1731. Etat. 22. Christ-Church, was the tutor of highest reputation, Taylor was entered of that College. Mr. Bateman's lectures were fo excellent, that Johnson ufed to come and get them at second-hand from Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme, that his fhoes were worn out, and his feet appeared through them, he faw that this humiliating circumftance was perceived by the Chrift-churchmen, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money, and fomebody having fet a pair of new fhoes at his door, he threw them away with indignation. How muft we feel when we read fuch an anecdote of Samuel Johnfon! His fpirited refusal of an eleemofynary supply of shoes, arofe, no doubt, from a proper pride. But, confidering his afcetick difpofition at times, as acknowledged by himself in his Meditations, and the exaggeration with which fome have treated the peculiarities of his character, I fhould not wonder to hear it afcribed to a principle of fuperftitious mortification; as we are told by Turfellinus, in his Life of St. Ignatius Loyola, that this intrepid founder of the order of Jefuits, when he arrived at Goa, after having made a fevere pilgrimage through the eastern deferts, perfifted in wearing his miserable shattered shoes, and when new ones were offered him, rejected them as an unfuitable indulgence. The res angufta domi prevented him from having the advantage of a complete academical education. The friend to whom he had trusted for support had deceived him. His debts in College, though not great, were increasing; and his scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all along been made with great difficulty, could be fupplied no longer, his father having fallen into a state of infolvency. Compelled, therefore, by irrefiftible neceffity, he left the College in autumn, 1731, without a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years. Dr. Adams, the worthy and refpectable mafter of Pembroke College, has generally had the reputation of being Johnson's tutor. The fact, however, is, that in 1731 Mr. Jorden quitted the College, and his pupils were transferred to Dr. Adams; fo that had Johnson returned, Dr. Adams would have been his tutor. It is to be wifhed, that this connection had taken place. His equal temper, mild difpofition, and politenefs of manners, might have infenfibly foftened the harshness of Johnson, and infufed into him those more delicate charities, that petite morale, in which, it must be confessed, our great moralift was more deficient than his best friends could fully juftify. Dr. Adams paid Johnfon this high compliment. He faid to me at Oxford, in 1776, "I was his nominal tutor, but he was above my mark." When I 4 repeated repeated it to Johnson, his eyes flashed with grateful fatisfaction, and he exclaimed, "That was liberal and noble." And now (I had almost faid poor) Samuel Johnson returned to his native city, deftitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a decent livelihood. His father's misfortunes in trade rendered him unable to fupport his fon; and for fome time there appeared no means by which he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died. The state of poverty in which he died, appears from a note in one of Johnson's little diaries of the following year, which strongly displays his spirit and virtuous dignity of mind. "1732, Julii 15. Undecim aureos depofui, quo die quicquid ante matris funus (quod ferum fit precor) de paternis bonis fperari licet, viginti fcilicet libras accepi. Ufque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda eft. Interea, ne paupertate vires animi languefcant, nec in flagitia egeftas abigat, cavendum.I layed by eleven guineas on this day, when I received twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for out of my father's effects, previous to the death of my mother; an event which I pray GOD may be very remote. I now, therefore, fee that I must make my own fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the powers of my mind may not be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any criminal act.” Johnson was fo far fortunate, that the refpectable character of his parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest years, fecured him a kind reception in the best families at Lichfield. Among these I can mention Mr. Howard, Dr. Swinfen, Mr. Simpfon, Mr. Levett, Captain Garrick, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley7, Register of the Prerogative Court of Lichfield, whofe character, long after his decease, Dr. Johnfon has, in his life of Edmund Smith, thus drawn in the glowing colours of gratitude: "Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus prefented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that, at least, my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. "He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence 7 Mr. Warton informs me," that this early friend of Johnfon was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged 17, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the Gentleman's Magazine. One of them is a translation of "My time, O ye Mufes, was happily fpent, &c. " and 1731. band Etat. 22. 1731. and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us Etat. 22. apart. I honoured him, and he endured me. "He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind. His belief of revelation was unfhaken; his learning preferved his principles; he grew firft regular, and then pious. "His ftudies had been fo various, that I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great, and what he did not immediately know, he could, at least, tell where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning, and fuch his copioufnefs of communication, that it may be doubted whether a day now paffes, in which I have not fome advantage from his friendship. "At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and inftructive hours, with companions, such as are not often found-with one who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James, whose skill in phyfick will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipfed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleasure." In these families he paffed much time in his early years. In most of them,. he was in the company of ladies, particularly at Mr. Walmsley's, whose wife and fifters-in-law, of the name of Afton, and daughters of a baronet, were remarkable for good breeding; fo that the notion which has been industriously circulated and believed, that he never was in good company till late in life, and, confequently, had been confirmed in coarfe and ferocious manners by long habits, is wholly without foundation. Some of the ladies have affured me, they recollected him well when a young man, as diftinguished for his complaifance. And that this politenefs was not merely occafional and temporary, or confined to the circles of Lichfield, is afcertained by the teftimony of a lady, who, in a paper with which I have been favoured by a daughter of his intimate friend and phyfician, Dr. Lawrence, thus defcribes Dr. Johnson fome years afterwards: "As the particulars of the former part of Dr. Johnson's life do not seem to be very accurately known, a lady hopes that the following information may not be unacceptable. "She remembers Dr. Johnson on a visit to Dr. Taylor, at Afhbourn, fome time between the end of the year 37, and the middle of the year 40; fhe rather 1732. rather thinks it to have been after he and his wife were removed to London. During his stay at Afhbourn, he made frequent vifits to Mr. Meynell, at Etat. 23. Brodley, where his company was much defired by the ladies of the family, who were, perhaps, in point of elegance and accomplishments, inferiour to few of thofe with whom he was afterwards acquainted. Mr. Meynell's eldest daughter was afterwards married to Mr. Fitzherbert, father to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, lately minister to the court of Ruffia. Of her, Dr. Johnson said, in Dr. Lawrence's study, that he had the best understanding he ever met with in any human being. At Mr. Meynell's he alfo commenced that friendship with Mrs. Hill Boothby, fifter to the present Sir Brook Boothby, which continued till her death. The young woman whom he used to call Molly Aftons, was fifter to Sir Thomas Afton, and daughter to a Baronet; she was likewise fifter to the wife of his friend Mr. Gilbert Walmsley. Befides his intimacy with the above-mentioned perfons, who were furely people of rank and education, while he was yet at Lichfield he used to be frequently at the house of Dr. Swinfen, a gentleman of a very ancient family in Staffordshire, from which, after the death of his elder brother, he inherited a good eftate. He was, befides, a physician of very extenfive practice; but for want of due attention to the management of his domeftic concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of his daughters, Mrs. Defmoulins, afterwards found an afylum in the house of her old friend, whofe doors were always open to the unfortunate, and who well obferved the precept of the gofpel, for he was kind to the unthankful and to the evil." In the forlorn ftate of his circumftances he accepted of an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that he went on foot, on the 16th of July," Julii 16. Bofvortiam pedes petii." But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he was affiftant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whofe merit has been honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd, who was his fcholar; for Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730, more than a year before Johnson left the University. This employment was very irksome to him in every refpect, and he complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend Mr. Hector, who was now fettled as a furgeon at Birmingham. The letters are loft; but Mr. Hector recollects his writing "that the poet had defcribed the dull fameness of his existence in these words, Vitam continet una dies' (one day contains the whole The words of Sir John Hawkins, p. 316. 9 See Gent. Mag. Dec. 1784, P. 957• of 1733. Atat. 24. of my life); that it was unvaried as the note of the cuckow; and that he did not know whether it was more difagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules." His general averfion to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a difagreement between him and Sir Woolston Dixey, the patron of the fchool, in whofe houfe, I have been told, he officiated as a kind of domeftick chaplain, fo far, at leaft, as to say grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as intolerable harshnefs; and, after fuffering for a few months fuch complicated mifery, he relinquifhed a fituation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the ftrongeft averfion, and even a degree of horrour. But it is probable that at this period, whatever uneafinefs he may have endured, he laid the foundation of much future eminence by application to his ftudies. Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr. Hector to pass fome time with him at Birmingham, as his gueft, at the house of Mr. Warren, with whom Mr. Hector lodged and boarded. Mr. Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, who he foon found could be of much fervice to him in his trade, by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the affistance of his pen in furnishing fome numbers of a periodical Effay printed in the newspaper, of which Warren was proprietor. After very diligent inquiry, I have not been able to recover thofe early fpecimens of that particular mode of writing by which Johnson afterwards fo greatly diftinguished himself. He continued to live as Mr. Hector's gueft for about fix months, and then hired lodgings in another part of the town, finding himself as well fituated at Birmingham as he fuppofed he could be any where, while he had no fettled plan of life, and very scanty means of fubfiftence. He made fome valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom were Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards married, and Mr. Taylor, who by his ingenuity in mechanical inventions, and his fuccefs in trade, acquired an immense fortune. But the comfort of being near Mr. Hector, his old schoolfellow and intimate friend, was Johnson's chief inducement to continue here, In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or whether he derived from it any pecuniary advantage, I have not been able to afcertain. He probably got a little money from Mr. Warren; and we are certain, that he executed here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr. Hector has favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned that he had read at Pembroke College a Voyage to Abyffinia, by Lobo, a Portuguese jefuit, and that he thought an abridgement and tranflation of it from the French into English |