engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the advantage of what I should hint. "Your letter by being directed to S. Smith, to be left at the Castle in Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach "Your humble Servant." 66 Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, " Answered Dec. 2." But whether any thing was done in consequence of it we are not informed. Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I have not been able to recover; but with what * [He also wrote some amatory verses, before he left Staffordshire, which our author appears not to have seen. They were addressed "to Miss Hickman, playing on the spinet." At the back of this early poetical effusion, of which the original copy, in Johnson's hand-writing, was obligingly communicated to me by Mr. John Taylor, is the following attestation : "Written by the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, on my mother, then Miss Hickman, playing on the Spinet. J. Turton." Dr. Turton, the physician, the writer of this certificate, who died in April 1806, in his 71st year, was born in 1735. The verses in question therefore, which have been printed in some late editions of Johnson's poems, must have been written before that year.-Miss Hickman, it is believed, was a lady of Staffordshire. The concluding lines of this early copy of verses have much of the vigour of Johnson's poetry in his maturer years: "When old Timotheus struck the vocal string, facility and elegance he could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines which he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector. VERSES to a LADY, on receiving from her a SPRIG of MYRTLE. "What hopes, what terrours does thy gift create, "Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate! "The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, "Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand; "Not less capricious than a reigning fair, "Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. "In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, "In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain : "The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, "The unhappy lover's grave the myrtle spreads; "O then the meaning of thy gift impart, "And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! "Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, "Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb." I "Had Stella's gentle touches mov'd the lyre, MALONE.] 1 Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him." I think it is now just forty years ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on-Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund, and I'll fetch them thee-So stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about." Anecdotes, p. 34. In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield:-" I know those verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient and it is certain, that he formed wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he shewed them on the instant. She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the Verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a Sprig of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended for her." Such was this lady's statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it shews how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond. I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, that however often, she is not always inaccurate. The authour having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement (which may be found in "the Gentleman's Magazine," Vol. Ixiii and lxiv,) received the following letter from Mr. Edmund Hector, on the subject: 66 DEAR SIR, "I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge than to persevere. "Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of the myrtle, with the date on it, 1731, which I have inclosed. "The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a Lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He shewed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. "I most solemnly declare, at that time, Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my cloaths of. "If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to no criminal connection whatsoever. Mr. Hector, who lived with him in his younger days in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect; and that though he loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but once. In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation, and totally concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's death.2 Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her mother, his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, "this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life." the publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement. "I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing you multos et felices annos, I shall subscribe myself "Your obliged humble servant, "E. HECTOR." " Birmingham, Jan. 9th, 1794." 2 [It appears from Mr. Hector's letter, that Johnson became ac quainted with her three years before he married her. MALONE.] Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson,3 and her person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others,* she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than 3 [Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Jervis.-Though there was a great disparity of years between her and Dr. Johnson, she was not quite so old as she is here represented, having only completed her forty-eighth year in the month of February preceding her marriage, as appears by the following extract from the parish-register of Great Peatling, in Leicestershire, which was obligingly made at my request, by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Ryder, Rector of Lutterworth, in that county: "Anno Dom. 1688-[89] Elizabeth, the daughter of William Jervis, Esq. and Mrs. Anne his wife, born the fourth day of February and mané, baptized 16th day of the same month by Mr. Smith, Curate of Little Peatling. “John Allen, Vicar." The family of Jervis, Mr. Ryder informs me, once possessed nearly the whole lordship of Great Peatling (about 2000 acres,) and there are many monuments of them in the Church; but the estate is now much reduced. The present representative of this ancient family is Mr. Charles Jervis, of Hinckley, Attorney at Law. MALONE.] 4 [That in Johnson's eyes she was handsome, appears from the epitaph which he caused to be inscribed on her tomb-stone not long before his own death, and which may be found in a subsequent page, under the year 1752. MALONE.] [The following account of Mrs. Johnson, and her family, is copied from a paper (chiefly relating to Mrs. Anna Williams) written by Lady Knight at Rome, and transmitted by her to the late John Hoole, Esq. the translator of Metastasio, &c. by whom it was inserted in the European Magazine for October 1799: "Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding, and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage, perhaps because they being struggling to get advanced in life, were mortified to think she had allied herself to a man who had not any visible means of being useful to them; however, she always retained her affection for them. While they [Dr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough-square, her son, the |