After fo many effays and volumes of Johnfoniana, what remains for the present writer? Perhaps, what has not been attempted; a fhort, yet full, a faithful, yet temperate, hiftory of Dr. Johnfon.

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, September 7, 1709, O. S.* His father, Michael Johnfon, was a bookfeller in that city; a man of large athletic make, and violent paffions; wrong-headed, pofitive, and at times afflicted with a degree of melancholy, little fhort of madness. His mother was fifter to Dr. Ford, a practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of PARSON FORD, the fame who is reprefented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Converfation. In the Life of Fenton, Johnfon fays, that "his abilities, instead of furnishing convivial "merriment to the voluptuous and diffolute, might have enabled him to excel among

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This appears in a note to Johnson's Diary, prefixed to the first of his prayers. After the alteration of the ftyle, he kept his birth-day on the 18th of September, and it is accordingly marked September

"the

"the virtuous and the wife." Being chaplain to the Earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embassy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote. "You should go," said the witty peer, "if to your many vices you would add 66 one more." "Pray, my Lord, what is "that?" "Hypocrify, my dear Doctor." Johnson had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the age of twenty-feven or twenty-eight. Michael Johnson, the father, was chofen in the year 1718 Under Bailiff of Lichfield; and in the year 1725 he ferved the office of the Senior Bailiff. He had a brother of the name of Andrew, who, for fome years, kept the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was never thrown or conquered. Michael, the father, died December 1731, at the age of feventy-fix; his mother at eighty-nine, of a gradual decay, in the year 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice. Johnton did not delight in talking of his relations. "There "is little pleasure," he said to Mrs. Piozzi, "in relating the anecdotes of beggary."

He.

Johnson derived from his parents, or from an unwholesome nurfe, the distemper called the King's Evil. The Jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch; and accordingly Mrs. Johnfon prefented her fon, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient all the healing virtue in her power. was afterwards cut for that fcrophulous humour, and the under part of his face was feamed and disfigured by the operation. It is fuppofed, that this difeate deprived him of the fight of his left eye, and also impaired his hearing. At eight years old, he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the Freeschool at Lichfield, where he was not remarkable for diligence or regular applica, tion. Whatever he read, his tenacious me. mory made his own. In the fields with his fchool - fellows he talked more to himfelf than with his companions. In 1725, when he was about fixteen years old, he went on vifit to his coufin Cornelius Ford, who detained him for fome months, and in the mean time affifted him in the claffics. The

a

general

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general direction for his ftudies, which he then received, he related to Mrs. Piozzi. "Obtain," fays Ford, fays Ford, "fome general prin"ciples of every fcience: he who can talk "only on one fubject, or act only in one de66 partment, is feldom wanted, and, perhaps, "never wished for; while the man of general "knowledge can often benefit, and always pleafe." The advice Johnfon feems to have pursued with a good inclination. His reading was always defultory, feldom resting on any particular author, but rambling from one book to another, and, by hafty fnatches, hoarding up a variety of knowledge. It may be proper in this place to mention another general rule laid down by Ford for Johnson's future conduct; "You will make your way "the more eafily in the world, as you are contented to difpute no man's claim to "converfation-excellence they will, there"fore, more willingly allow your pretenfions as a writer." But," fays Mrs. Piozzi, the features of peculiarity, which "mark a character to all fucceeding genera

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tions, are flow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with her usual vivacity, "Can one, on fuch an occafion, for

"bear

bear recollecting the predictions of Boi"leau's father, who faid, ftroking the head "of the young fatirift, this little man has "too much wit, but he will never fpeak ill "of any one'?”

On Johnson's return from Cornelius Ford, Mr. Hunter, then master of the Free-fchool at Lichfield, refused to receive him again on that foundation. At this distance of time, what his reasons were, it is vain to enquire; but to refuse affistance to a lad of promising genius must be pronounced harsh and illiberal. It did not, however, ftop the progrefs of the young ftudent's education. He was placed at another school, at Stourbridge in Worcestershire, under the care of Mr. Wentworth. Having gone through the rudiments of claffic literature, he returned to his father's house, and was probably intended for the trade of a bookfeller. He has been heard to say that he could bind a book. At the end of two years, being then about nineteen, he went to affift the ftudies of a young gentleman, of the name of Corbet, to the University of Oxford; and on the 31st of October, 1728, both were entered of Pembroke

College;