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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

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