LIFE. SAMUEL JOHNSON was born in the Cathedral City of Lichfield, in the year 1709. His father was Michael Johnson, a magistrate and bookseller in that city, and like many booksellers of the present day, a man of culture and learning. Of his mother we know but little; JOHNSON says of her, "that like the children of other poor parents, he loved, but did not respect her." Young SAMUEL was the subject of king's evil— the secret cause of a stream of tendency in society, which makes for drink and crime, insanity and suicide. To get deliverance from this affliction, his parents were superstitious enough to take the child to London, to be prayed over by the Court chaplain, and touched by the royal hand. The "I fancy mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically, except in narration; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made." -JOHNSON. “The greatest compliment that can be paid an author is to quote him. His merit may pass without notice, huddled in the variety of things, and thrown into the general miscellany of life.”—JOHNSON. "Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chanee, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning."-JOHNSON. "Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world."-JOHNSON. |