xxxv. The Princess languishes for Want of Pekuah. xxxvi. Pekuah is still remembered. The Progress of Sorrow XXXVII. The Princess hears News of Pekuah XXXVIII. The Adventures of the Lady Pekuah XLI. The Astronomer discovers the Cause of his Uneasiness XLII. The Opinion of the Astronomer is explained and justified XLIII. The Astronomer leaves Imlac his Directions. XLIV. The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination XLV. They discourse with an Old Man. XLVI. The Princess and Pekuah visit the Astronomer XLVII. The Prince enters, and brings a New Topic SAMUEL JOHNSON. INO the London newspapers of March, 1712, may be found a notice that Queen Anne, on certain appointed days, will "touch" for the king's-evil, or scrofula. That announcement was made in accordance with the ancient belief that the English sovereigns possessed the power of removing some forms of disease by placing their hands on the patient's head and uttering the words, "The king toucheth thee; may God cure thee." Among those who went to the palace to get help of this kind was Michael Johnson, a bookseller of Lichfield, who carried up his little son, Samuel, a feeble, sickly child of three, half-blind with a humor of the eyes. Though so young, yet the event made an indelible impression on the boy's mind, so that, he says, he always retained "a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood." The ceremony, however, seems to have had no perceptible effect, but time brought some relief; and at the age of sixteen the lad had grown to be a large-framed, awkward young fellow, who cared much more for the society of the books he found on the shelves of his father's shop than for that of boys of his own age. As this thirst for learning increased, his father began to think of giving him an education, and as an opportunity offered to send him to Oxford, the young man, who had now reached nineteen, entered Pembroke College, where, in the humble position of servitor, or table-waiter, he received his instruction free and some little pecuniary assistance besides. The pittance, however, could hardly keep him in clothes, but as he was too high-spirited to accept what he did not earn, he wore his ragged scholar's gown without complaint, and, as the story goes, when a charitable fellowstudent, noticing his worn shoes, secretly placed a new pair at his door, he indignantly pitched them out of the window. Perhaps he saw in mental vision that the day was coming when he would do more for the college than the college had been able to do for him, and when his statue, carved in stone, would be set up where we now see it, over the entrance of the place where he patiently suffered and as patiently studied. Poverty compelled Johnson to leave college before graduation. On his father's death he found himself launched upon the world, with a total cash capital of a hundred dollars, but having neither trade nor profession. For a time he tried teaching; then, as that brought in next to nothing, he drifted to London, where for some weeks he lived on nine cents a day, and for lodging, took, as they say, "the key of the street" and walked about all night. After a while, however, he made the acquaintance of a printer, named Cave, who had a small place over St. John's Gate, where he published the "Gentleman's Magazine," which is to-day entering on its hundred and fiftyfifth year, and enjoys the dignity of being the oldest publication of the kind in the English language. Sitting in that oak-panelled room, above the archway, SAMUEL JOHNSON. vii concealed by a screen, in order that no chance-comer should spy out his poverty, Johnson worked all day writing imaginary parliamentary speeches, often far better than the real ones, and doing such other literary labor as his employer required. Poems, plays, essays, political pamphlets full of red-hot Toryism came thick and fast from his pen. At night, when work was over, he met his friends, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Boswell, and passed the evening in talking like an oracle, while they silently listened, and the last eagerly took notes. Not satisfied with all this, in 1747 he undertook a far more arduous work, and one for which we are all indebted to him; for who is there who does not have occasion to consult that sturdy volume where everything can be found, at least in name, the dictionary? On that great task he toiled incessantly for eight years, thus laying the foundation on which Worcester and Webster were to build in our day. In the beginning he was encouraged to believe that Lord Chesterfield would assist him; but the years rolled on, and not till all was finished did his lordship offer to do anything. Then Johnson blazed out in that famous letter in which he says: "The notice you have here been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it." That was in 1755. Four years later Johnson met with a great grief, he lost her whom he called "the best mother and the best woman in the world." Though he had achieved fame he was still poor. His mother had died in extreme old age and had not left enough even to bury her. Johnson had no way of getting the money for the funeral expenses except by his pen. He shut himself up, set resolutely to work, and in a week had finished the story of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. But one event in the author's life can compare with this in pathetic interest, and that is his pilgrimage, when an old man, to the village of Uttoxeter, in order that he might stand bareheaded for an hour in the crowded public square, to do penance for having disobeyed his father fifty years before, in refusing to go there for him, to sell books at a little stall on market-day. The writing of "Rasselas" seems to have been a turning-point in Johnson's career. Not long after, King George III. offered him a pension of fifteen hundred dollars a year, and his friends, the Thrales, made life bright for him with their hospitable welcome. His last years he spent helping a number of poor and sick people, whom he gathered under his own roof. He died in 1784 and was buried in that corner of Westminster Abbey, where so many poets and men of letters are gathered. With this brief sketch we introduce the reader to the Prince of Abyssinia and his companions, hoping that this little book shall help him to discover that marvellous secret for which he with certain other inhabitants of the Happy Valley sought so long and so earnestly. D. H. M. |