his earliest years, his superiority was perceived and acknowledged. He was from the beginning ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, a king of men. His schoolfellow, 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 characteristics 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 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 anything 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 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 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.' 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. 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, but who was a very able judge of what was right. At this school 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 I learned much in the school, but little from the master; in the other I learned 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 Lee, 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 1 Dr. Thomas Percy, the well-known editor of the Reliques, born at Bridgnorth, 1728, died 1811. 2 Cornelius Ford, according to Sir John Hawkins, was his cousin-german, being the son of Dr. Ford, an eminent physician, who was brother to Johnson's mother.-MALONE. 3 He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's Modern Midnight Conversation.-BOSWELL. also educated). This application to Mr. Lee 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.' Or where the famed Hydaspes spreads For while by Chloe's image charm'd, He remained at Stourbridge little more than a year, and then he returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several proofs of his poetical genius, both in his school exercises and in other occasional compositions. Of these I have obtained a considerable collection, by the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one of his masters, and of Mr. Hector, his schoolfellow and friend; from which I select the following specimens : Translation of VIRGIL. Pastoral I. Now, Tityrus, you, supine and careless laid, TITYRUS. Those blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd. MELIBŒUS. My admiration only I exprest (No spark of envy harbours in my breast), Translation of HORACE. Book I. Ode xxii. Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads, No savage more portentous stain'd Place me where no soft summer gale Place mo beneath the burning line, Translation of HORACE. Book II. Ode ix. Or storms afflict the ruffled main: Nor, Valgius, on th' Armenian shores Or bends with violent force the tres. But you are ever drowu'd in tears, For Mystes dead you ever mourn; The wise experienced Grecian sage So much lament his slaughter'd son. Leave off, at length, these woman's sighs, To whom all nations tribute bring. Niphates rolls an humbler wave, Translation of part of the Dialogue between HECTOR SHE ceased; then god-like Hector answer'd kind 1 As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years And one base action sully all my fame, afterwards.-BOSWELL. 2 Yet here his genius was so distinguished, that although little better than a schoolboy, he was ad mitted into the best company of the place, and had no common attention paid to him, of which remarkable instances were long remembered there.-PERCY. Acquired by wounds and battles bravely fought! That Priam's house, and Priam's self, shall bleed: The day will come, in which proud Troy shall yield, As the sad thought of your impending fate: To a YOUNG LADY on her BIRTHDAY. THIS tributary verse receive, my fair, Thy form more lovely, more adorn'd thy mind; May powerful nature join with grateful art, To point each glance, and force it to the heart! Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ; THE YOUNG AUTHOR.2 WHEN first the peasant, long inclin'd to roam, So the young Author, panting after fame, 1 Mr. Hector informs me that this was made almost Impromptu in his presence.-BOSWELL. 2 This he inserted, with many alterations, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1743.-BOSWELL. He, however, did not add his name. -MALONE. Swiftly he sees the imagin'd laurels spread, The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise, EPILOGUE, intended to have been spoken by a LADY who was to personate the Ghost of HERMIONE. 1 } YE blooming train, who give despair or joy, And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale: 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 1 Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act The Distressed Mother, Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them. -BOSWELL 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. There were no apples; but the large folio proved to be Petrarch, 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, '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? 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. He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a commoner of Pembroke College, on the 31st of October 1728, being then in his nine teenth 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, author 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.'1 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 Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke, was not, it seems, a man of such abilities as we should conceive requisite for the instructor of Samuel Johnson, who 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, I did not attend him much. The first day after I came to College, I waited upon him, and then stayed away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered, I had been sliding in Christ Church meadow; and this I said with as much nonchalance as I am now talking to you. I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor.' BOSWELL: 'That, sir, was great fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON: 'No, sir; stark insensibility.' The fifth of November was at that time kept with great solemnity at Pembroke College, and exercises upon the subject of the day were re quired. Johnson neglected to perform his, which is much to be regretted; for his vivacity of imagination and force of language would probably have produced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot. To apologize for his neglect, he gave in a short copy of verses, entitled Somnium, containing a common thought, 'that the Muse had come to him in his sleep, and whispered that it did not become him to write on such a subject as politics; he 1 Athen. Oxen. edit. 1721, i. 627.-BOSWELL. 2 Oxford, 20th March 1776.-BOSWELL. * 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. should confine himself to humbler themes:' but the versification was truly Virgilian. 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.' Having given such a specimen of his poetical powers, he was asked by Mr. Jorden to translate Pope's Messiah into Latin verse, as a Christmas exercise. He performed it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a manner, that he obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept him high in the estimation of his college, and, indeed, of all the University. It is said that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it in terms of strong approbation. Dr. Taylor told me that it was first printed for old Mr. Johnson, without the knowledge 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 1729, 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. 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 nature, was at the same time visited with a How of his son, who was very angry when he heard | disorder so afflictive, that they who know it by of it. A Miscellany of Poems, collected by a person of the name of Husbands, was published at Oxford in 1731. In that Miscellany Johnson's translation of the Messiah appeared, with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poetics: '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 : And with like ease his vivid lines assume The 'morbid melancholy' which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion 1 Johnson used to say of Jorden, that 'he scarcely knew a noun from an adverb. '-NICHOLS. 2 Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. BOSWELL. dire experience will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was in some degree occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient, that he could not distinguish the hour upon the town clock. Jolinson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, strove to overcome it by forcible exertions. He frequently walked to Birmingham and back again, and tried many other expedients; but all in vain. His expression concern ing 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, 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 entrusted 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. But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was an HYPOCHONDRIAC, 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 troubled, and their full exercise suspended |