of Life,

been accustomed to money, was afraid of such ex- Account penses as now seem very small. She sewed two guineas p. 16. in her petticoat, lest she should be robbed.

"We were troublesome to the passengers; but to suffer such inconveniences in the stage-coach was common in these days, to persons in much higher rank. She bought me a small silver cup and spoon, marked SAM. J., lest if they had been marked S. J., (Sarah being 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 cup was one of the last pieces of plate which dear1 Tetty sold in our distress. have now the spoon. She bought at the same time. two tea-spoons, and till my manhood she had no more."]

I

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 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, “published

[His wife, whom he called by this familiar contraction of Elizabeth.-ED.] 2[When Dr. Johnson, at an advanced age, recorded all these minute circumstances, he contemplated, we are told, writing the history of his own life, and probably intended to develope, from his own infant recollections, the growth and powers of the faculty of memory, which he possessed in so remarkable a degree. From the little details of his domestic history he perhaps meant also to trace the progressive change in the habits of the middle classes of society. But whatever may have been his motive, the Editor could not properly omit what Johnson thought worth preserving -ED.]

VOL. I.

C

of Life,

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 under-master of Lichfield school, "a man (said he) very skilful in his little way." With him he conAccount tinued two years, and [perhaps, four months. "The p. 25,26. time," he added, "till I had computed it, appeared much longer by the multitude of incidents and of novelties which it supplied, than many important thoughts which it produced. Perhaps it is not possible that any other period can make the same impression on the memory." In the spring of 1719, his class was removed to the upper school, and put under Holdbrook, a peevish and ill-tempered man. They were removed sooner than had been the custom, for the head-master, intent on his boarders, generally left the town-boys too long in the lower school; the earlier removal of Johnson's class was caused by a reproof of the town-clerk; and Hawkins complained that he had lost half his profit. At this removal Johnson says that he cried, but the rest were indifferent. He] then rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter', the head-master, who, according to his account, "was very severe, and wrong-headedly severe. He used (said he) to beat us unmercifully; and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence; for he would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as for neglecting to know it. He would ask a boy a question, and if he did not answer it, he would beat

["Mr. Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the sportsman; he was a very severe disciplinarian and a great setter of game. Happy was the boy who could inform his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain pledge of his pardon.' -Davies' Life of Garrick, vol. p. 3. He was a prebendary in the Cathedral of Lichfield, and grandfather to Miss Seward. One of this lady's complaints against Johnson was, that he, in all his works, never expressed any gratitude to his preceptor. It does not appear that he owed him much; for besides the severity of his discipline, it seems that he was inattentive to that class of boys to which Johnson belonged, and it also appears, that he refused to readmit him after one of the vacations, on some pretence now forgotten.-ED.]

him, without considering whether he had an opportunity of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he would call up a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not expect to be asked. Now, sir, if a boy could answer every question, there would be no need of a master to teach him."

It is, however, but justice to the memory of Mr. Hunter to mention, that though he might err in being too severe, the school of Lichfield was very respectable in his time. The late Dr. Taylor, Prebendary of Westminster, who was educated under him, told me that "he was an excellent master, and that his ushers were most of them men of eminence; that Holdbrook, one of the most ingenious men, best scholars, and best preachers of his age, was usher during the greatest part of the time that Johnson was at school. Then came Hague, of whom as much might be said, with the addition that he was an elegant poet. Hague was succeeded by Green, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, whose character in the learned world is well known. In the same form with Johnson was Congreve, who afterwards became chaplain to Archbishop Boulter, and by that connexion obtained good preferment in Ireland. He was a younger son of the ancient family of Congreve, in Staffordshire, of which the poet was a branch. His brother sold the estate. There was also Lowe, afterwards Canon of Windsor.

Indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time: he said, "My master whipt me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing." He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say,

p. 21.

"And this I do to save you from the gallows." Johnson, upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod1. I would rather (said he) have the rod to be the general terror to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on 't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief: you make brothers and sisters hate each other."

When Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who were remarkably well behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correction, he exclaimed, in one of Shakspeare's lines, a little varied,

"Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty."

Piozzi, [Yet when talking of a young fellow, who used to come often to Mr. Thrale's house, who was about fifteen years old or less, and had a manner at once sullen and sheepish-"That lad (said Johnson) looks like the son of a schoolmaster; which (added he) is one of the very worst conditions of childhood; such a boy has no father, or worse than none; he never can reflect on his parent but the reflection brings to his mind some idea of pain inflicted, or of sorrow suffered."

Piozzi,

P. 16.

He was, indeed, himself exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even

'Johnson's observations to Dr. Rose, on this subject, may be found in a subsequent part of this work, near the end of the year 1775.-BURNEY.

More than a little. The line is in KING HENRY VI. Part ii. act iv. sc. last:

"Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.”—MALone.

[It is to be hoped that Mr. Boswell was mistaken as to the sex and age of the children: the idea of disciplining young ladies by the rod is absurd and disgusting.-ED.]

F. 16,17.

scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to of- Piozzi, fend them: he had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase early impressions, either of kindness or resentment, and said, "he should never have so loved his mother when a man, had she not given him coffee she could ill afford, to gratify his appetite when a boy." "If you had had children, sir," said Mrs. Piozzi, "would you have taught them any thing?" "I hope (replied he) that I should have willingly lived on bread and water to obtain instruction for them; but I would not have set their future friendship to hazard for the sake of thrusting into their heads knowledge of things for which they might not perhaps have either taste or necessity. You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder when you have done that they do not delight in your company. No science can be communicated by mortal creatures without attention from the scholar; no attention can be obtained from children without the infliction of pain, and pain is never remembered without resentment." That something should be learned was, however, so certainly his opinion, that Mrs. Piozzi heard him say, that education had been often compared to agriculture, yet that it resembled it chiefly in this: "that if nothing is sown, no crop can be obtained."]

That superiority over his fellows, which he maintained with so much dignity in his march through life, was not assumed from vanity and ostentation, but was the natural and constant effect of those extraordinary powers of mind, of which he could not but be conscious by comparison; the intellectual difference, which in other cases of comparison of characters, is often a matter of undecided contest, being as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tip