frequently at the house of Dr. Swinfen, a gentleman of very ancient family in Staffordshire, from which, after the death of his elder brother, he inherited a good estate. He was, besides, a physician of very extensive practice; but for want of due attention to the management of his domestic concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of his daughters, Mrs. Desmoulins, afterwards found an asylum in the house of her old friend, whose doors were always open to the unfortunate, and who well observed the precept of the Gospel, for he was kind to the unthankful and to the evil."" Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr. Hector to pass some time with him at Birmingham, as his guest, at the house of Mr. Warren, with whom Mr. Hector lodged and boarded. Mr. Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade, by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the newspaper of which Warren was proprietor. After very diligent inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early specimens of that particular mode of writing by which Johnson after In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicester-wards so greatly distinguished himself. shire, to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that he went on foot, on the 16th of July." Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes petii." But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he was assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has been honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd,* who was his scholar; for Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730,† more than a year before Johnson left the University. This employment was very irksome to him in every respect, and he complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend, Mr. Hector, who was now settled as a surgeon at Birmingham. The letters are lost; but Mr. Hector recollects his writing "that the poet had described the dull sameness of his existence in these words, ' Vitam continet una dies' (one day contains the whole of my life); that it was unvaried as the note of the cuckoo; and that he did not know whether it was more disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules." His general aversion to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a disagreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the school, in whose house, I have been told, he officiated as a kind of domestic chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness; and, after suffering for a few months such complicated misery, he relinquished a situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aversion, and eva a degree of horror. But it is probable that at this period, whatever uneasines he may have endured, he laid the foundation of much future eminence by application to his studies. There is here (as Mr. James Boswell observes to me) a slight inaccuracy. Bishop Hurd, in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to his "Commentary on Horace's Art of Poetry," &c., does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, Head Master of the Grammar School at Brewood, in Staffordshire, who had himself been bred under Blackwall. See vol. iv., near the end, where, from the information of Mr. John Nichols, Johnson is said to have applied in 1736 to Mr. Budworth, to be received by him as an assistant in his school in Staffordshire. MALONE. + See "Gentleman's Magazine," December, 1784, P. 957. BOSWELL. It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, which I have read, dated Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house recently before that letter was written. He then had hopes of succeeding, either as master or usher, in the school of Ashbourne.MALONE. He continued to live as Mr. Hector's guest for about six months, and then hired lodgings in another part of the town,* finding himself as well situated at Birmingham as he supposed he could be any where, while he had no settled plan of life, and very scanty means of subsistence. He made some valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom were Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards married, and Mr. Taylor, who by his ingenuity in mechanical inventions, and his success in trade, acquired an immense fortune. But the comfort of being near Mr. Hector, his old schoolfellow and intimate friend, was Johnson's chief inducement to continue here. In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or whether he derived from it any pecuniary advantage, I have not been able to ascertain. He probably got a little money from Mr. Warren; and we are certain that he executed here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr. Hector has favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned that he had read at Pembroke College a "Voyage to Abyssinia," by Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, and that he thought an abridgment and translation of it from the French into English might be an useful and profitable publication, Mr. Warren and Mr. Hector joined in urging him to undertake it. He accordingly agreed; and the book not being to be found in Birmingham, he borrowed it of Pembroke College. A part of the work being very soon done, one Osborn, who was Mr. Warren's printer, was set to work with what was ready, and Johnson engaged to supply the press with copy as it should be wanted, but his constitutional indolence soon prevailed, and the work was at a stand. Mr. Hector, who knew that a motive of humanity would be the most prevailing argument with his friend, went to Johnson, and represented to him, that the printer could have no other employment till this undertaking was finished, and that the poor man and his family were suffering. Johnson, upon this, exerted the powers of his mind, though his body was relaxed. He lay in bed with the book, which was a quarto, before him, and dictated while Hector wrote. rected almost all the proof sheets, very few of Hector carried the sheets to the press, and corwhich were ever seen by Johnson. In this maa Mr. * Sir John Hawkins states, from one of Johnson's diaries, that in June, 1733, he lodged in Birmingham at the house of a person named Jarvis, probably a relation of Mrs. Porter, whom he afterwards married.-MALONE, ner, with the aid of Mr. Hector's active friendship, the book was completed, and was published in 1735, with London upon the title-page, though it was in reality printed at Birmingham, a device too common with provincial publishers. For this work, he had from Mr. Warren only the sum of five guineas. with irremediable barrenness, or blest with spontaneous fecundity; no perpetual gloom, or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described, either devoid of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private or social virtues. Here are no Hottentots without religious policy or articulate language; no Chinese perfectly This being the first prose work of Johnson, it is polite, and completely skilled in all sciences; he a curious object of inquiry how much may be will discover, what will always be discovered by traced in it of that style which marks his subse-a diligent and impartial inquirer, that wherever quent writings with such peculiar excellence; human nature is to be found, there is a mixture with so happy an union of force, vivacity, and of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and perspicuity. have perused the book with this reason; and that the Creator doth not appear view, and have found that here, as I believe in partial in his distributions, but has balanced, in every other translation, there is in the work itself most countries, their particular inconveniences by no vestige of the translator's own style; for the particular favours." language of translation being adapted to the thoughts of another person, insensibly follows their cast, and as it were runs into a mould that is ready prepared. Thus, for instance, taking the first sentence that occurs at the opening of the book, p. 4:"I lived here above a year, and completed my studies in divinity; in which time some letters were received from the fathers of Ethiopia, with an account that Sultan Segned, Emperor of Abyssinia, was converted to the church of Rome; that many of his subjects had followed his example, and that there was a great want of missionaries to improve these prosperous beginnings. Every body was very desirous of seconding the zeal of our fathers, and of sending them the assistance they requested; to which we were the more encouraged, because the Emperor's letter informed our Provincial that we might easily enter his dominions by the way of Dancala; but, unhappily, the secretary wrote Geila for Dancala, which cost two of our fathers their lives." Every one acquainted with Johnson's manner will be sensible that there is nothing of it here; but that this sentence might have been composed by any other man. But, in the Preface, the Johnsonian style begins to appear; and though use had not yet taught his wing a permanent and equable flight, there are parts of it which exhibit his best manner in full vigour. I had once the pleasure of examining it with Mr. Edmund Burke, who confirmed me in this opinion, by his superior critical sagacity, and was, I remember, much delighted with the following specimen : "The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantic absurdity, or incredible fictions; whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who cannot contradict him. "He appears by his modest and unaffected narration, to have described things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to have consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their prey without tears, and his cataracts fall from the rocks with out deafening the neighbouring inhabitants. "The reader will here find no regions cursed Here we have an early example of that brilliant and energetic expression, which, upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life, justly impressed the world with the highest admiration. Nor can any one, conversant with the writings of Johnson, fail to discern his hand in this passage of the Dedication to John Warren, Esq., of Pem brokeshire, though it is ascribed to Warren the bookseller. "A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity; nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations. I hope, therefore, the present I now presume to make will not be thought improper, which, however, it is not my business as a dedicator to commend, nor as a bookseller to depreciate." It is reasonable to suppose, that his having been thus accidentally led to a particular study of the history and manners of Abyssinia, was the remote occasion of his writing, many years afterwards, his admirable philosophical tale, the principal scene of which is laid in that country.† Johnson returned to Lichfield early in 1734, and in August that year he made an attempt to procure some little subsistence by his pen; for he published proposals for printing by subscription the Latin Poems of "Politian; Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus, Notas cum historid Latina poeseos & Petrarcha avo ad Politiani tempora deducta, et vità Politiani fusius quam antehac enarrata, addidit SAM. JOHNSON.§ It appears that his brother Nathaniel had taken up his father's trade; for it is mentioned that "subcriptions are taken in by the Editor, or N. Johnson, bookseller, of Lichfield." Nothwithstanding the merit of Johnson, and the cheap price at which this book was offered, there were not subscribers enough to ensure a sufficient sale; so the work never appeared, and probably, never was executed. See "Rambler," No. 103, "Curiosity is the thirst of the soul," &c.-BOSWELL. +"Rasselas." May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus PelisAngelo Politiano, deformitatem oris excellentis ingeni sonius Fontanerius, says, "in quo Natura, ut olim in præstantia compensavit." Comment. de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel., 1718, p. 200.-BOSWELL. the price to be two shillings and sixpence at the time of The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, subscribing, and two shillings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires.-BOSWELL Nov. 25, 1734. "As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defects of your poetical article, you will not be displeased, if, in order to the improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of a person, who will undertake on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a column. "His opinion is, that the public would not give you a bad reception, if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical examination would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you admitted not only poems, inscriptions, &c., never printed before, which he will sometimes supply you with, but likewise short literary dissertations in Latin or English, critical remarks on authors, ancient or modern, forgotten poems, that deserve revival, or loose pieces, like Floyer's,† worth serving. By this method, your literary article, for so it might be called, will, he thinks, be better recommended to the public than by low jests, awkward buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party. pre "If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts, what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. Your late offert gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the advantage of what I should hint. Your letter by being directed to S. Smith, to be left at the Castle, in Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach "Your humble servant." +Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. "Gentleman's Magazine," 1734, p. 197.-BOSWELL. A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem "on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.' See "Gentle man's Magazine," vol. iv. p. 560.-NICHOLS. He also wrote some amatory verses, before he left Staffordshire, which our author appears not to have seen. They were addressed "To Miss Hickman, playing on the Spinet." At the back of this early poetical effusion, of which the original copy, in Johnson's handwriting, was obligingly communicated to me by Mr. John Taylor, is the following attestation: "Written by the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, on my could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines which he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector: VERSES to a LADY, on receiving from her a SPRIG of MYRTLE. "What hopes, what terrors does thy gift create, however, very transient; and it is certain, that His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, he formed no criminal connection whatsoever. Mr. Hector, who lived with him in his younger mother, then Miss Hickman, playing on the Spinet. J. Turton." Dr. Turton, the physician, the writer of this certificate, who died in April, 1806, in his 71st year, was born in 1735. The verses in question therefore, which have been printed in some late editions of Johnson's poems, must have been written before that year.-Miss Hickman, it is believed, was a lady of Staffordshire. The concluding lines of this early copy of verses have much of the vigour of Johnson's poetry in his maturer years: "When old Timotheus struck the vocal string, * Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him. "I think it is now, just forty years ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot: and when he called for his lines at the time agreed onSit still a moment,' says I, dear Mund, and I'll fetch them thee-so stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about."—Anecdotes, p. 34. In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield: "I know those verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the Verses Dr. Johnson gave her On a Sprig of Myrtle' which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended for her." Such was this lady's statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it shows how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson days in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect; and that though he loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but once. In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation and totally concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's death.* Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her mother, his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, "this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life." He Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson,+ and her person and manner, as de I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a lady who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge than to persevere. Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of "The Myrtle," with the date on it, 1731, which I have enclosed. "The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows:-Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He showed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. "I most solemnly declare, at that time, Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my clothes of. "If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the public the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement. "I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing you multos et felices annos, I shall subscribe myself Your obliged humble servant, "E. HECTOR, "Birmingham, Jan. 9, 1794."-BOSWELL. It appears, from Mr. Hector's letter, that Johnson became acquainted with her three years before he married her.-MALONE. +Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Jervis.-Though there was a great disparity of years between her and Dr. * scribed to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary passion; and she having signified her wilJohnson, she was not quite so old as she is here represented, having only completed her forty-eighth year in the month of February preceding her marriage, as appears by the following extract from the parish register of Great Peat. ling, in Leicestershire, which was obligingly made, at my request, by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Ryder, Rector of Lutterworth in that county: "Anno Dom. 1688-9. Elizabeth, the daughter of William Jervis, Esq., and Mrs. Anne, his wife, born the fourth day of February and mané, baptised 16th day of the same month by Mr. Smith, Curate of Little Peatling. John Allen, Vicar." The family of Jervis, Mr. Ryder informs me, once possessed nearly the whole lordship of Great Peatling (about 2000 acres), and there are many monuments of them in the church; but the estate is now much reduced. The present representative of this ancient famliy is Mr. Charles Jervis, of Hinckley, Attorney-at-Law.-MALONE. from the epitaph which he caused to be inscribed on her That in Johnson's eyes she was handsome, appears tombstone not long before his own death, and which may be found in a subsequent page, under the year 1752. MALONE. family, is copied from a paper (chiefly relating to Mrs. + The following account of Mrs. Johnson and her Anna Williams) written by Lady Knight, at Rome, and transmitted by her to the late John Hoole, Esq., the translator of "Metastasio," &c., by whom it was inserted in the "European Magazine," for October, 1799: "Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding, and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage, perhaps because they, being struggling to get advanced in life, were mortified to think she had allied herself to a man who had not any visible means of being useful to them; however, she always retained her affection for them. While they [Dr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough Square, her son, the officer, knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home. She answered, 'Yes, sir, but she is sick in bed.' 'Oh,' says he, if it's so, tell her that her son Jervis called to know how she did;' and was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress, and, without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to embrace him. When the maid descended, the gentleman was gone, and poor Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure: it was the only time he ever made an effort to see her. Dr. Johnson did all he could to console his wife, but told Mrs. Williams, 'Her son is uniformly undutiful; so I conclude, like many other sober men, he might, once in his life, be drunk, and in that fit nature got the better of his pride." The following anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are recorded by the same lady: "One day that he came to my house to meet many others, we told him that we had arranged our party to go to Westminster Abbey: would not he go with us? No,' he replied, not while I can keep out. in great fear lest she should make a certain match, he Upon our saying that the friends of a lady had been said, 'We that are his friends have had great fears for him.' "Dr. Johnson's political principles ran high, both in Church and State; he wished power to the King and to the Heads of the Church, as the laws of England have established; but I know he disliked absolute power; and I am very sure of his disapprobation of the doctrines of the Church of Rome; because, about three weeks before we came abroad, he said to my Cornelia, 'You are going where the ostentatious pomp of Church ceremonies attracts the imagination; but, if they want to persuade you to change, you must remember, that by increasing your faith, you may be persuaded to become Turk.' It these were not the words, I have kept up to the express | meaning."-MALONE. lingness to accept of his hand, he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on account of their disparity of years, and her want of fortune. But Mrs. Johnson knew too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too tender a parent to oppose his inclinations. I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good humour. But though Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to mention Johnson's having told him with much gravity, "Sir, it was a love marriage on both sides," I have heard from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn [9th July]:-"Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me: and, when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.' This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of connubial felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson, though he thus showed a manly firmness, proved a most affectionate and indulgent husband to the last moments of Mrs. Johnson's life and in his "Prayers and Meditations," we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her never ceased, even after her death. violent irruptions into the regions of knowledge; "Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by "a mind at ease," a mind at once calm and clear: but that a mind gloomy and impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of time in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and error in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage to the pupils. Good temper is a most essential requisite in a Horace paints the character as preceptor. bland: Johnson was not more satisfied with his situation as the master of an academy, than with that of the usher of a school; we need not wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy above a year and a half. From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities He now set up a private academy, for which of manner and uncouth gesticulations, could not purpose he hired a large house, well situated near but be the subject of merriment to them; and in his native city. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" particular, the young rogues used to listen at the for 1736, there is the following advertisement :- door of his bedchamber, and peep through the At EDIAL, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnkey-hole, that they might turn into ridicule his young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHN-pellation of Tetty or Tetsey, which, like Betty or son, whom he used to name by the familiar ap SON. " But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune who died early. As yet his name had nothing of that celebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the publication of his "London," or his "Rambler, or his "" Dictionary," how would it have burst upon the world! with what eagerness would the great and the wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of SAMUEL JOHNSON. The truth, however, is, that he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements, and a conductor in learning by regular gradations, as men of inferior powers of mind. His own acquisitions had been made by fits and starts, by Betsey, is provincially used as a contraction for Elizabeth, her Christian name, but which to us seems ludicrous, when applied to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr. Garrick described her to me as very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks, of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastic in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. I have seen Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimicry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter; but he, probably, as is the case in all such representations, considerably aggravated the picture. That Johnson well knew the most proper course to be pursued in the instruction of youth, is authentically ascertained by the following paper in his own handwriting, given about this C |