have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than 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't; 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 were remarkably well behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correction', he exclaimed, in one of Shakspeare's lines a little varied, 'Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty'.' 'This passage is quoted from Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773. Mr. Boyd had told Johnson that Lady Errol did not use force or fear in educating her children; whereupon he replied, 'Sir, she is wrong,' and continued in the words of the text. Gibbon in his Autobiography says:-The domestic discipline of our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent, it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of behaviour.' Gibbon's Works, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a friend on Oct. 18, 1752, says :-'Pray let my godson never know what a blow or a whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a he would deserve them; such as lying, cheating, making mischief, and meditated malice.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 130. man, 2 Johnson, however, hated anything that came near to tyranny in the management of children. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, who had told him that she had on one occasion gone against the wish of her nurses, he said: 'That the nurses fretted will supply me during life with an additional motive to keep every child, as far as is possible, out of a nurse's power. A nurse made of common mould will have a pride in overcoming a child's reluctance. There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful; power is nothing but as it is felt, and the delight of superiority is proportionate to the resistance overcome.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 67. • 'Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VI, act iv. sc. 10. John Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up her children, boys and girls alike, says :-'When turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; That Johnson a King of men. 55 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 tip-toe: He only did not stoop. From his earliest years his superiority was perceived and acknowledged'. He was from the beginning "Avaş ȧvdpŵv, 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 any one 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 characteristicks 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 and deference 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 by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had.' Wesley's Journal, i. 370. ''There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, to whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing said: 'You call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will one day prove a great man.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 6. 'See post, March 22, 1776 and Johnson's visit to Birmingham in Nov. 1784. he 56 Johnson's tenacious memory. he sat upon his back, and one on each side supported him ; and thus he was borne triumphant. Such a proof of the early predominance of intellectual vigour 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 any one; 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 but of one, but of Lowe; and I do not think he was as good a scholar.' He discovered a great ambition to excel, which roused him to counteract his indolence. He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so tenacious, that he never forgot any thing that he either heard or read. Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, 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, who 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 Chesterfield, 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 in young people; and that the listless torpor of doing nothing, alone deserves that name'. Of this dismal inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too great a share. Mr. Hector relates, that he could not oblige him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in ''You should never suffer your son to be idle one minute. I do not call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but I mean sitting still in a chair in total inaction; it makes boys lazy and indolent.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 248. the His fondness for romances. 57 the fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself 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 (adds 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 Felixmarte of Hircania, 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: ÆTAT. 16.-AFTER having resided for some time at the house of his uncle, Cornelius Ford', Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was then master. 1 The author of the Reliques. The summer of 1764. Johnson, writing of Paradise Lost, book ii. 1. 879, says:-'In the history of Don Bellianis, when one of the knights approaches, as I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges.' Johnson's Works, v. 76. See post, March 27, 1776, where he had with him upon a jaunt Il Palmerino d'Inghilterra.' Prior says of Burke that 'a very favourite study, as he once confessed in the House of Commons, was the old romances, Palmerin of England and Don Belianis of Greece, upon which he had wasted much valuable time.' Prior's Burke, p. 9. Hawkins (Life, p. 2) says that the uncle was Dr. Joseph Ford ‘a physician of great eminence.' The son, Parson Ford, was Cornelius. In Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15, 1773, Johnson mentions an uncle who very likely was Dr. Ford. In Notes and Queries, 5th S. v. 13, it is shown that by the will of the widow of Dr. Ford the Johnsons received £200 in 1722. On the same page the Ford pedigree is given, where it is seen that Johnson had an uncle Cornelius. It has been stated that 'Johnson was brought up by his uncle till his fifteenth year.' I understand Boswell to say that Johnson, after leaving Lichfield School, resided for some time with his uncle before going to Stourbridge. бо Johnson's youthful compositions. Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. Translation of HORACE. Book I. Ode xxii. For while by Chloe's image charm'd No savage more portentous stain'd Dire nurse of raging lions, bore. Place me where no soft summer gale Translation of HORACE. Book II. Ode ix. Nor showers immerse the verdant plain; Nor do the billows always rise, Or storms afflict the ruffled main. Nor |