so tame, as to be contented to pass many years as the domestick companion of a superannuated lord and lady, conversation worth recording could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimney-piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen.1

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If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers. Οὔτε ταῖς επιφανεστα ταις πράξεσι πάντως ενεστι δουλωσις ἀρετῆς ἢ κακίας, ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα βραχύ πολλάκις καὶ ῥῆμα, και παιδια τις ἔμφασιν ήθοις ἐποίησεν μαλλον ἤ μάχραι μεριονεχροι, παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισται, καὶ πολιορχία πόλεων. "Nor is it always in the most distinguished atchievements 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."

a

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 exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account 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, which whether we read as enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot in his account of Catiline to remark, that his walk was now quick, and again slow, as an indi• Plutarch's "Life of Alexander." Langhorne's translation.

Corrections and Additions.-Line 7: Read the Greek thus: Oure taîs énipaveotá ταις πράξεσι πάντως ἔνεστι δήλωσις αρετῆς ἢ κακίας ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα βραχὺ πολλάκις καὶ ρῶμα καὶ παιδιά τις ἔνφασιν ἤθους ἐποιήσεν μᾶλλον ἢ μάχαι μυρίονεκρο παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισται καὶ πολιορκία πόλεων.

1 There seems to be no warrant for this attack. Whitehead, an amiable being who had been tutor in the Jersey family -"the superannuated lord and lady alluded to had so attached these patrons and their friend, Lord Harcourt, that he found a home at their houses for the remainder of his life. But the solu

tion of this hostility may, perhaps, be found in some marginalia of Baretti, written on a copy of Mrs. Piozzi's letters, now in the British Museum: "Poor Mason has much abused Johnson since his death, for the great reason that Johnson always looked upon him as a pigmy poet."

cation of a mind revolving with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a striking lecture on the value of time, by informing us, that when he had made an appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspence, and all the plans and enterprizes 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.

"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 impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are 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."

I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conversation, and how happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule by men of superficial understanding, and ludicrous fancy; but I remain firm and confident in my opinion, that minute particulars are frequently characteristick, and always amusing, when they relate to a distinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that almost any thing which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to express, with any degree of point, Rambler, No. 60.

Cor. et Ad.-Line 2 from foot: For "almost anything." rend "anything, however slight."

should perish. For this almost superstitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there 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.

To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CESAR, of whom Bacon observes, that "in his book of Apothegms 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 apothegm or an oracle."

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

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N. S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth: His father is there styled Gentleman, a circumstance Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," Book I.

The entry runs: "Sep. 1709 Bapd Sam son of Mich Johnson Gent:-7. "I was born almost dead," writes Johnson, in his little autobiography, "and could not cry for some time." According

to a MS. note in a book which he gave to Miss Williams, his birth occurred at four o'clock in the afternoon. Dr. Samuel Swinfen was his godfather, and after him he was probably named. He was put to nurse to "one Marclew, commonly

of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire.1 They were well advanced in years when they married, and never had more than two children, both sons; Samuel, their first born, who lived to be the illustrious character whose various excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael who died in his twenty-fifth year.

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 of unsound substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness. From him, then, his son inherited, with some other qualities, "a vile melancholy," which, in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober."a Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his shop, but by occasionally resorting to several towns in the neighbourhood,' "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3rd edit. p. 213.

..

"of

called Bellason," in George's Lane. Here his eyes were discovered to be bad;" an issue was opened in his left arm, which they took no great notice, my little hand being placed in a custard." Eruptions also broke out on his back. Dr. Swinfen imputed these humours to the nurse; his mother thought he inherited them from her family. . . . "In ten weeks I was taken home, a poor diseased infant, almost blind."

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'sNorton, in the county of Worcester, in 1669, and died at Lichfield, in January, 1759, in her ninetieth year. KingsNorton Dr. Johnson supposed to be in Warwickshire (see his inscription for his mother's tomb), but it is in Worcester

shire, probably on the confines of the county of Warwick.-(Malone.) Dr. Swinfen and Mr. Richard Wakefield were Samuel's godfathers; the latter in his will, dated August, 1733, leaving his godchild five pounds.—Antiq. of Stafford.

2 Extract of a letter, dated "Trentham. St. Peter's day, 1716," written by the Rev. George Plaxton, chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, which may serve to show the high estimation in which the father of our great moralist was held :"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.

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 marketday. 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 reason. able 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 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 romantick, 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

20 of September, 1694.

Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished understanding. I asked his old school-fellow Mr. Hector, surgeon, of Birmingham,

1 "My father being that year sheriff, and to ride the circuit of the county next day. . . . he was asked by my mother, whom he would invite to the riding, and answered, "All the town now. "He feasted the citizens with uncommon magnificence." (Autobiog.) He was, said Johnson, a pious and worthy man, subject to melancholy, which he dissipated by riding. He was one of the travelling booksellers, like Hutton, of Birmingham; and his addresses-one of which is preserved in Mr. Upcott's col

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lection-have a certain eccentric character. Another, quoted in Notes and Queries, offers books for sale "at his shops at Lichfield, and Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, and Ashby-de-la-Zouche, in Leicestershire." He was past fifty when he married. Mr. John Hannett lately discovered in Packwood Church the original entry of the marriage: "Michell Johnsones, of Lichfield, and Sarah Ford married June ye 19, 1706."

2 Hector's father attended Mrs. Johnson in her confinement.