read 'The Whole Duty of Man,' from a great part of which I could derive no instruction. When, for instance, I had read the chapter on theft, which, from my infancy I had been taught was wrong, I was no more convinced that theft was wrong than before; so there was no accession of knowledge." He further adds, "I fell into an inattention to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year. The church at Lichfield, in which we had a seat, wanted reparation, so I was to go and find a seat in other churches; and having bad eyes, and being awkward about this, I used to go and read in the fields on Sunday. This habit continued till my fourteenth year: I then became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it." But what Keats says of poetry is equally true of religion: the genius of religion must work out its own salvation in a man. And although this side of Johnson's nature would thus appear to have been, during his boyhood, developed less wisely and harmoniously than could have been desired, it ought not to be doubted, at the same time, that it was the great but simple truths instilled into his infant heart that kept the religious feeling alive in him through all his future life; and that was the one thing needful with him, as it is with us all. Here is a little extract from one of those diaries which he seems to have kept from his cradle almost. It is dated October, 1719, when he was a lad only ten years old :—“ Desidiae valedixi; sirenis istius cantibus surdam posthac aurem obversurus.” [I have said farewell to sloth, and mean henceforth to turn a deaf ear to her syren strains.] Such a manly little resolution from a mere child must have sprung from something quite as healthful and strong as any religious impulse could well be imagined to be.

After an interval spent at the house of a relative, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, sent to Stourbridge school, in Worcestershire. Mr. Wentworth, the master, was, he said, "a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very severe; but I cannot blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did not reverence him, and that he should get no honour by me. I had brought enough with me to carry me through; and all I should get at his school would be ascribed to my own labour, or to my former master. Yet he taught me a great deal." Of the difference in the kind of pro

gress made at the two schools he himself used to speak thus: "At one, I learned much in the school, but little from the master; in the other, I learned much from the master, but little in the school."

In the midst of so much desultory occupation and idleness it would be indeed strange not to find some little love-makings on the part of our youthful Samuel. These were numerous about this time-many but transient. At Stourbridge school, for example, he had been caught by a certain Olivia Lloyd, a quaker young lady, to whom he addressed a copy of verses. The verses have been lost, but they doubtless did their work upon the fair one's heart. In default of the missing love-lay take the following, written later, but presumably very much of a piece with the lost strains:

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."

Verses like these would not, it is to be feared, kindle any very ecstatic raptures in the breasts of most of the young ladies of our time; nevertheless we must try to do them justice. The day of Philanders and Melissas has gone for ever; but it was a good day enough so long as it lasted, and for the men and women who lived in it. Our love-poetry, indeed, moves to a very different music, fired with the lyric passion of Burns, or beating with Shelley's heart-throbs too mighty for words to express. Yet,

although we vastly prefer our own, and ourselves for being able to appreciate it, "would it not be rash to conclude that there was NO passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the thin music of a mandolin?" The poets of Johnson's time, himself included, seem to have been able to play with a feeling which quite masters us; yet they played with it fondly, and kindly, and tenderly, and as if they even reverenced it too, in their own way. All things are not given to every man, nor to every age.

Johnson had now reached his seventeenth year, when he left school for ever, and returned home to Lichfield.

The picture of young Samuel during these early school-days is that of a lad of rough but strong-built frame; with a countenance not naturally uncomely, but disfigured by disease; with sharp though near-sighted eyes, and a rather ungainly manner and appearance; reading voraciously all sorts of books, but feeding chiefly in the fields of chivalrous romance and poetry; poring over "Hamlet in his own little room until the ghost-scene frightens him off to bed; neglecting his proper work to do the exercises of his fellow-pupils; sauntering away the vacation-hours in the fields, with a companion or without; and always talking, talking, oftener to himself than to his companions; seldom or never punished by his masters except for talking and distracting the attention of his neighbours; learning without the slightest difficulty what costs others a world of labour; doing his own work so easily that he often seems to others, and even to himself, to be doing nothing at all; wearing both his powers and his clothes so loosely that he can shuffle them off and on without any tugging or straining; ambitious to excel, yet too indolent to exert his full energies except by starts; always desultory, yet always storing up; letting long spells of work alternate with strong fits of idleness, but laying a sure foundation all the while for the massive superstructure of his after-life: a lad in whom a good eye can discern the makings of a great man; for "the Man is only the Boy writ large, and with an extensive commentary."

REPOSE.

9

CHAPTER II.

REPOSE-AT COLLEGE-ON THE WORLD.

(1726—1734).

AFTER his return from Stourbridge school Johnson spent two years at home, in comparative idleness, which was nevertheless fruitful. He read a great deal in an irregular sort of way, but, having formed no settled plan of life, his studies were naturally desultory and unsystematic. His reading was not confined to "light literature,” as it is called, "not voyages and travels, but all literature, sir, all ancient writers, all manly." In after days he was wont to speak of this period of his life as a deplorably idle and barren one; yet he generally concluded his account by saying, "I would not have you think I was doing nothing then." And the truth is, he was doing much; he was amassing riches which were afterwards to be scattered abroad; he was storing up food against the coming hours of famine and distress. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"-and the good. On the truth of this maxim Samuel Johnson reposed for the space of two whole years. And it is good to lie by in this way till the call make itself distinctly heard. These quiet listening years are not time misspent ; for—

"They also serve, who only stand and wait."

At the age of nineteen he left Lichfield for Oxford University, and was entered a commoner of Pembroke College on the 31st of October, 1728. Just before leaving home, his old schoolmistress, Dame Oliver, hearing that he was about to take his departure, had paid him a farewell visit, and, in the simplicity of her heart, had brought him a present of gingerbread as the fittest

token of goodwill which she could think of. In after years, Johnson was fond of retailing this little incident, and used laughingly to say "that this was as high a proof of his merit as he could have received." His father accompanied him to Oxford, and, in presenting his son to the University Magnates, was loud in the praises of his boy. Johnson's figure and manner, indeed, occasioned some surprise; but his modesty and respectful behaviour in their presence made a favourable impression on the company. In the course of conversation, also, he had an opportunity of evidencing the great amount of his reading; and Doctor Adams, the Master of the College, afterwards told him that he was "the best qualified for the University that he had ever known come there."

Of his tutor here, Mr. Jorden, he once gave the following account :-" He was a very worthy man, but a heavy man, and I did not profit much by his instructions. Indeed, I did not attend him much. The first day after I came to college, I waited upon him, and then stayed away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered, I had been sliding in Christ-Church meadow and this I said with as much nonchalance as I am now talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor." BOSWELL: "That, sir, was great fortitude of mind.” JOHNSON: "No, sir, stark insensibility."

But if Mr. Jorden's intellect did not inspire reverence in his pupil, his goodness of heart awoke in him true love. "Whenever," said Johnson, "a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he becomes his son." And, perhaps, it is proper to direct attention thus early to the fact that Johnson had a blunt, honest, manly way of denouncing his own faults which is apt to mislead a hasty reader and to be taken as meaning too much. If there ever lived a man who is to be taken, not at his own valuation, but greatly above it, that man was Samuel Johnson. He was always his own severest critic; and such an one has very little to fear from the harsh judgments of others. More, perhaps, than any other feature of his character it is this constant and strict habit of self-castigation in matters pertaining to the conscience, that makes