bourhood, some of which were at a considerable distance from Lichfield. At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was a pretty good Latin scholar,' and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield; and, being a man of good sense, and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of which, however, he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment. He was a zealous high-churchman and royalist, and retained his

1 Extract of a letter, dated Trentham, St. Peter's Day, 1716, written by the Reverend George Plaxton, chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, may serve to show the great estimation in which the father of our great moralist was held :—“Johnson, the Litchfield 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. Note in second edition, vol. i., p. 13.

2

Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines "EXCISE, a hateful tax, levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid ;" and, in the Idler (No. 65), he calls a Commissioner of Excise “ one of the lowest of all human beings." This violence of language seems so unreasonable, that I was induced to suspect some cause of personal animosity; this mention of the trade in parchment (an exciseable article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield :—“ July 27. 1725. The Commissioners received yours of the 22d instant, and since the justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the tanner, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the Board direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the Exchequer."-It does not appear whether he offended again, but here is a sufficient cause of his son's animosity against Commissioners of Excise, and of the allusion in the Dictionary to the special jurisdiction under which that revenue is administered. The reluctance of the justices to convict will appear not unnatural, when it is recollected that M. Johnson was, this very year, chief magistrate of the city.-Croker.

"It does not appear," says Mr. Croker, "whether he offended again :"

attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by casuistical arguments of expediency and necessity, to take the oaths imposed by the prevailing power.

There is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantic, but so well authenticated, that I shall not omit it. A young woman of Leek, in Staffordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a violent passion for him; and, though it met with no favourable return, followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he was informed that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger, he, with a generous humanity, went to her and offered to marry her, but it was then too late : her vital power was exhausted; and she actually exhibited one of the very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in the cathedral of Lichfield ; and he, with a tender regard, placed a stone over her grave with this inscription:

Here lies the Body of

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a Stranger.

She departed this, Life

20th of September, 1694.1

JOHNSON'S mother was a woman of distinguished understanding. I asked his old school-fellow, Mr. Hector, a surgeon, of Birmingham, if she was not vain of her son. He said, "she nay, rather, it does not appear whether he offended at all. The case was evidently dismissed by the magistrates, who refused to entertain it; not only, it may reasonably be inferred, because Michael Johnson was chief magistrate of the city, but because, like many charges made under the farming system of the collection of duties, it could not be substantiated. At any rate, though the discovery of the alleged offence may redound to the credit of Mr. Croker's sagacity, his unhesitating acceptance of the one-sided evidence did not savour of the respectful consideration which was due to good old Michael, who, for anything proved to the contrary, might have been grossly slandered by the charge.-Editor.

1 The Rev. J. G. Lonsdale, Canon of Lichfield, informs me that the stone is no longer to be found. "The action of our damp climate here on stone is terribly mischievous, and inscriptions cut within my own memory are rapidly fading away."-Editor.

2 He died Sept. 2, 1794, æt. 85. He was, therefore, about the same age as Johnson.--Croker.

had too much good sense to be vain, but she knew her son's value." Her piety was not inferior to her understanding; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world afterwards derived so much benefit. He told me, that he remembered distinctly having had the first notice of heaven, “a place to which good people went," and hell, "a place to which bad people went," communicated to him by her, when a little child in bed with her; and that it might be the better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson, their man-servant: he not being in the way, this was not done; but there was no occasion for any artificial aid for its preservation.

In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his grave, every minute particular which can throw light on the progress of his mind is interesting. That he was remarkable, even in his earliest years, may easily be supposed; for, to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham, "That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and the ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy, by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt; for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour."1

In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much attention to incidents which the credulous relate with eager satisfaction, and the more scrupulous or witty inquirer considers only as topics of ridicule: yet there is a traditional story of the infant Hercules of Toryism, so curiously characteristic, that I shall not withhold it. It was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye of Lichfield.

"When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite three years old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much celebrated preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to church,

1 Works, vol. vi., p. 406.

and in the midst of so great a crowd. He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young as he was, he believed he had caught the public spirit and zeal for Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied with beholding him." 1

Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit, and impetuosity of temper, which never forsook him. The fact was acknowledged to me by himself, upon the authority of his mother. One day, when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home, had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so nearsighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel before he ventured to step over it. His schoolmistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, and beat her, as well as his strength would permit.

Of the power of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible, the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her by his mother. When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, Sam, you must get this by heart." She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: but by the time she had reached the

The gossiping anecdotes of the Lichfield ladies are all apocryphal. Sacheverel, by his sentence, pronounced in Feb. 1710, was interdicted for three years from preaching; so that he could not have preached at Lichfield while Johnson was under three years of age. Sacheverel, indeed, made a triumphal progress through the midland counties in 1710; and it appears by the books of the corporation of Lichfield, that he was received in that town and complimented by the attendance of the corporation "and a present of three dozen of wine," on the 16th of June, 1710: but then the "infant Hercules of toryism" was just nine months old.— Croker.

second floor, she heard him following her. "What's the matter?" said she. "I can say it," he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than

twice.

But there has been another story of his infant precocity generally circulated, and generally believed, the truth of which I am to refute upon his own authority. It is told,' that, when a child of three years old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the following epitaph:

"Here lies good master duck,

Whom Samuel Johnson trod on;
If it had lived, it had been good luck,
For then we'd had an odd one."

There is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines in it what no child of three years old could produce, without an extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration; yet Mrs. Lucy Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter, positively maintained to me, in his presence, that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote, for she had heard it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain an authentic relation of

The story of Michael Johnson taking his boy to see Sacheverel does not rest altogether on the gossip of the ladies of Lichfield. In reply to my inquiries, Charles Simpson, Esq., Town Clerk, who is old enough to remember Miss Mary Adye as Mrs. Sneyd—she died in 1830-informs me that he knew also the Rev. Henry White, to whom we owe the account of Johnson's penance at Uttoxeter; from him Mr. Simpson heard the Sacheverel story, which came to him "from the Doctor himself," the story, that is, which lived in the family. The inconsistencies which Mr. Croker mentions are indisputable; but, these notwithstanding, the tradition would seem to have substantial foundation. A statue of Johnson, by Lucas, has been recently presented to the town by the late Rev. J. T. Law, Chancellor of the Diocese, and erected immediately opposite the house where Johnson was born. On the pedestal of the statue there are three bas-reliefs, one of which represents Michael Johnson, with young Samuel on his shoulder, listening to the renowned Sacheverel. It seems a pity to disturb a tradition so firmly rooted and so piously commemorated.-Editor. 1 Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, by Hester Lynch Piozzi, p. 11; Life of Dr. Johnson, by Sir John Hawkins, p. 6.