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enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr. Ma- | tains of Johnson's conversation, which is son, in his Memoirs of Gray. Wherever universally acknowledged to have been emnarrative is necessary to explain, connect inently instructive and entertaining; and of and supply, I furnish it to the best of my which the specimens that I have given upabilities; but in the chronological series of on a former occasion have been received Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly with so much approbation, that I have as I can, year by year, I produce, wherever good grounds for supposing that the world it is in my power, his own minutes, letters, will not be indifferent to more ample comor conversation, being convinced that this munications of a similar nature. mode is more lively, and will make my readers better acquainted with him than even most of those were who actually knew him, but could know him only partially; whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which his character is more fully understood and il-moirs of Mr. William Whitehead, in lustrated.

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 o'er each scene" 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 panegyrick, 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 panegyrick 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.

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 mewhich there is literally no life, but a mere 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 domestick companion of a superannuated lord and lady, conversation could no more be expected than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimneypiece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen.

If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers. Ουτε ταις επιφανεσταταις πράξεσι πάντως

ενέστε

is agerns n nanias, αλλά πραγμα βραχυ πολλακις, και ρήμα, και παιδία τις εμφασιν ήθους εποίησεν μάλλον η μαχαι μυρίοναιρεί, παρατάξεις απ μεγισται, και πολιορκια πολεαν. "Nor is 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 2."

To this may be added 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, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other on

"If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the publick 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 failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegy-ly by prudence and by virtue. The account rick, and not to be known from one another but by extrinsick 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 1."

What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is the quantity it con

1 'Rambler, No. 60.-BosWELL.

of Thuanus is with great propriety said by its authour to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi, whose candour and genius will to the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration.

"There are many invisible circumstances

2 Plutarch's Life of Alexander-Langhorne's translation.-BOSWELL.

which, whether we read as inquirers after | sation, and how happily it is adapted for natural or moral knowledge, whether we in- the petty exercise of ridicule, by men of tend to enlarge our science or increase superficial understanding, and ludicrous our virtue, are more important than publick fancy; but I remain firm and confident in Occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great mas- my opinion, that minute particulars are ter of nature, has not forgotten, in his ac- frequently characteristic, and always amucount of Catiline, to remark, that his walk sing, when they relate to a distinguished was now quick, and again slow, as an indi- man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling cation of a mind revolving with violent that any thing, however slight, which my commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon illustrious friend thought it worth his while affords a striking lecture on the value of to express, with any degree of point, should time, by informing us, that when he had perish. For this almost superstitious revmade an appointment, he expected not on- erence, I have found very old and venerable ly the hour, but the minute to be fixed, authority, quoted by our great modern prethat the day might not run out in the idle-late, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there ness of suspense; and all the plans and enterprises of De Wit 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 publick 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.

is the following passage:

"Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish commentator, who lived about five hundred 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 authours 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 most agreeable to many; and the greater number that an authour can please in any degree, the more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind.

"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 To those who are weak enough to think impartiality, but must expect little intelli- this a degrading task, and the time and lagence; for the incidents which give excel-bour which have been devoted to it misemlence to biography are of a volatile and ev-ployed, I shall content myself with opposing anescent kind, such as soon escape the me- the authority of the greatest man of any mory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition. We know how few can pourtray 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 1."

I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conver

1 Rambler, No. 60.-BoswELL.

age, Julius Cæsar, of whom Bacon observes, that "in his book of apophthegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apophthegm or an oracle","

Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the publick.

Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," Book I.-BOSWELL.

THE

LIFE

OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

Account of Life, p. 9.

of Life, p. 2.

the county the day after his son's
birth, which was a ceremony then
performed with great pomp, was asked

In

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, | Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of Accou in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N. S. 1709, [as he himself states, adding, "that his mother had a very difficult and dangerous labour, and was assisted by George Hec- the bishop, dean, &c. aided by the neighbouring tor, a man-midwife of great reputation. gentry: Michael Johnson's name stands the twelfth He was born almost dead, and could not in the list; and his contribution, though only 108., cry for some time."] His initiation into was not comparatively contemptible; for no one, the Christian church was not delayed; for except the bishop and dean, gave so much as 1017. his baptism is recorded, in the register of Baronets and knights gave a guinea or two, and St. Mary's parish in that city, to have the great body of the contributors gave less than been performed on the day of his birth: his Johnson. (Harwood's Lichfield, p. 69.) father is there styled Gentleman, a circum-1694, we find him burying in the cathedral, and placing a marble stone over a young woman in stance of which an ignorant panegyrist has whose fate he was interested. His house, a handpraised him for not being proud; when the some one, and in one of the best situations in the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, town, was his own freehold; and he appears to though now lost in the indiscriminate as- have added to it, for we find in the books of the sumption of Esquire, was commonly taken corporation the following entry: "1708, July 13. by those who could not boast of gentility 2. Agreed, that Mr. Michael Johnson, bookseller, His father was Michael Johnson, a native have a lease of his encroachment of his house in of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, who Sadler's-street, for forty years, at 2s. 6d. per an." settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and And this lease, at the expiration of the forty years, stationer3. [He-being that year sheriff of was renewed to the Doctor, as a mark of the respect of his fellow-citizens. In 1709, Michael Johnson served the office of sheriff of the county of the city of Lichfield. In 1718, he was elected junior bailiff; and in 1725, senior bailiff, or chief magistrate. Thus respected and apparently thriving in Lichfield, the following extract of a letter, written by the Rev. George Plaxton, chaplain to Lord Gower, will show the high estimation in which the father of our great moralist was held in the neighbouring country: "Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716. Johnson, the Lichfield librarian, is now here; he propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth knowledge to its just height; all the clergy here are his pupils, and suck all they have from him; Allen cannot make a warrant without his precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance sine directione Michaelis." (Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1791.) On the whole, it seems probable that the growing expenses of a family, and losses in trade, h1 in his latter years reduced Mr. Johnson, from une state of competency which he had before enjoyed, to very narrow circumstances.ED.]

[To have been born almost dead has been related of many eminent men, amongst others of Addison, Lord Lyttelton, and Voltaire.-ED.]

[The title Gentleman had still, in 1709, some degree of its original meaning, and as Mr. Johnson served the office of sheriff of Lichfield in that year, he seems to have been fully entitled to it. The Doctor, at his entry on the books of Pembroke college, and at his matriculation, designated himself as filius generosi.-ED.]

3 [There seems some difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory opinion as to Michael Johnson's real condition and circumstances. That in the latter years of his life he was poor, is certain; and Doctor Johnson (in the "Account of his early Life,") not only admits the general fact of poverty, but gives several instances of what may be called indigence: yet, on the other hand, there is evidence that for near fifty years he occupied a respectable rank amongst his fellow-citizens, and appears in the annals of Lichfield on occasions not bespeaking poverty. In 1687, a subscription for recasting the cathedral bells was set on foot, headed by 2

VOL. I.

Piozzi, p. 2, 5.

by Mrs. Johnson, "whom he would in- [The elder Johnson was, as his vite to the Riding?" and answered, "all son informed Mrs. Piozzi, a very the town now." He feasted the citizens pious and worthy man, but wrong-headed, with uncommon magnificence, and was positive, and afflicted with melancholy: the last but one that maintained the his business, however, leading him to be splendour of the Riding.] His mother much on horseback, contributed to the was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient preservation of his bodily health, and menrace of substantial yeomanry in Warwick- tal sanity; which, when he stayed long at shire; [Mrs. Piozzi states her to home, would sometimes be about to give Piozzi, have been the daughter of a gen- way; and Dr. Johnson said, that when his p. 9. tleman in the country, such as workshop, a detached building, had fallen there were many of in those days, who half down for want of money to repair it, possessing, perhaps, one or two hundred his father was not less diligent to lock the pounds a year in land, lived on the profits, door every night, though he saw that any and sought not to increase their income.] body might walk in at the back part, and They were well advanced in years when knew that there was no security obtained they married, [he past fifty, and she above by barring the front door. "This (said his forty,] and never had more than two chil- son) was madness, you may see, and would dren, both sons; Samuel, their first-born, have been discoverable in other instances who lived to be the illustrious character of the prevalence of imagination, but that whose various excellence I am to endeavour poverty prevented it from playing such to record, and Nathanael, who died in his tricks as riches and leisure encourage.' twenty-fifth year1, [and of whose Michael was a man of still larger size and Piozzi, manly spirit Mrs. Piozzi heard his greater strength than his son, who was brother speak with pride and plea- reckoned very like him, but did not delight The two brothers did not, how-in talking much of his family-" One has ever, much delight in each other's company, (says he) so little pleasure in reciting the being always rivals for their mother's fond- anecdotes of beggary!" One day, however, ness; and many of the severe reflections on hearing Mrs. Piozzi praise a favourite friend: domestic life in Rasselas took their source "Why do you like that man's acquaintance from its authour's keen recollections of his so?" said he. "Because," replied she, early years.] "he is open and confiding, and tells me stories of his uncles and cousins: I love the

p. 5, 6. sure.

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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 observed, carefully suppressed by domestic or of unsound substance are often discovered, professional delicacy. This is natural and even there was in him a mixture of that disease, laudable; yet there are several important reasons the nature of which eludes the most minute why the obscurity in which such facts are usually inquiry, though the effects are well known buried may be regretted. Morally, we should to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about wish to know, as far as may be permitted to us, those things which agitate the greater part the nature of our own intellect, its powers and its of mankind, and a general sensation of weaknesses;-medically, it might be possible, by gloomy wretchedness. From him then his early and systematic treatment, to avert or mitigate the disease which, there is reason to supson inherited, with some other qualities, "a pose, is now often unknown or mistaken;-legalvile melancholy," which in his too strongly, it would be desirable to have any additional expression of any disturbance of Sept. 16, the mind, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober2."

1773.

1 Nathanael was born in 1712, and died in 1737. Their father, Michael Johnson, was born at Cubley in Derbyshire, in 1656, and died at Lichfield, in 1731, at the age of seventy-six. Sarah Ford, his wife, was born at King's Norton, in the county of Worcester, in 1669, and died at Lichfield in January, 1759, in her ninetieth year.-King's Norton Dr. Johnson supposed to be in Warwickshire (see his inscription for his mother's tomb), but it is in Worcestershire, probably on the confines of the county of Warwick.-MALONE.

2 [One of the most curious and important chapters in the history of the human mind is still to be written, that of hereditary insanity. The symptomatic facts by which the disease might be traced are generally either disregarded from ignorance of their real cause and character, or when

means of discriminating between guilt and misfortune, and of ascertaining with more precision the nice bounds which divide moral guilt from what may be called physical errors;-and in the highest and most important of all the springs of human thought or action, it would be consolatory and edifying to be able to distinguish with greater certainty rational faith and judicious piety, from the enthusiastic confidence or the gloomy despondence of disordered imaginations. The memory of every man who has lived, not inattentively, in society, will furnish him with instances to which these considerations might have been usefully applied. But in reading the life of Doctor Johnson (who was conscious of the disease and of its cause, and of whose blood there remains no one whose feelings can be now offended), they should be kept constantly in view; not merely as a subject of general interest, but as elucidating and explaining many of the errors, peculiarities, and weaknesses of that extraordinary man.-ED.]

light parts of a solid character." « Nay,
if you are for family history (said Dr. John-gave the following account:
son, good-humouredly), I can fit you: I
had an uncle, Cornelius Ford, who, upon a
journey, stopped and read an inscription
written on a stone he saw standing by the
way-side, set up, as it proved, in honour of
a man who had leaped a certain leap there-
abouts, the extent of which was specified
upon the stone: Why now, said my uncle,
I could leap it in my boots; and he did
leap it in his boots. I had likewise another
uncle, Andrew (continued he), my father's
brother, who kept the ring in Smithfield,
where they wrestled and boxed, for a whole
year, and never was thrown or conquered.
Here now are uncles for you, mistress2,
if that's the way to your heart."]

[Of some other members of his family he

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"This Whitsuntide (1719), I Account and my brother were sent to of Life, some time at Birmingham; I be- P. 27. lieve a fortnight. Why such boys were sent to trouble other homes, I cannot tell. My mother had some opinion that much improvement was to be had by changing the mode of life. My uncle, Harrison, was a widower; and his house was kept by Sally Ford, a young woman of such sweetness of temper, that I used to say she had no fault. We lived most at uncle Ford's, being much caressed by my aunt, a goodnatured, coarse woman, easy of converse, but willing to find something to censure in the absent. My uncle, Harrison, did not much like us, nor did we like him. He was a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink; very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but, luckily, not rich. At my aunt Ford's I eat so much of a boiled leg of mutton 3, that she used to talk of it. My mother, who had lived in a narrow sphere, and was then affected by little things, told me seriously that it would be hardly ever forgotten. Her mind, I think, was afterwards very much enlarged, or greater evils wore out the care of less.

on

"I staid after the vacation was over some days; and remember, when I wrote home, that I desired the horses to come Thursday of the first school week; and not till then. I was much pleased with a rattle to my whip, and wrote of it to my mother.

[Miss Seward, who latterly showed a great deal of malevolence towards Johnson, delighted to repeat a story that one of his uncles had suffered the last penalty of the law. "Shortly after Mr. Porter's death, Johnson asked his mother's consent to marry the old widow. After expressing her surprise at a request so extraordinary No, Sam, my willing consent you will never have to so preposterous a union. You are not twenty-five, and she is turned fifty. If she had any prudence, this request had never been made to me. Where are your means of subsistence? Porter has died poor, in consequence of his wife's expensive habits. You have great talents, but as yet have turned them into no profitable channel.'Mother, I have not deceived Mrs. Porter; I have told her the worst of me; that I am of mean extraction; that I have no money; and that I have had an uncle hanged.' She replied, that she valued no one more or less for his descent; that she had no more money than myself; and that, "When my father came to fetch us though she had not had a relation hanged, she home, he told the ostler that he had twelve had fifty who deserved hanging.'"-(Seward's miles home, and two boys under his care. Letters, vol. i, p. 45.) This account was given This offended me. He had then a watch 4, to Mr. Boswell, who, as Miss Seward could not which he returned when he was to pay have known it of her own knowledge, asked the for it."] Michael Johnson was, however, lady for her authority. Miss Seward, in reply, forced by the narrowness of his circumquoted Mrs. Cobb, an old friend of Johnson's, stances to be very diligent in business, not who resided at Lichfield. To her, then, Boswell addressed himself; and, to his equal satisfac-only in his shop, but by occasionally retion and surprise, was answered that Mrs. Cobb sorting to several towns in the neighbourhad not only never told such a story, but that she hood, some of which were at a considerable had not even ever heard of it.-(Gent. Mag. vol. 63, p. 1009.) It is painful to have to add, that notwithstanding this denial, Miss Seward persisted in her story to the last. The report as to the hanging was probably derived from a coarse passage in the Rev. Donald M'Nicol's Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides. "But whatever the Doctor may insinuate about the present scarcity of trees in Scotland, we are much deceived by fame if a very near ancestor of his, who was a native of that country, did not find to his cost that a tree was not quite such a rarity in his days." (P. 18. ed. 1779.) That some Scotchman, of the name of Johnston, may have been 4 [The convenience of a watch, now so genhanged in the seventeenth century, is very likely; eral, Doctor Johnson himself, as Sir J. Hawbut there seems no reason whatsoever to believe kins reports (p. 460), did not possess till 1768. — that any of Dr. Johnson's family were natives | Ed.] of Scotland.-ED]

2 [The reader is requested to observe, that Dr. Johnson used familiarly to designate Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi) as his "mistress."-ED.]

3 [All these trifles-since Dr. Johnson in the height of his fame (for the Account must have been written subsequent to 1768) thought them worth recording-appear worth quoting. It will be seen hereafter that his voracious love of a leg of mutton adhered to him through life; and the prophesy of his mother, that it never would be forgotten, is realised in a way the good woman could not have anticipated.-ED.]

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