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a scholar as Johnson; and this was said but of one-but of Lowe1; 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 2 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 the fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself than to his companion." [Mr. Hector concludes by saying, "After a long absence from Lichfield, when he returned I was apprehensive of something wrong in his constitution, which might either impair his intellect or endanger his life, but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears have proved false."]

Hawk. p. 8.

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 3; so that

1 [See ante, p. 16.-ED.]

2

(adds his lordship) spending part of a sum mer 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."

Hawk.

p. 8.

[In the autumn of the year 1725, he received an invitation from his uncle 4, Cornelius Ford, to spend a few days with him at his house, which I conjecture to have been on a living of his in one of the counties bordering upon Staffordshire; but it seems that the uncle, discovering that the boy was possessed of uncommon parts, was unwilling to let him return, and to make up for the loss he might sustain by his absence from school, became his instructor in the classics, and farther assisted him in his studies; so that it was not till the Whitsuntide following, that Johnson went back to Lichfield. Whether Mr. Hunter was displeased to find a visit of a few days protracted into a vacation of many months, or that he resented the interference of another person in the tuition of one of his scholars, and he one of the most promising of any under his care, cannot now be known; but, it seems, that at Johnson's return to Lichfield, he was not received into the school of that city;] and he was, at the age of fifteen, 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 Rev. Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were disgraced by licentiousness-(he is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's Modern Midnight Conversation 5)—but who

was for exercise in the language, and he took no pleasure in the work itself.—ED.]

• Cornelius Ford, according to Sir John Haw

kins, was his cousin-german, being the son of Dr. Joseph [Q. Nathanael?] Ford, an eminent physician, who was brother to Johnson's mother.MALONE. [Sir John Hawkins, in this passage of his first edition, distinctly calls Cornelius Ford his uncle, as Boswell also does, but it was probably an error, as Hawkins corrected it in the second edition to cousin.-ED.]

[This fact has been doubted; but the blameable levity of his character, Johnson himself admits. In his Life of Fenton, he mentions "Ford, a clergyman at that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the

[Mr. Hector, in the paper printed by Hawkins, only says, "He never associated with any of us in our diversions, except in winter, when the ice was firm enough to be drawn along by a boy barefooted;" but this does not justify the absurd assertion that Johnson had no amusement whatsoever except in winter, and then only this one: oth-wise." In the Historical Register for 1731, er amusements he doubtless had, though probably not of a gregarious nature.-ED.]

3 [In one of his journeys we shall see (27th March, 1776), that he took with him "Il Palmerino d'Inghilterra” in Italian, but then it

we find, "Died Aug. 22, the Rev. Mr. Ford, well known to the world for his great wit and abilities." And the Gentleman's Magazine of the same date states that he was "esteemed for his polite and agreeable conversation." Mr. Murphy asserts

p. 10.

Hawk. p. 9.

was a very able judge of what was right. | two years, in a state very unworthy his [Johnson always spoke of his cousin uncommon abilities. [His father Piozzi, to Mrs. Piozzi with tenderness, prais- was for some time at a loss how to ing his acquaintance with life and dispose of him: he probably had a manners, and recollecting one piece of ad- view to bring him up to his own trade; for vice that no man surely ever followed more Sir J. Hawkins heard Johnson say, that he exactly: "Obtain (says Ford) some general himself was able to bind a book.] He had principles of every science; he who can talk already given several proofs of his poetical only on one subject, or act only in one depart- genius, both in his school-exercises and in ment, is seldom wanted and perhaps never other occasional compositions. Of these I wished for; while the man of general know- have obtained a considerable collection, by ledge can often benefit and always please." the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one He used to relate, however, another story of his masters, and of Mr. Hector, his less to the credit of his cousin's penetration, schoolfellow and friend; from which I select how Ford on some occasion said to him, some specimens [which will be found in the "You will make your way more easily in Appendix]. the world, I see, as you are contented to dispute no man's claim to conversation excellence; they will, therefore, more willingly allow your pretensions as a writer."

At the school of Stourbridge 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, or to my 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 [Lichfield], I learned much in the school, but little from the master; in the other [Stourbridge], I learnt much from the master, but little in the school."

The bishop also informs me that "Dr. Johnson's father, before he was received at Stourbridge, applied to have him admitted as a scholar and assistant to the Rev. Samuel Lea, M. A., head-master 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. Lea was not successful; but Johnson had afterwards the 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 he returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, for that he was chaplain to Lord Chesterfield, but gives no authority.-ED.]

As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many vears afterwards-BoswELL.

There were no

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. apples; but the large folio proved to be Petrarch 2, 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 Anacreon and Hesiod: but in this irregular 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,

2 [This was probably the folio edition of Pe trarch's Opera Omnia quæ extant, Bas. 1554. It could have been only the Latin works that Johnson read, as there is no reason to suppose that he was, at this period, able to read Italian.-ED.]

"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 a 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 to stated tasks 1?

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 schoolfellows, 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.

Hawk. p. 9, 10.

[Sir John Hawkins, thus states this circumstance: A neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbett, having a son, who had been educated in the same school with Johnson, whom he was about to send to Pembroke College in Oxford, a proposal was made and accepted, that Johnson should attend this son thither, in quality of assistant in his studies; and accordingly, on the 31st day of Cctober, 1728, they were both entered, Corbett as a gentleman commoner, and Johnson as a commoner. Whether it was discouragement in the outset of their studies, or any other ground of disinclination that moved him to it, is not known, but this is certain, that young Corbett could not brook submission to a man who seemed to be little more learned than himself, and that having a father living, who was able to dispose of him in various other ways, he, after about two years' stay, left the college, and went home. But the case of Johnson was far different; his fortunes were at sea; his title to a stipend was gone, and all that he could obtain from the father of Mr. Corbett was

[Dr. Johnson's prodigious memory and talents enabled him to collect from desultory reading a vast mass of general information; but he was in no science, and indeed we might almost say in no branch of literature, what is usually called a profound scholar-that character is only to be earned by laborious study; and Mr. Boswell's fanciful allusion to the flavour of the flesh of animals seems fallacious, not to say foolish.-ED.]

an agreement, during his continuance at college, to pay for his commons 2.]

He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a commoner of Pembroke College, on the 31st of October, 1728, being then in his nineteenth 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, his father, who had anxiously accompanied him, found means to have him introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was to be his tutor. His being put under any tutor, reminds us of what Wood says of Robert Burton, authour of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," when elected student of Christ-church; "for form's sake, though he wanted not a tutor, he was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon 3."

His father seemed very full of the merits of his son, and told the company 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 4, Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke,

2 [Mr. Murphy, in his Life of Johnson, follows Hawkins; but the date of Mr. Corbett's entry into and retirement from college does not tally with Andrew either Boswell's or Hawkins's account. College (as Dr. Hall informs me), to have been Corbett appears, from the books of Pembroke admitted 24th February, 1727, and his name was removed from the books February 21, 1732: so that, as Johnson entered in Oct. 1728, and does not appear to have returned after Christmas, 1729, Corbett was of the University twenty months before, and twelve or thirteen months after Johnson. And, on reference to the college books, it appears that Corbett's residence was so irregular, and so little coincident with Johnson's, that there is no reason to suppose that Johnson was employed either as the private tutor of Corbett, as Hawkins states, or his companion, as Boswell suggests.-ED.]

Athen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627.-BosWELL. 4 [There are, as Dr. Hall observes to me, many small errors in Mr. Boswell's account of Johnson's college life, and particularly as to the relation between him and Mr. Jorden. It is not the custom at Pembroke to assign particular tutors to in dividual students. There are two college tutors appointed for the whole. Mr. Jorden was therefore no more the tutor of Johnson than of any other student, and Johnson was equally the pupil of the other college tutor; though, as the latter was probably the tutor in mathematics, it seems likely that Johnson did not pay him much atten

Hawk. p. 9.

He had a love and respect for Jorden, not for his literature, but for his worth. "Whenever (said he) a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he becomes his son."

was not, it seems, a man of such abilities as | language, would probably have produced we should conceive requisite for the instruc- something sublime upon the Gunpowder tor of Samuel Johnson, who [would Plot. To apologise for his neglect, he gave oftener risk the payment of a small in a short copy of verses, entitled Somnium, fine than attend his lectures; nor was containing a common thought: "that the he studious to conceal the reason of his ab- Muse had come to him in his sleep, and sence. Upon occasion of one such imposi- whispered, that it did not become him to tion, he said to Jorden, " Sir, you have write on such subjects as politics; he should sconced me two-pence for non-attendance confine himself to humbler themes:" but at a lecture not worth a penny 1."] He the versification was truly Virgilian. 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, did not attend him much. The first day after I came to col- Having given such a specimen of his polege, I waited upon him, and then staid etical powers, he was asked by Mr. Jorden, away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden ask- to translate Pope's Messiah into Latin verse, ed me why I had not attended. I answered as a Christmas exercise 3. He performed it I had been sliding in Christ-church mea- with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterdow. And this I said with as much non-ly a manner, that he obtained great applause chalance as I am now talking to you. I from it, which ever after kept him high in had no notion that I was wrong or the estimation of his college, and, indeed, irreverent to my tutor." BoswELL. of all the university. 1776. "That, sir, was great fortitude of mind." JOHNSON."No, sir; stark insensibility 2."

Oxford, 20 Mar.

Piozzi, p. 23.

[When he told this anecdote to Mrs. Piozzi, he laughed very heartily at the recollection of his own insolence, and said they endured it from him with wonderful acquiescence, and a gentleness that, whenever he thought of it, astonished himself. He said, too, that when he made his first declamation, he wrote over but one copy, and that coarsely; and having given it into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, was obliged to begin by chance and continue on how he could, for he had got but little of it by heart; so, fairly trusting to his present powers for immediate supply, he finished by adding astonishment to the applause of all who knew how little was owing to study. A prodigious risk, however, said some one: "Not at all (exclaims Johnson): no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim."] 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, and force of

tion. Mr. Boswell either did not consult Dr. Adams, or did not remember accurately what the Doctor must have told him on these points.-ED.]

[It has been thought worth while to preserve this anecdote, as an early specimen of the antithetical style of Johnson's conversation.---ED.]

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 attended his tutor's lectures, and also the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly.

-BOSWELL.

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Hawk

p. 13.

It is said, that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it in terms of strong approbation. [The poem having been shown to him by a son of Dr. Arbuthnot, then a gentleman commoner of Christ-church, was read, and returned with this encomium: "The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original."] Dr. Taylor told me, 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 4, was published at Oxford in 1731. In that Miscellany, Johnson's Translation of the Messiah appeared, with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poeticks, "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. Courtenay, [in his Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson.]

"And with like ease, his vivid lines assume
The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.-
Let college verse-men trite conceits express,
Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress:

[If Dr. Hall's inferences from the dates in the college books be correct, this must have been the Christmas immediately following his entry into college.-ED.]

4 [John Husbands, the editor of this Miscellany, was a cotemporary of Johnson at Pembroke College, having been admitted a fellow and A. M. in 1728.-HALL.]

From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase,
And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays;
Then with mosaic art the piece combine,
And boast the glitter of each dulcet line:
Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse
His vigorous sense into the Latin muse;
Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light,
And with a Roman's ardor think and write.
He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire,
And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre:
Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim,
While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's
name 1

Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands,
To bloom a while, factitious heat demands:
Though glowing Maro a 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 fost'ring soil;
Imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins,
And grows a native of Britannia's plains."

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 4. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again, and tried many other expedients, 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. Swinfen, physician in Lichfield, his godfather 5, and put into his hands a state of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen 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 many years humanely supported in Dr. Johnson's house in London, told me, that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfen 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 Swinfen's motive was good, he inconsiderately betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of great delicacy, which had been intrusted 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.

The "morbid melancholy," which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 17292, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of GOD! Johnson, who was blest with all the powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above the ordinary state of human part of his life in London; in the literary circles of which he was generally known and highly esnature, was at the same time visited with a teemed. disorder so afflictive, that they who know it He seems to have been a good classical by dire experience, will not envy his exalt- scholar, and certainly spoke most European laned endowments. That it was, in some de-guages (amongst the rest, modern Greek and Turkish) with great facility. This unusual accomplishgree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous ment was probably the cause of his intimacy with system, that inexplicable part of our frame, Sir William Jones, to whom we learn (Teignappears highly probable. He told Mr. Pa-mouth's Life of Jones, p. 221.) that he addressradise 3 that he was sometimes so languided a distich in ancient Greek, which had the sin

[This refers to a Latin ode addressed to Mrs. Thrale from the Isle of Skie, which will be mentioned in its proper place, under 6th September, 1773.-ED.]

[It seems, as Dr. Hall suggests, probable, that this is a mistake for 1730: Johnson appears to have remained in college during the vacation of 1729, and we have no trace of him in the year 1730, during which he was, possibly, labouring under this malady, and, on that account, absent from college. ED.]

3 [John Paradise, Esq. D. C. L. of Oxford, and F. R. S., was of Greek extraction, the son of the English Consul at Salonica, where he was born: he was educated at Padua, but resided the greater

|

But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was an HYPOCHONDRIACK, was subject to what the learned, philosophical, and pious Dr. Cheyne 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

gular honour of being copied by the hand of the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire. Mr. Paradise became intimate with Johnson in the latter portion of the Doctor's life; was a member of his Essex-street club; and attended his funeral. Mr. Paradise died, at his house in Titchfield-street, 12 Dec. 1795.—ED.]

4 [It appears, from his own account of his father (ante, p. 10), that he thought exercise and change of place alleviated this disease, which he inherited from him. It seems that he did not, in his own mind, connect this disease with the scrofula, which he derived, as he thought, from his mother, or, as Dr. Swinfen believed, from his nurse.-ED.]

5 [See ante, p. 15.-ED.]

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