said, "very skilful in his little way." Two years afterwards he passed into the hands of Mr. Hunter, the head-master, who, according to Johnson's own account, "was very severe, and wrongheadedly severe. He used," said he, "to beat

us unmercifully; and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence; for he would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as for neglecting to know it. He would ask a boy a question, and if he did not answer it, he would beat him, without considering whether he had an opportunity of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he would call up a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not expect to be asked. Now, sir, if a boy could answer every question, there would be no need of a master to teach him." But Hunter was a good Latin scholar, and Johnson was obliged to confess that his severity was often needed in his own case. "My master whipt me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing." With every thrash of the cane, moreover, there came thundering down on the cowering victim's head the terrible words, "And this I do to save you from the gallows." Who knows, then, if, but for the stern Hunter's many floggings, this most distinguished pupil of his might not even now have been figuring in the Newgate Calendar, instead of on the pages of classic literature? But Hunter had reason to be proud of his scholar; for Johnson was the un. disputed intellectual monarch of the Institution. His fellowpupils also readily acknowledged this supremacy; so much so that three faithful slaves used to come of a morning and carry him to school,-which was no joke, as the future Doctor was already beginning to give no uncertain signs of the renowned bulk of body that was to be. He engaged very little in the ordinary sports of the boys, his only amusement being, in the winter-time, to be pulled along the ice with a string tied round his body and guided by a bare-footed lad running before him.

All this while the child's religious instruction had been faithfully and fondly, if not in every respect judiciously, superintended by his mother. "Sunday," says he, "was a heavy day to me when I was a boy. My mother confined me on that day, and made me