Section 1 of the Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1. The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 by James Boswell. Section 1. Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds My dear sir, Every liberal motive that can actuate an author in the dedication of his labours concurs in directing me to you as the person to whom the following work should be inscribed. If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity, not altogether inexcusable, and appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the art over which you have long presided with unrivaled fame, but also in philosophy and elegant literature is well known to the present and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious. All these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flattery, describe to you. If a man may indulge in honest pride in having it known to the world that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing myself of the usual privilege of a dedication when I mention that there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us. If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this opportunity, my dear sir, most sincerely to thank you for the many happy hours which I owe to your kindness, for the cordiality with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me as a member of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced me, for the noctis coinachideum which I have enjoyed under your roof. If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it and whose approbation therefore must ensure it credit and success, the work of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man, the friend whom he declared to be the most invulnerable man he knew, whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse. You, my dear sir, studied him and knew him well. You venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition, all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary colossus. Your very warm commendation of the specimen which I gave in my journal of a tour to the Hebrides, of my being able to preserve his conversation in an authentic and lively manner, which opinion the public has confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole of my stores. In one respect, this work will, in some passages, be different from the former. In my tour, I was almost unboundedly open in my communications, and from my eagerness to display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnson's wit freely showed to the world its dexterity, even when I was myself the object of it. I trusted that I should be liberally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, and by no means as simply unconscious of the pointed effects of satire. I own, indeed, that I was arrogant enough to suppose that the tenor of the rest of the book would sufficiently guard me against such a strange imputation. But it seems I judged too well of the world for, though I could scarcely believe it, I have been undoubtedly informed that many persons, especially in distant quarters, not penetrating enough into Johnson's character so as to understand his mode of treating his friends, have arraigned my judgment instead of seeing that I was sensible of all that they could observe. It is related of the great Dr. Clark that, when, in one of his leisure hours, he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner, he observed Beau Nash approaching, upon which he suddenly stopped. My boys, said he, let us be grave.  The world, my friend, I have found to be a great fool, as to that particular on which it has become necessary to speak very plainly. I have, therefore, in this work been more reserved, and though I tell nothing but the truth, I have still kept in my mind that the whole truth is not always to be exposed. This, however, I have managed so as to occasion no diminution of the pleasure which my book should afford, though malignity may sometimes be disappointed of its gratifications. I am, my dear sir, your much obliged friend and faithful, humble servant, James Boswell, London, April 20th, 1791. Advertisement to the first edition. I at last delivered to the world a work which I have long promised, and of which I am afraid too high expectations have been raised. The delay of its publication must be imputed in a considerable degree to the extraordinary zeal which has been shown by distinguished persons in all quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its illustrious subject. Resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient nations of which every individual was eager to throw a stone upon the grave of a departed hero and thus to share in the pious office of erecting an honourable monument to his memory. The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed will hardly be conceived by those who read them with careless facility. The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations were preserved I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with wonder, and I must be allowed to suggest that the nature of the work, in other respects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars all which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain with a scrupulous authenticity, has occasioned a degree of trouble far beyond that of any other species of composition. Were I to detail the books which I have consulted and the inquiries which I have found it necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen of my trouble, that I have sometimes been obliged to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly, which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my discredit. And, after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be surprised if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious severity. I have also been extremely careful as to the exactness of my quotations, holding that there is a respect due to the public, which should oblige every author to attend to this and never to presume to introduce them with I think I have read or, if I remember right, when the originals may be examined. I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have been pleased to favor me with communications and advice in the conduct of my work. But I cannot sufficiently acknowledge my obligations to my friend Mr. Malone, who was so good as to allow me to read to him almost the whole of my manuscript and make such remarks as were greatly for the advantage of the work. Though it is but fair to him to mention that, upon many occasions, I differed from him and followed my own judgment. I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the benefit of his revision when not more than half of the book had passed through the press. But after having completed his very laborious and admirable edition of Shakespeare, for which he generously would accept of no other reward but that fame which he has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his promise of a long wished-for visit to his relations in Ireland. From whence his safe return, Phinebus Atticus, is desired by his friends here, with all the classical order of sik-tidiva-potentasipri, for there is no man in whom more elegant and worthy qualities are united and whose society, therefore, is more valued by those who know him. It is painful for me to think that while I was carrying on this work several of those to whom it would have been most interesting have died. Such melancholy disappointments we know to be incident to humanity, but we do not feel them the less. Let me particularly lament the Reverend Thomas Wharton and the Reverend Dr. Adams. Mr. Wharton, amidst his variety of genius and learning, was an excellent biographer. His contributions to my collection are highly estimable, and as he had a true relish of my tour of the Hebrides, I trust I should now have been gratified with a larger share of his kind approbation. Dr. Adams, eminent as the head of a college, as a writer, and as a most amiable man, had known Johnson from his early years and was his friend through life. What reason I had to hope for the countenance of that venerable gentleman to this work will appear from what he wrote to me upon a former occasion from Oxford, November 17th, 1785. Dear sir, I hazard this letter, not knowing where it will find you, to thank you for your very agreeable tour, which I found here on my return from the country, and in which you have depicted our friend, so perfectly, to my fancy, in every attribute, every scene and situation that I have thought myself in the company and of the party almost throughout. It has given very general satisfaction, and those who have found most fault with a passage here and there, have agreed that they could not help going through and being entertained with the whole. I wish indeed some few gross expressions had been softened, and a few of our hero's foibles had been a little more shaded. But it is useful to see the weaknesses incident to great minds, and you have given us Dr. Johnson's authority that in history all ought to be told. Such a sanction to my faculty of giving a just representation of Dr. Johnson, I could not conceal. Nor will I suppress my satisfaction in the consciousness that by recording so considerable a portion of the wisdom and wit of the brightest ornament of the 18th century I have largely provided for the instruction and entertainment of mankind. London, April 20th, 1791 advertisement to the second edition that I was anxious for the success of a work which had employed much of my time and labour I do not wish to conceal, but whatever doubts I at any time entertained have been entirely removed by the very favourable reception with which it has been honoured. That reception has excited my best exertions to render my book more perfect, and in this endeavour I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular friends but of many other learned and ingenious men by which I have been enabled to rectify some mistakes and to enrich the work with many valuable additions. These I have ordered to be printed separately in quarto for the accommodation of the purchasers of the first edition. May I be permitted to say that the typography of both editions does honour to the press of Mr. Henry Baldwin, now master of the worshipful company of stationers whom I have long known as a worthy man and an obliging friend. In the strangely mixed scenes of human existence our feelings are often at once pleasing and painful. Of this truth the progress of the present work furnishes a striking instance. It was highly gratified to be that my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds to whom it is inscribed, lived to peruse it and to give the strongest testimony to its fidelity. But before a second edition which he contributed to improve could be finished, the world has been deprived of that most valuable man, a loss of which the regret will be deep and lasting and extensive proportionate to the felicity which he diffused through a wide circle of admirers and friends. In reflecting that the illustrious subject of this work by being more extensively and more intimately known, however elevated before, has risen in the veneration and love of mankind, I feel a satisfaction beyond what fame can afford. We cannot indeed too much or too often admire his wonderful powers of mind. When we consider that the principal store of wit and wisdom which this work contains was not a particular selection from his general conversation, but was merely his occasional talk at such times as I had the good fortune to be in his company, and without doubt if his discourse at other periods had been collected with the same attention the whole tenor of what he uttered would have been found equally excellent. His strong, clear and animated enforcement of religion, morality, loyalty and subordination while it delights and improves the wise and the good will, I trust, prove an effectual antidote to that detestable sophistry which has been lately imported from France under the false name of philosophy and with a malignant industry has been employed against the peace, good order and happiness of society in our free and prosperous country. But thanks be to God without producing the pernicious effects which were hoped for by its propagators. It seems to me in my moments of self complacency that this extensive biographical work however inferior in its nature may in one respect be assimilated to the odyssey. Amidst a thousand entertaining and instructive episodes the hero is never long out of sight for they are all in some degree connected with him and he, in the whole course of the history is exhibited by the author for the best advantage of his readers. Quid vertus et quid sapencia possit Ultile proposuit, nobis exemplar, you listen. Should there be any cold-blooded and morose mortals who really dislike this book I will give them a story to apply. When the great Duke of Marlborough accompanied by Lord Categan was one day reconordering the army in Flanders a heavy rain came on and they both called for their cloaks. Lord Categan's servant, a good-humored alert lad brought his lordships in a minute. The Duke's servant, a lazy, sulky dog, was so sluggish that his grace, being wet to the skin, reproved him and had for answer with a grunt a came as fast as a could upon which the Duke calmly said, Categan, I would not for a thousand pounds have that fellow's temper. There are some men, I believe, who have or think they have a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a decorous style of diffidence. But I confess that I am so formed by nature and by habit that to restrain the fusion of delight on having obtained such fame to me would be truly painful. Why then should I suppress it? Why out of the abundance of the heart should I not speak? Let me then mention with a warm but no insolent exultation that I have been regaled with spontaneous praise of my work by many and various persons imminent for their rank, learning, talents, and accomplishments, much of which praise I have under their hands to be reposited in my archives at Uchenlich. An honorable and reverent friend speaking of the favorable reception of my volumes, even in the circles of fashion and elegance, said to me, You have made them all talk, Johnson. Yes, I may add I have Johnsonized the land and I trust they will not only talk but think Johnson. To enumerate those to whom I have been thus indebted would be tediously ostentatious. I cannot, however, but name one whose praise is truly valuable, not only on account of his knowledge and abilities, but on account of the magnificent yet dangerous embassy in which he is now employed which makes everything that relates to him peculiarly interesting. Lord McCartney favored me with his own copy of my book with a number of notes of which I have availed myself. On the first page I found in his lordship's handwriting an inscription of such high commendation that even I, vain as I am, cannot prevail on myself to publish it. July 1, 1793 End of Section 1 Section 2 of the Life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Life of Samuel Johnson Volume 1 by James Boswell Section 2 To write the life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments or his various works, has been equal by few in any age, is an arduous and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task. Had Dr. Johnson written his own life in conformity with the opinion which he has given that every man's life may be best written by himself, had he employed in the preservation of his own history that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that ever was exhibited. But although he at different times in a desultory manner committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into regular composition. Of these memorials a few have been preserved, but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames a few days before his death. As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards of twenty years, as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view, as he was well apprised of these circumstances and from time to time obligingly satisfied my inquiries by communicating to me the incidents of his early years, as I acquired a facility in recollecting and was very assiduous in recording his conversation, of which the extraordinary vigor and vivacity constituted one of the first features of his character, as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him from every quarter where I could discover that they were to be found and have been favoured with the most liberal communications by his friends. I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such a work as this with more advantages independent of literary abilities in which I am not vain enough to compare myself to the great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing. Since my work was announced, several lives and memoirs of Dr. Johnson have been published. The most voluminous of which is one compiled for the booksellers of London by Sir John Hawking's Night, a man whom during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson I never saw in his company, I think, but once. And I am sure not above twice. Note, the greater part of this book was written whilst Sir John Hawking's was alive and I avowed that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work, but though I would not war with the dead offensively, I think it necessary to be strenuous in defence of my illustrious friend, which I cannot be without strong animad versions upon a writer who has greatly injured him. Let me add that though I doubt I should not have been very prompt to gratify Sir John Hawking's with any compliment in his lifetime, I do now frankly acknowledge that in my opinion his volume, however inadequate and improper as a life of Dr. Johnson and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects contains a collection of curious anecdotes and observations which few men but its author could have brought together. End of note. Johnson might have esteemed him for his decent religious demeanour and his knowledge of books and literary history, but from the rigid formality of his manners it is evident that they never could have lived together with companiable ease and familiarity. Nor had Sir John Hawking's that nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments of a diary and other papers as were left of which before delivering them up to the residuary legacy whose property they were he endeavoured to extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful as I have found upon a perusal of those papers which have been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawking's ponderous labours I must acknowledge exhibit a ferrago of which a considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping, but beside its being swelled out by some unnecessary extracts from various works even one of several leaves from Osborne's Halian catalogue and those not compiled by Johnson but by Aldis. A very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book and in that there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts as in so solemn an author is hardly excusable and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. What is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend who, I trust, will by a true and fair delineation be vindicated both from the injurious misrepresentations of this author and from the slighter aspersions of a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him. There is in the British Museum a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr Birch on the subject of biography which, though I am aware, it may expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work by contrasting it with that of which I have spoken is so well conceived and expressed that I cannot refrain from here inserting it. I shall endeavour, says Dr Warburton, to give you what satisfaction I can in anything you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton and I am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmesieux are indeed strange, insipid creatures and yet I had rather read the worst of them than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's other's life of Wallieu where there is such dull, heavy succession of long quotations of disinteresting passages that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle that every life must be a book and what's worse, it proves a book without a life for what do we know of Wallieu and his tedious stuff. You are the only one and I speak it without a compliment that by the vigor of your style and sentiments and the real importance of your materials of the art, which one could imagine no one could have missed, of adding agreements to the most agreeable subject in the world which is literary history. November the 24th, 1737 Instead of melting down my materials into one mass and constantly speaking in my own person by which I might have appeared to have more merit in the execution of the work I have resolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr Mason in his memoirs of Grey. Wherever narrative is necessary to explain, connect and supply, I furnish it to the best of my abilities but in the chronological series of Johnson's life which I trace as distinctly as I can year by year I produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes, letters or conversation being convinced that this mode is more lively and will make my readers better acquainted with him than even most of those were who actually knew him but can know him only partially whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points by which his character is more fully understood and illustrated. Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order but interweaving what he privately wrote and said and thought by which mankind are enabled, as it were, to see him live and to live or each seen with him as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and ardent as I was he might have been almost entirely preserved. As it is I will venture to say that he will be seen in this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived. And he will be seen as he really was for I profess to write, not his panjeric which must be all praise but his life which great and good as he was must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was is indeed subject of panjeric enough to any man in this state of being. But in every picture there should be shade as well as light and when I delineate him without reserve I do what he himself recommended both by his precept and his example. If the biographer writes from personal knowledge and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude or his tenderness overpower his fidelity and tempt him to conceal if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or feelings of their friends even when they can no longer suffer by their detection. We therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panjeric and not to be known for one another but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. Let me remember, says Hale, when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal that there is likewise a pity due to the country. If we owe regard to the memory of the dead there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue and to truth. What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work is the quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently instructive and entertaining and of which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion have been received with so much approbation that I have good grounds for supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample communications of a similar nature. That the conversation of a celebrated man if his talents have been exerted in conversation will best display his character is, I trust, too well established in the judgment of mankind to be at all shaken by a sneering observation of Mr Mason in his memoirs of Mr William Whitehead in which there is literally no life nor a dry narrative of facts. I do not think it was quite necessary to attempt a depreciation of what is universally esteemed because it was not to be found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's pen for in truth, from a man so still and so tame as to be contented to pass many years as the domestic companion of a superannuated lord and lady conversation could no more be expected than from a Chinese Mandarin on a chimney piece or the fantastic figures on a gilt leather screen. If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers, Greek. And as it always in the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discerned, but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges or the most important battles. To this may be out of the sentiments of the very man whose life I am about to exhibit. The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness. And as it always in the most distinguished achievements or performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies and display the minute details of daily life where exterior appendages are cast aside and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thornus is with great propriety said by its author to have been written that it may lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man. Kujus ingenium et kendorum ex ipsius scriptus sunt aulim semper miraturi whose candor and genius will to the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration. There are many invisible circumstances which, whether we read as inquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science or increase our virtue are more important than public occurrences. Thus Salast, the great master of nature, has not forgotten in his account of Catalan to remark that his walk was now quick and again slow as an indication of a mind revolving with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melanchthon offers a striking lecture on the value of time by informing us that when he had made an appointment he expected not only the hour but the minute to be fixed that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspense. And all the plans and enterprises of Dewitt are now of less importance to the world than that part of his personal character which represents him as careful of his health and negligent of his life. But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little acquainted with the nature of their task or very negligent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected from public papers. But imagine themselves writing a life when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments and have so little regard to the manners or behaviour of their heroes that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral. There are indeed some natural reasons why these narratives are often written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end we may hope for impartiality. But must expect little intelligence for the incidents which give excellence to biography out of a volatile and evanescent kind such as soon escape the memory and are transmitted by tradition. We know how few can portray a living acquaintance except by his most prominent and observable particularities and the grosser features of his mind and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be lost in imparting it and how soon a succession of copies will lose all resemblance of the original. I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conversation and how happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule by men of superficial understanding and ludicrous fancy. But I remain firm and confident in my opinion that my new particulars are frequently characteristic and always amusing when they relate to a distinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that anything however slight which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to express with any degree of point should perish. For this almost superstitious reverence I have found very old and venerable authority quoted by a great modern prelate, Secha in whose tenth sermon there is the following passage. Rabbi David Kimche, a noted Jewish commentator who lived about 500 years ago explains that passage in the first Psalm his leaf also shall not wither from rabbins yet older than himself, thus that even the idle talk, so he expresses it of a good man ought to be regarded. The most superfluous things he saith are always of some value and other ancient authors have the same phrase nearly in the same sense. Of one thing I am certain that considering how highly the small portion which we have of the table talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated writers is valued, and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not more. I am justified in preserving rather too many of Johnson's sayings than too few. Especially as from the diversity of dispositions it cannot be known with certainty beforehand whether what may seem trifling to some and perhaps to the collector himself may not be the most agreeable to many and the greater number that an author can please in any degree the more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind. To those who are weak enough to think this is a degrading task and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, Julius Caesar of whom Bacon observes that in his book of Apothecums which he collected we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself with a pair of tables to take the wise and pithy words of others than to have every word of his own to be made in apothecum or an oracle. Having said thus much by way of introduction I commit the following pages to the candour of the public. End of Section 2 Section 3 of the Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read by Andrew Coleman The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 by James Boswell Section 3 Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield in Staffordshire on the 18th of September NS 1709 and his initiation into the Christian church was not delayed, for his baptism is recorded in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city to have been performed on the day of his birth.  When the truth is that the ablation of gentlemen though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson a native of Dubshire of obscure extraction who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford descended of an ancient race of substantial humanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they married and never had more than two children, both sons. Samuel, their firstborn who lived to be the illustrious character whose various excellence I am to endeavour to record and Nathaniel who died in his 25th year. Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body and of a strong and active mind. Yet as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often discovered there was in him a mixture of that disease the nature of which eludes the most minute inquiry though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness. From him then his son inherited with some other qualities quote a Val melancholy unquote which in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind quote made him mad all his life at least not sober unquote. Michael was however forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business not only in his shop but by occasionally resorting to several towns in the neighbourhood some of which were at a considerable distance from Lichfield. At that time booksellers shops in the provincial towns of England were very rare so that there was not one even in Birmingham in which town old Mr Johnson used to open a shop every market day he was a pretty good Latin scholar and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield and being a man of good sense and skill in his trade he acquired a reasonable share of wealth of which however he afterwards lost the greatest part by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment he was a zealous high churchman and royalist and retained his attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart though he reconciled himself by casuistic arguments of expediency and necessity to take the oaths imposed by the prevailing power there is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantic but so well authenticated that I shall not admit it a young woman of leak in Staffordshire while he served his apprenticeship there conceived a violent passion for him and though it met with no favourable return followed him to Lichfield where she took lodgings opposite to the house in which he lived and indulged her hopeless flame when he was informed that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger he with a generous humanity went to her and offered to marry her but it was then too late her vital power was exhausted and she actually exhibited one of the very rare instances of dying for love she was buried in the Cathedral of Lichfield and he with a tender regard placed a stone over her grave with this inscription here lies the body of Mrs. Elizabeth Blaney a stranger she departed this life 20th of September 1694 Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished understanding I asked his old school fellow Mr. Hector surgeon of Birmingham if she was not vain of her son he said she had too much good sense to be vain but she knew her son's value her piety was not inferior to her understanding and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion upon the mind of her son from which the world afterwards derived so much benefit he told me that he remembered distinctly having had the first notice of heaven a place to which good people went and hell a place to which bad people went communicated to him by her when a little child in bed with her and that it might be the better fixed in his memory she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson their manservant he not being in the way this was not done but there was no occasion for any artificial aid for his preservation in following so very eminent man from his cradle to his grave every minute particular which can throw light on the progress of his mind is interesting that he was remarkable even in his earliest years may easily be supposed for to use his own words in his life of Sydney that the strength of his understanding the accuracy of his discernment and ardour of his curiosity might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer there is no reason to doubt for there is no instance of any man whose history has been minutely related that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion of intellectual vigor in all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much attention to instance which the credulous relate with eager satisfaction and the more scrupulous or witty inquire considers only as topics of ridicule yet there is a traditional story of the infant Hercules of Tourism so curiously characteristic that I shall not withhold it it was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary A.D. of Litchfield when Dr. Sir Kevril was at Litchfield Johnson was not quite three years old my grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon his father's shoulders listening and gaping at the much celebrated preacher Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to church and in the midst of so greater crowd he answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home for young as he was he believed he had caught the public spirit and zeal for Sir Kevril and would have stayed forever in the church satisfied with beholding him nor can I admit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit and impetuosity of temper which never forsook him the fact was acknowledged to me by himself upon the authority of his mother one day when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home had not come in time he set out by himself that he was then so near sighted that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel before he ventured to step over it his school mistress, afraid that he might miss his way or fall into the kennel or be run over by a cart followed him at some distance he happened to turn about and perceive her feeling her careful attention as an insult to his manliness he ran back to her in a rage and beat her as well as his strength would permit of the power of his memory for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield in 1776 by his step-daughter Mrs Lucy Porter as related to her by his mother when he was a child in petticoats and had learnt to read Mrs Johnson one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands pointed to the collect for the day and said Sam you must get this by heart she went upstairs leaving him to study it but by the time she had reached the second floor she heard him following her what's the matter? said she I can say it he replied and repeated it distinctly though he could not have read it more than twice but there has been another story of his infant precocity generally circulated and generally believed the truth of which I am to refute upon his own authority it is told that when a child of three years old he chanced to tread upon a duckling the eleventh of a brood and killed it upon which it is said he dictated to his mother the following epitaph here lies good master duck whom Samuel Johnson trod on if it had lived it had been good luck for then we'd had an odd one there is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines in it what no child of three years old could produce without an extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration yet Mrs Lucy Porter Dr Johnson's stepdaughter positively maintained to me in his presence that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote for she had heard it from his mother so difficult is it to obtain an authentic relation of facts and such authority may there be for error for he assured me that his father made the verses and wished to pass them for his child he added my father was a foolish old man that is to say foolish in talking of his children note this anecdote of the duck though disproved by internal and external evidence has nevertheless upon supposition of its truth been made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss Seward amongst the communications concerning Dr Johnson with which she has been pleased to favour me these infant numbers contain the seeds of those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his character of that poetic talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful fruits for accepting his orthographic works everything which Dr Johnson wrote was poetry whose essence consists not in numbers or in jingle but in the strength and glow of a fancy to which all the stores of nature and of art stand in prompt administration and in an eloquence which conveys their blended illustrations in a language more tunable than needs or rhyme or verse to add more harmony the above little verses also show that superstitious bias which grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength and of late years particularly injured his happiness by presenting to him the gloomy side of religion rather than that bright and cheering one which guilds the period of closing life with the light of pious hope this is so beautifully imagined that I would not suppress it but like many other theories it is deduced from a supposed fact which is indeed a fiction end of note young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with a scroffula or king's evil which disfigured accountants naturally well formed and hurt his visual nerve so much that he did not see at all with one of his eyes though its appearance was a little different from that of the other there is amongst his prayers one inscribed when my eye was restored to its use which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had though I never perceived it I supposed him to be only near sighted and indeed I must observe that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision on the contrary the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all manner of objects whether of nature or of art with a nicety that is rarely to be found when he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland and I pointed out to him a mountain which I observed resembled a cone he corrected my inaccuracy by showing me that it was indeed pointed at the top but that one side of it was larger than the other and the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress when I found that he saw the romantic beauties of Islam in Derbyshire much better than I did I told him that he resembled an able performer upon a bad instrument how false and contemptible then are all the remarks which have been made to the prejudice either of his candour or of his philosophy founded upon a supposition that he was almost blind it has been said that he contracted this grievous malady from his nurse his mother yielding to the superstitious notion which it is wonderful to think prevailed so long in this country as to the virtue of the regal touch a notion which our kings encouraged and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgement as Kant could give credit carried him to London where he was actually touched by Queen Anne Mrs Johnson indeed as mixed Hector informed me acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Flawyer then a physician in Litchfield Johnson used to talk of this very frankly and Mrs Piazzi has preserved his very picturesque description of the scene as it remained upon his fancy being asked if he could remember Queen Anne he had, he said, a confused but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood this touch however was without any effect I ventured to say to him in allusion to the political principles in which he was educated and of which he ever retained some odour that his mother had not carried him far enough she should have taken him to Rome he was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow who kept to school for young children in Litchfield he told me she could read the black letter and asked him to borrow for her from his father a Bible in that character when he was going to Oxford she came to take leave of him brought him in the simplicity of her kindness a present of gingerbread and said he was the best scholar she ever had he delighted in mentioning this early compliment adding with a smile that this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive his next instructor in English was a master whom when he spoke of him to me he familiarly called Tom Brown who said he published a spelling book and dedicated it to the universe but I fear no copy of it can now be had he began to learn Latin with Mr Hawkins Usher or Undermaster of Litchfield School a man said he very skillful in his little way with him he continued two years and then rose to be under the care of Mr Hunter the head master who according to his account was very severe and wrong-headedly 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 thus 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 it is however but justice to the memory of Mr Hunter to mention that though he might err in being too severe the school of Litchfield was very respectable in his time the late Dr Taylor Prebendery of Westminster who was educated under him told me that he was an excellent master and that his ushers were most of them men of eminence that Holbrooke one of the most ingenious men best scholars and best preachers of his age was Usher during the greatest part of the time that Johnson was at school then came Hague of whom as much might be said with the addition that he was an elegant poet Hague was succeeded by Green afterwards Bishop of Lincoln whose character in the learned world is well known in the same form with Johnson was Congreve who afterwards became chaplain to Archbishop Balter and by that connection obtained good preferment in Ireland he was a younger son of the ancient family of Congreve in Staffordshire of which the poet was a branch his brothers of the estate that was also low afterwards Canon of Windsor indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr Hunter Mr Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin in which I believe he was succeeded by no man of his time he said my master whipped me very well but that's that sir I should have done nothing he told Mr Langton that while Hunter was vlogging his boys unmercifully he used to say and this I do to save you from their gallows Johnson upon all occasions expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod the father said he have the rod to be the general terror to all to make them learn then tell a child if you do thus or thus you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters the rod produces an effect which terminates in itself a child is afraid of being whipped and gets his task and there's an end on whereas by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority you lay the foundation of lasting mischief you make brothers and sisters hate each other when Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who remarkably well behaved owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correction he exclaimed in one of Shakespeare's lines a little varied rod I will honour thee for this thy duty that superiority over his fellows which he maintained with so much dignity in his march through life was not assumed from vanity and ostentation but was the natural and constant effect of those extraordinary powers of mind of which he could not but be conscious by comparison the intellectual difference which in other cases of comparison of characters is often a matter of undecided contest being as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above others Johnson did not strut or stand on tiptoe he only did not stoop from his earliest years his superiority was perceived and acknowledged he was from the beginning Greek Anax Andron a king of men his school fellow Mr. Hector has obligingly furnished me with many particulars of his boyish days and assured me that he never knew him corrected at school but for talking and diverting other boys from their business he seemed to learn by intuition for though indolence and procrastination were inherent in his constitution whenever he made an exertion he did more than anyone else in short he is a memorable instance of what has been often observed that the boy is the man in miniature and that the distinguishing characteristics of each individual are the same through the whole course of life his favourites used to receive very liberal assistance from him and such was the submission difference with which he was treated such the desire to obtain his regard that three of the boys of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes one used to come in the morning as his humble attendants and carry him to school one in the middle stooped while he sat upon his back and one on each side supported him and thus he was born triumphant such a proof the early predominance of intellectual figure is very remarkable and does honour to human nature talking to me once himself of his being much distinguished at school he told me they never thought to raise me by comparing me to anyone they never said Johnson is as good a scholar as such a one but such a one is as good a scholar as Johnson and this was said one but of low and I do not think he was as good a scholar he discovered a great ambition to excel which roused him to counteract his internance he was uncommonly inquisitive and his memory was so tenacious that he never forgot anything that he either heard or read Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him 18 verses after a little pause he repeated verbatim varying only one epithet by which he improved the line he never joined with the other boys in their ordinary diversions his only amusement was in winter when he took a pleasure in being drawn upon the ice by a boy barefooted pulled him along by a garter fixed round him no very easy operation as his size was remarkably large his defective sight indeed prevented him from enjoying the common sports and he once pleasantly remarked to me how wonderfully well he had contrived to be idle without them Lord Chestfield however has justly observed in one of his letters when earnestly cautioning a friend against the pernicious effects of idleness that active sports are not to be reckoned idleness to people and that the listless torpor of doing nothing alone deserves that name of this dismal inertness of disposition Johnson had all his life to greater share Mr. Hector relates that he could not oblige him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in the fields during which he was more engaged than to his companion Dr. Percy the Bishop of Dromore who was long intimately acquainted with him and has preserved a few anecdotes concerning him regretting that he was not a more diligent collector informs me that when a boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry and he retained his fondness for them through life so that, at his lordship spending part of a summer at my Parsonage house in the country he chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felix Mart of Herkenia in folio which he read quite through yet I have heard him attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing in any profession 1725 ITAT 16 After having resided for some time at the house of his uncle Cornelius Ford Tronson was at the age of 15 removed to the school of Stourbridge in Worcestershire of which Mr. Wentworth was then master this step was taken by the advice of his cousin the Reverend Mr. Ford a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were disgraced by licentiousness but who was a very able judge of what was right note he is said to be the original of the Parson in Hogarth's modern midnight conversation end of note at this school he did not receive so much benefit as was expected it has been said that he acted in the capacity of an assistant to Mr. Wentworth in teaching the younger boys Mr. Wentworth he told me was 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 former master yet he taught me a great deal he thus discriminated to Dr. Percy Bishop of Dromore his progress at his two grammar schools at one I learnt much in the school but little from the master in the other I learnt much from the master but little in the school the bishop also informs me that Dr. Johnson's father who received at Stourbridge applied to have him admitted as a scholar and assistant to the Reverend Samuel Lee MA Headmaster of Newport School in Shropshire a very diligent good teacher at that time in high reputation under whom Mr. Hollis is said in the memoirs of his life to have been also educated this application to Mr. Lee was not successful but Johnson had afterwards gratification to hear that the old gentleman who lived to a very advanced age mentioned it as one of the most memorable events of his life that he was very near having that great man for his scholar he remained at Stourbridge little more than a year and then returned home where he may be said to have loitered for two years in a state very unworthy he had already given several proofs of his poetical genius both in his school exercises and in other occasional compositions of these I have obtained a considerable collection by the favour of Mr. Wentworth son of one of his masters and of Mr. Hector his school fellow and friend from which I select the following specimens translation of virtual pastoral one Malibious now Titaris you supine and careless lad play on your pipe beneath this beach and shade while the wretched we about the world must roam and leave our pleasing fields and native home here at your ease you sing your ammellous flame and the wood rings with Amaryllis name Titaris those blessings friend a deity bestowed for I shall never think him less than God off don his altar shall my firstlings lie their blood the consecrated stones shall die he gave my flocks to graze the flowery meats and me to tune at ease the unequal reeds Malibious my admiration only I expressed no spark of envy harbours in my breast that when confusion other country reigns to you alone this happy state remains here I though faint myself must drive my goats far from their ancient fields and humble cots this scarce I lead who left on yonder rock the hopes of all the flock had we not been perverse and careless grown this dire event by omens was foreshown our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke and left hand crows from an old hollow oak foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak translation of Horace Book 1 Ode 22 the man my friend whose conscious heart with virtue's sacred ardour glows nor taints with death then venom'd dart nor needs the guard of morish bows those sythias icy cliffs he treads or horrid afric's faithless sands or where the fame Tidaspis spreads is liquid wealth of barbarous lands for while by Chloe's image charmed too far in Sabine woods I strayed me singing careless and unarmed a grizzly wolf surprised and fled no savage moor patentous stained apulias spacious wilds with gore no fiercer jubas thirsty land darn nurse of raging lions bore place me where no soft summer gale among the quivering branches sighs where clouds densed for ever veiled with horrid gloom the frowning skies place me beneath the burning line a climb denied to human race of sing of Chloe's charm's divine her hemly voice and beautious face translation of Horace Book 2 Ode 9 clouds do not always veil the skies as immerse the verdant plain nor do the billows always rise or storms afflict the ruffled main nor valgus on the Armenian shores do the chained waters always freeze not always furious furious roars or bends with violent force the trees but you are ever drowned in tears ever mourn no setting soul can ease your care but finds you sad at his return the wise experienced Grecian sage mourned not Antillicus so long nor did King Priam's Horry age so much lament his slaughtered son leave off at length these woman's sighs augustus numerous trophies sing repeat their princes victories to whom all nations tribute bring Nifeti's rolls and humbler wave at length the undaunted Scythian yields content to live the Roman slave and scares for sakes his native fields translation of part of the dialogue between Hector and Andromache from the sixth book of Homer's Iliad she ceased then Godlike Hector answered kind his various plumage sporting in the wind that post and all the rest shall be my care but shall I then forsake the unfinished war how would the Trojan's brand great Hector's name and one base actions sully all my fame acquired by wounds and battles bravely fought oh how my soul abores so mean a thought long since I learned to slight this fleeting breath and view with cheerful eyes approaching death the inexorable sisters have decreed that Priam's house and Priam's self shall bleed the day you will come in which proud Troy shall yield and spread its smoking ruins over the field yet Hector buzz nor Priam's hoary age whose blood shall quench Priam Grecian's thirsty rage nor my brave brothers that have bit the ground their souls dismissed through many a ghastly wound can in my bosom half that grief create as the sad thought of your impending fate when some proud Grecian dame shall tasks impose mimic your tears and ridicule your woes beneath hyperious waters shall you sweat and fainting scare supports the liquid weight then shall some argive loud insulting cry behold the wife of Hector guard of Troy tears at my name shall drown those beautyous eyes and that fair bosom heave with rising sighs before that day by some brave hero's hand may I lay slain and spurn the bloody sand to a young lady on her birthday note Mr. Hector informs me that this was made almost impromptu in his presence end of note this tributary verse receive my fare warm with an ardent lover's fondest prayer may this returning day forever find thy form more lovely more adorned thy mind all pains, all cares may favouring heaven remove all but the sweet solicitudes of love may powerful nature join with grateful art to point each glance and force it to the heart O then when conquered crowds confess thy sway when even proud wealth and prouder wit obey my fare be mindful of the mighty trust alas his hard for beauty to be just those sovereign charms with strictest care employ nor give the generous pain the worthless joy with his own form acquaint the forward fall shown in the faithful glass of ridicule teach mimic censure her own faults to find no more let coquettes to themselves be blind so shall Belinda's charms improve mankind the young author when first the peasant long inclined to roam forsakes his rural sports and peaceful home pleased with the scene the smiling ocean yields he scorns the verdant meads and flowery fields then dances jock on dore the watery way while the breeze whispers and the streamers play unbounded prospects in his bosom role and future millions lift his rising soul in blissful dreams he dicks the golden mine and raptured seas the newfound ruby shine joys insincere thick clouds invade the skies loud roar the billows high the waves arise sickening with fear he longs to view the shore and vows to trust the faithless deep no more so the young author panting after fame and the long honors of a lasting name entrusts his happiness to humankind more false more cruel than the seas or wind toil on dull crowd the seas he cries for wealth or title perishable prize while I those transitory blessings scorn secure a praise from ages yet unborn this thought once formed all counsel comes too late he flies to press and hurries on his fate swiftly he sees the imagined laurel spread and feels the unfading wreath surround his head warned by another's fate vain youth be wise those dreams were settles once and ogle bees the pamphlet spreads incessant hisses rise to some retreat the baffled writer flies when no sad critic snarl no snares belest safe from the tart lampoon and stinging jest their begs of heaven a less distinguished lot glad to be hid and proud to be forgot epilogue intended to have been spoken by a lady who was to personate the ghost of Hermione note some young ladies at Litchfield having proposed to act the distressed mother Johnson wrote this and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them end of note ye blooming train who give despair or joy bless with a smile or with a frown destroy in whose fair cheeks destructive cupids wait and with unerring shafts distribute fate whose snowy breasts whose animated eyes each youth admires though each admirer dies whilst you derive their pangs in barbarous play unpitting see them weep lending sport ten thousand lives away for you, you fair I quit the gloomy plains where sable night in all her horror rains no fragrant boughs no delightful glades receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids for kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms and weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms all roses deck each purple veil and sense some brosial breathe in every gale far hence are banished vapours spleen and tears tea, scandal ivory teeth and languid airs no pug nor favourite cupid there enjoys the barmy kiss for which poor Tharsis dies formed to delight they use no foreign arms nor torturing whale bones pinch them into charms no conscious blushes there their cheeks in flame for those who feel no guilt can know no shame unfaded still their former charms they show around them pleasures wait and joys for ever new but cruel avergions meets severe fates expelled and exiled from the blissful seats to dismal realms and regions void of peace where furies ever howl and servants hiss oh the sad plains perpetual tempest sigh and poisonous vapours blackening all the sky with livid hue the fairest face cast and every beauty withers at the blast where air they fly their lovers ghosts pursue inflicting all those ills which once they knew vexation, fury jealousy, despair vex every eye and every bosom tear their foul deformities by all described no maid to flatter and no paint to hide then melty fare while crowds around you sigh nor let disdain sit larring in your eye with pity soften every awful grace beauty smile or specious in each face to ease their pains exert your milder power so shall you guiltless reign and all mankind adore the two years which he spent at home after his return from Stourbridge he passed in what he thought idleness and was scolded by his father for his want of steady application he had no settled plan of life nor looked forward at all but merely lived from day to day yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner without any scheme of study as chance threw books in his way and inclination directed him through them he used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading when but a boy having imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop he climbed up to search for them there were no apples but the large folio proved to be petrarch whom he had seen mentioned in some preface as one of the restorers of learning his curiosity having been thus excited he sat down with avidity and read a great part of the book what he read during these two years he told me was not works of mere amusement not voyages and travels but all literature, sir all ancient writers all manly though but little Greek only some of an aquean adhesiod but in this regular manner added he I had looked into a great many books which were not commonly known at the universities where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors so that when I came to Oxford Dr. Adams now master of Pembroke College told me I was the best qualified for the university that he had ever known come there in estimating the progress of his mind during these two years as well as in future periods of his life we must not regard his own hasty confession of idleness for we see when he explains himself that he was acquiring various stores and indeed he himself concluded the account with saying I would not have you think I was doing nothing then he might perhaps have studied more assiduously but it may be doubted whether such mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature than if it had been confined to any single spot the analogy between body and mind is very general and the parallel will hold as to their food as well as any other particular the flesh of animals who feed excursively is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up may there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are confined in cells and colleges as stated tasks end of section 3 section 4 of the life of Samuel Johnson volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org read by Joshua Christensen the life of Samuel Johnson volume 1 by James Boswell section 4 that a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of sending his son to the expensive University of Oxford at his own charge seems very improbable the subject was too delicate to question Johnson upon but I have been assured by Dr. Taylor that the scheme never would have taken place had not a gentleman of Shropshire one of his school fellows spontaneously undertaken to support him at Oxford in the character of his companion though in fact he never received any assistance whatever from that gentleman he however went to Oxford and was entered a commoner of Pembroke College on the 31st of October 1728 being then in his 19th year the Reverend Dr. Adams who afterwards presided over Pembroke College with universal esteem told me he was present and gave me some account of what passed on the night of Johnson's arrival at Oxford on that evening who had anxiously accompanied him found means to have him introduced to Mr. Jordan who was to be his tutor his being put under any tutor reminds us of what Wood says of Robert Burton author of the Anatomy of Melancholy when elected student of Christchurch for forms sake though he wanted not a tutor he was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bengroft afterwards Bishop of Oxen his father seemed very full of the merits of his son he was a good scholar and a poet and wrote Latin verses his figure and manner appeared strange to them but he behaved modestly and sat silent till upon something which occurred in the course of conversation he suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius and thus he gave the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged himself his tutor Mr. Jordan fellow of Pembroke was not it seems a man of such abilities he gave requisite for the instructor of Samuel Johnson who gave me the following account of him 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 for on the sixth Mr. Jordan asked why I had not attended I answered I had been sliding in Christchurch Meadow and I said this 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 note it ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt in his literary as well as moral exercises to overcharge his defects Dr. Adams informed me that he intended his tutor's lectures and also the lectures in the college hall regularly end of note the fifth of November was at that time kept with great solemnity at Pembroke college and exercises upon the subject of the day were required Johnson neglected to perform his which is much to be regretted for his vivacity of imagination would probably have produced something sublime under the gunpowder plot to apologize for his neglect he gave in a short copy of verses entitled Somnium that the muse had come to him in his sleep and whispered that it did not much become him to write on such subjects as politics he should confine himself to humbler themes but the versification was truly Virgilian he had a love and respect for Jordan not for his literature but for his worth whenever said he a young man becomes Jordan's pupil he becomes his son having given such a specimen of his poetical powers he was asked by Mr Jordan to translate Pope's messiah into Latin verse as a Christmas exercise he performed it with uncommon rapidity and in so masterly a manner that he obtained great applause from it whichever after kept him in the high estimation of his college and indeed of all the university it is said that Mr Pope expressed himself concerning it in terms of strong approbation that it was first printed for old Mr Johnson without the knowledge of his son who was very angry when he heard of it a miscellany of poems collected by a person of the name of husbands was published at Oxford in 1731 in that miscellany Johnson's translation of the messiah appeared with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poetics ex alieno ingenio poeta ex suo tantum versificator I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and other specimens of Johnson's Latin poetry I acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a question of such extreme nicety but I am satisfied with the just and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend Mr Courtney and with like ease his vivid lines assume the garb and dignity of ancient Rome let college versemen trite concedes express tricked out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress from playful ovid call the tinsel phrase and vapid notions hitch in pilfered lays then with mosaic art the piece combine and boast the glitter of each dulcet line Johnson adventured boldly to transfuse his vigorous sense into the Latin muse aspire to shine unreflected light and with a roman's ardor think and write he felt the tuneful nine his breast inspire and like a master waked the soothing liar Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim while Skye's wild rocks resound his threlia's name Hesperia's plant in some less skillful hands to bloom a while factitious heat demands though blowing marrow of faint warmth supplies the sickly blossom in the hot house dies by johnson's genial culture art and toil its root strikes deep and owns the fostering soil imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins and grows a native of Britannia's plains the morbid melancholy which was lurking in his constitution and to which we may ascribe those peculiarities and that a version to regular life which at a very early period marked his character gathered such strength in his 20th year as to afflict him in a dreadful manner when he was at lichfield in the college vacation of the year 1729 he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria with perpetual irritation fretfulness and impatience and with the dejection, gloom and despair which made existence misery from this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved and all his labors and all his enjoyments were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence how wonderful how unsearchable are the ways of God Johnson who was blessed with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature was at that same time visited with the disorder so afflictive the day who know it by dire experience will not envy his exalted endowments that it was in some degree occasioned by a defect in his nervous system that inexplicable part of our frame appears highly probable he told Mr. Paradise that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town clock Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder strove to overcome it by forcible exertions he frequently walked to Birmingham and back again and tried many other expedience but all in vain his expression concerning it to me was I did not then know how to manage it his distress became so intolerable that he applied to Dr. Swinfin physician in Lickfield his godfather and put into his hands a state of his case written in Latin Dr. Swinfin was so much struck with the extraordinary acuteness research and eloquence of this paper that in his zeal for his godson he showed it to several people his daughter, Mrs. Desmoulins who was then many years who mainly supported in Dr. Johnson's house in London told me that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfin had communicated his case he was so much offended that he was never afterwards fully reconciled to him he indeed had good reason to be offended for though Dr. Swinfin's motive was good he inconsiderately betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of great delicacy which had been entrusted to him in confidence and exposed a complaint of his young friend and patient which in the superficial opinion of the generality of mankind is attended with contempt and disgrace but let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was a hypochondriac was subject to what the learned philosophical and pious Dr. Shane has so well treated under the title of the English Malady though he suffered severely from it he was not therefore degraded the powers of his great mind might be troubled and their full exercise suspended at times but the mind itself was ever tired as a proof of this it is only necessary to consider that when he was at the very worst he composed that state of his own case which showed an uncommon vigor not only of fancy and taste but of judgment I am aware that he himself was too ready to call such a complaint by the name of madness in conformity with which notion he has traced its gradations with exquisite nicety in one of the chapters of his rassolas but there is surely a clear distinction between a disorder which affects only the imagination and spirits or the judgment is sound and a disorder by which the judgment itself is impaired this distinction was made to be by the late Professor Gobius of Leiden physician to the Prince of Orange in a conversation which I had with him several years ago and he expanded it thus if, said he a man tells me that he is grievously disturbed and since he sees a ruffian coming against him with a drawn sword though at the same time he is conscious it is a delusion I pronounce him to have a disordered imagination but if a man tells me that he sees this and in consternation calls to me to look at it I pronounce him to be mad it is a common effect of low spirits or melancholy to make those who are afflicted with it imagine that they are actually suffering those evils which happen to be most strongly presented to their minds some have fancied themselves to be deprived of the use of their limbs some to labor under acute diseases others to be in extreme poverty when in truth there was not the least reality in any of the suppositions so that when the vapours were dispelled they were convinced of the delusion to Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded insanity therefore was the object of his most dismal apprehension and he fancied himself seized by it or approaching to it at the very time when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary soundness and vigor of judgement that his own diseased imagination should have so far deceived him as strange but it is stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to appreciate him should since his death have laid hold of the circumstance and insisted upon it with very unfair aggravation amidst the oppression and distraction of a disease which very few have felt in its full extent but many have experienced in a slighter degree, Johnson in his writings and in his conversation never failed to display all the varieties of intellectual excellence in his march through this world to a better mind still appeared grand and brilliant and impressed all around him with the truth of Virgil's noble sentiment Igneous estolis vigor et coelestis origo The history of his mind as to religion is an important article I have mentioned the early impressions made upon his tender imagination by his mother who continued her pious care with aciduity but in his opinion not with judgement Sunday, said he, was a heavy day to me when I was a boy my mother confined me on that day and made me 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 with him before so there was no a session of knowledge a boy should be instructed to such books by having his attention directed to the arrangement to the style and other excellencies that the mind being thus engaged by an amusing variety of objects may not grow weary he communicated to me the following particulars upon the subject of his religious progress I fell into an inattention to religion or an indifference about it in my ninth year the church at Lickfield 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 14th year and still I find a great reluctance to go to church I then became a sort of lax talker against religion for I did not much think against it and this lasted till I went to Oxford where it would not be suffered. When in Oxford I took up Law's serious call to a holy life expecting to find it a dull book as such books generally are and perhaps to laugh at it but I found Law quite overmatch for me and this was the first occasion of my thinking an earnest of religion after I became capable of rational inquiry from this time forward religion was the predominant object of his thoughts though with the just sentiments of a conscientious Christian he lamented that his practice of its duties fell far short of what it ought to be. This instance of a mind such as that of Johnson being first disposed by an unexpected incident to think with anxiety of the momentous concerns of eternity and of what he should do to be saved may forever be produced in opposition to the superficial and sometimes profane contempt that has been thrown upon those occasional impressions which it is certain many Christians have experienced that it must be acknowledged that weak minds from an erroneous supposition that no man is in a state of grace who has not felt a particular conversion have in some cases brought a degree of ridicule upon them. A ridicule of which it is inconsiderate or unfair to make a general application. How seriously Johnson was impressed with the sense of religion even in the vigor of his youth appears from the following passage in his minutes kept by way of diary September 7th 1736 I have this day entered upon my 28th year mayest thou oh god enable me for Jesus Christ's sake to spend this in such a manner that I may receive comfort from it at the hour of death and in the day of judgment Amen. The particular course of his reading while at Oxford and during the time of vacation which he passed at home cannot be traced enough has been said of as a regular mode of study he told me that from his earliest years he loved to read poetry but hardly ever at any poem to an end that he read Shakespeare at a period so early that the speech of the ghost and Hamlet terrified him when he was alone that Horace's odes were the compositions in which he took most delight and it was long before he liked his epistles and satires he told me what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek not the greek historians but Homer and Euripides and now and then a little epigram that the study of which he was the most fond was metaphysics but that he had not read much even in that way I always thought that he did himself injustice in his account of what he had read and that he must have been speaking with reference to the vast study which is possible and to which a few scholars in the whole history of literature have attained for when I once asked him whether a person whose name I have now forgotten studied hard he answered no sir I do not believe he studied hard I never knew a man who studied hard I conclude indeed from the effects that some men have studied hard as Bentley and Clark trying him by that criterion upon which he formed his judgment of others we may be absolutely certain both from his writings and his conversation that his reading was very extensive Dr. Adam Smith then whom few were better judges on this subject once observed to me that Johnson knew more books than any man alive he had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book without submitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end he had from the irritability of his constitution at all times an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote a certain apprehension arising from novelty made him write his first exercise at college twice over but he never took that trouble with any other composition and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat with rapid exertion yet he appears from his early notes or memorandums in my possession to have at various times attempted or at least planned a methodical course of study according to computation of which he was all his life well known as it fixed his attention steadily upon something without and prevented his mind from prying upon itself thus I find in his handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides tragedies of the Georgics of Virgil of the first six books of the Aeneid of Horace's art of poetry of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphoses of some parts of Theocritas of the tenth satire of juvenile and a table showing at the rate of various numbers one day I suppose verses to be read what would be in each case the total amount in a week, month and year no man had a more ardent love of literature or a higher respect for it than Johnson his apartment in Pembroke College was that upon the second floor over the gateway the enthusiasts of learning will ever contemplate it with veneration one day while he was sitting in it quite alone doctor panting then master of the college whom he called a fine Jacobite fellow overheard him muttering this soliloquy in a strong emphatic voice well I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning I'll go and visit the universities abroad I'll go to France and Italy I'll go to Padua and I'll mine my business for an Athenian blockhead is the worst of all blockheads note I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams and Dr. Johnson confirmed it Bramston in his man of taste has the same thought sure of all blockheads scholars are the worst end of note Dr. Adams told me that Johnson when he was at Pembroke College was caressed and loved by all about him was a gay and frolicsome fellow and passed there the happiest part of his life but this is a striking proof of the fallacy of appearances and how little any of us know of the real internal state even of those whom we see most frequently for the truth is that he was then depressed by poverty and irritated by disease when I mentioned to him this account has given me by Dr. Adams he said ah sir I was mad and violent it was bitterness which they must took for frolic I was miserably poor and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit so I disregarded all power in all authority The Bishop of Dromor observes in a letter to me the pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often mentioned but I have heard him say what ought to be recorded to the honour of the present venerable master of that college the Reverend William Adams D.D who was then very young and one of the junior fellows that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man whose virtue ought him and whose learning he revered made him really ashamed of himself though I fear said he was too proud to own it I have heard from some of his contemporaries that he was generally seen lounging at the college gate but the circle of young students round him whom he was entertaining with wit and keeping from their studies if not spiriting them up to rebellion against the college discipline which in his mature years he so much extolled End of section 4


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