"fometimes fay more than I mean, in jest, "and people are apt to think me ferious*" The exercise of that privilege, which is enjoyed by every man in fociety, has not been allowed to him. His fame has given importance even to trifles; and the zeal of his friends has brought every thing to light. What fhould be related, and what should not, has been published without distinction. Dicenda tacenda locuti! Every thing that fell from him has been caught with eagerness by his admirers, who, as he fays in one of his letters, have acted with the diligence of spies upon his conduct. To fome of them the following lines, in Mallet's Poem on Verbal Criticism, are not inapplicable;

"Such that grave bird in Northern feas is found, "Whose name a Dutchman only knows to found; "Where-e'er the king of fish moves on before,

This humble friend attends from fhore to fhore; "With eye ftill earnest, and with bill inclin❜d, "He picks up what his patron drops hehind, "With those choice cates his palate to regale, "And is the careful TIBBALD of A WHALE."

*Bofwell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 465. 4to edit.

After fo many effays and volumes of Johnfoniana, what remains for the present writer? Perhaps, what has not been attempted; a fhort, yet full, a faithful, yet temperate, hiftory of Dr. Johnson,

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, September 7, 1709, O.S.* His father Michael Johnfon, was a bookseller in that city; a man of large athletic make, and violent paffions; wrong-headed, positive, and at times afflicted with a degree of melancholy, little short of madnefs. His mother was fifter to Dr. Ford, a practising phyfician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of PARSON FORD, the fame who is reprefented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Midnight Modern Converfation. In the Life of Fenton, Johnfon fays, that "his "abilities, instead of furnishing convivial "merriment to the voluptuous and diffolute,

66

might have enabled him to excel among

* This appears in a note to Johnson's Diary, prefixed to the first of his prayers. After the alteration of the style, he kept his birth-day on the 18th of September, and it is accordingly marked September

"the

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"the virtuous and the wife." Being chaplain to the Earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embaffy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote. "You should go," faid the witty peer, "if to your many vices you would add one more. Pray, my Lord, what is "that?" " Hypocrify, my dear Doctor."--Johnson had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the age of twenty-feven or twenty-eight. Michael Johnson, the father, was chofen in the year 1718 Under Bailiff of Lichfield; and in the year 1725 he ferved the office of the Senior Bailiff. He had a brother of the name of Andrew, who, for fome years, kept the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was never thrown or conquered. Michael, the father, died December 1731, at the age of feventy-fix: his mother at eighty-nine, of a gradual decay, in the year 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice. Johnfon did not delight in talking of his relations. "There "is little pleasure," he faid to Mrs. Piozzi, "in relating the anecdotes of beggary."

Johnfon derived from his parents, or from an unwholesome nurse, the diftemper called the King's Evil. The Jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch; and accordingly Mrs. Johnfon prefented her fon, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient. all the healing virtue in her power, He was afterwards cut for that fcrophulous humour, and the under part of his face was feamed and disfigured by the operation. It is fuppofed, that this disease deprived him of the fight of his left eye, and also impaired his hearing. At eight years old, he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the Freefchool at Lichfield, where he was not remarkable for diligence or regular application. Whatever he read, his tenacious memory made his own. In the fields with his fchool - fellows he talked more to himself than with his companions. In 1725, when he was about fixteen years old, he went on a vifit to his coufin Cornelius Ford, who detained him for fome months, and in the mean time affifted him in the claffics. The general

9.

general direction for his ftudies, which he then received, he related to Mrs. Piozzi. "Obtain," fays Ford, "fome general principles of every feience: he who can talk "only on one fubject, or act only in one department, is feldom wanted, and, perhaps, never wifhed for; while the man of general "knowledge can often benefit, and always "pleafe." The advice Johnfon feems to have purfued with a good inclination. His reading was always defultory, feldom refting on any particular author, but rambling from one book to another, and, by hafty fnatches, hoarding up a variety of knowledge. It may be proper in this place to mention anther general rule laid down by Ford for Johnson's future conduct: "You will make your way "the more eafily in the world, as you are "contented to difpute no man's claim to "converfation-excellence: they will, there"fore, more willingly allow your preten"fions as a writer." "But," fays Mrs. Piozzi, "the features of peculiarity, which "mark a character to all fucceeding genera❝tions, are flow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with her usual vivacity," Can one, on fuch an occafion, for

"bear