if she was not vain of her son. He said, "she had too much good sense to be vain, but she knew her son's value." Her piety was not inferiour 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.1 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 He not being in the way, this was not done; but there was no occasion for any artificial aid for its preservation.

man-servant.

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 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."

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 enquirer considers only as topicks of ridicule: Yet there is a traditional story of the infant Hercules of toryism, so curiously characteristick, 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.

66

There is something touching and delicate in her character, and it is not surprising that she was endeared to her son. My mother visited me every day, and used to go different ways that her assiduity might not expose her to ridicule, and often left her fan or glove ehind her that she might have a pre'tence to come back unexpected." The father and mother "had not much happiness from each other. My father did not wish to talk of his affairs, which he neglected, and which she wished to

Mr. Hammond asked Mr.

have in order." He "considered tea very expensive, and discouraged her from keeping company with the neighbours, and from paying visits or receiving them."— (Autobiog.) Her family, too, was superior to his, and looked down on the bookseller. "My father had much vanity, which his adversity hindered from being fully exercised." These little strokes show Johnson's fine, and even graceful, power of touching character, besides revealing his affectionate nature.

Johnson how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to church, and in the midst of so great a croud. He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young as he was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied with beholding him."'

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 near-sighted, 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 strength 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 stepdaughter, 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 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 over 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 "Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson," by Hester Lynch Piozzi, p. 11.-"Life of Dr. Johnson," by Sir John Hawkins, p. 6.

1 Mr. Croker considers this story "apocryphal;" because it turns out that Sacheverel was at this time inhibited from preaching, and because Johnson could then have been only nine months' old; but as Sacheverel was received with much state by the corporation,

there is probably a mistake only as to the place, and the child may have exhibited his precocious enthusiasm at the town hall, instead of in the cathedral.

2 He kicked her shins," as Johnson told Bishop Percy and Miss Williams.Percy's Letter to Boswell, Nich. Illus, vii.

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 liv'd, 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 authentick relation of facts, and such authority may there be for errour; for he assured me, that his father made the verses, and wished to pass them for his child's. He added, "my father was a foolish old man; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children."1

Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much, that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed, "When my EYE was restored to its use," which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though

This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections by Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with which she has been pleased to favour me:-"These infant numbers contain the seeds of those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his character, of that poetick talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful fruits; for, excepting his orthographick works, every thing which Dr. Johnson wrote was Poetry, whose essence consists not in numbers, or in jingle, but in the strength and glow of a fancy, to which all the stores of nature and of art stand in prompt administration; and in an eloquence which conveys their blended illustrations in a language more tuneable than needs or rhyme or verse to add more harmony.'

"The above little verses also shew that superstitious bias which grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength,' and of late years particularly injured his happiness, by presenting to him the gloomy side of religion, rather than that bright and cheering one which gilds the period of closing life, with the light of pious hope."

This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But, like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is, indeed, a fiction.

"Prayers and Meditations," p. 27.

Additional circumstances in Sir J. Hawkins's version are that the ducklings were his own, and that when the accident happened, he ran to his mother

in great emotion, and bid her write. "Write!" said she, "what must I write?" "Why, write," answered he, "' so."

I never perceived it.1 I supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain which I observed resembled a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy by shewing me, that it was indeed pointed at the top, but that one side of it was larger than the other. And the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree, that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress. When I found that he saw the romantick beauties of Islam, in Derbyshire, much better than I did, I told him that he resembled an able performer upon a bad instrument. How false and contemptible then are all the remarks which have been made to the prejudice either of his candour or of his philosophy, founded upon a supposition that he was almost blind. It has been said, that he contracted this grievous malady from his nurse. His mother yielding to the superstitious notion, which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the virtue of the regal touch; a notion, which our kings encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgement as Carte could give credit; carried him to

1 Almighty God, who has restored light to my eye, and enabled me to pursue again the studies which Thou has set before me: Teach me, by the diminution of my sight, to remember that whatever I possess is Thy gift, and by its recovery to hope for mercy.'

2 This year, in Lent-12, I was taken to London, to be touched for the evil by Queen Anne. My mother was at Nicholson's, the famous bookseller, in Little Britain. My mother, then with child, concealed her pregnancy, that she might not be hindered from the journey. I always retained some memory of this journey, though I was then but thirty months' old. I remembered a little dark room behind the kitchen, where the ack weight fell through a hole in the floor, into which I once slipped my leg. I seem to remember that I played with a string and a bell, which my cousin, Isaac Johnson, gave me; and that there was a cat with a white collar, and a dog called Chops, that leaped over a stick; but I knew not whether I remember the thing, or the talk of it. I remember a

boy crying at the palace when I went to
be touched. Being asked, 'On which
side of the shop was the counter?' I
answered, On the left from the en.
trance,' many years after, and spoke, not
by guess, but by memory. We went in
the stage-coach, and returned in the
waggon, as my mother said, because my
cough was violent. The hope of saving
a few shillings was no slight motive; for
she, not having been accustomed to
money, was afraid of such expense as
now seems very small. She sewed two
guineas in her petticoat, lest she should
be robbed. We were troublesome to the
passengers; but to suffer such incon-
veniences in the stage-coach was common
in these days to persons in much higher
rank. I was sick; one woman fondled
me, the other was disgusted.
bought me a small silver cup and spoon,
marked SAM. I., lest, if they had been
marked S. I., which was her name, they
should, upon her death, have been taken
from me. She bought me a speckled
linen frock, which I knew afterwards by
the name of my London frock. The

She

Mrs.

London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne. Johnson indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Lichfield. Johnson used to talk of this very frankly; and Mrs. Piozzi has preserved his very picturesque description of the scene, as it remained upon his fancy. Being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, "He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood."a This touch, however, was without any effect.1 I ventured to say to him, in allusion to the political principles in which he was educated, and of which he ever retained some odour, that "his mother had not carried him far enough; she should have taken him to ROME."

He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield." He told me she could read the black letter, and asked him to borrow for her, from his father, a bible in that character. When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave of him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present of gingerbread, and said he was the best scholar she had ever had. He delighted in mentioning this early compliment; adding, with a smile, that "this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive." His next instructor in English was a master, whom, when he spoke of him to me, he familiarly called Tom Brown, who, said he, "pub. lished a spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERse;—but, I fear, no copy of it can now be had."

He began to learn Latin with Mr. Hawkins, usher, or undermaster of Lichfield school, "a man (said he) very skilful in his little way." With him he continued two years, and then rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter the head-master, who, according to his account, 66 was very severe, and wrong-headedly severe. • "Anecdotes," p. 10.

cup was one of the last pieces of plate which dear Tetty sold in our distress. I have now the spoon. She bought at the same time two tea-spoons, and till my manhood she had no more." His anxious mother had previously made another journey with him to Wolverhampton, to consult a physician about his eyes.

1 The Corporation of London, according to Nichols, withdrew their patronage from "Carte's History" in consequence of this allusion, and the book fell into neglect.

3 The school was in Dane-street.

"At this time," says the author of the Short Account of Lichfield," he had the appearance of idiocy, and the sons of a gentleman in the town were reprimanded for bringing home that disagreeable driveller."" On the other hand, when he was being laughed at by the children of a Rev. Mr. Butt, who called him "that great boy," the father told them he would one day prove a great man.

3 Hunter was a sporting prebendary in the cathedral. According to Davies, he would "let off" a boy who showed him where game was.