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THE

L IF E

O F

Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

TH

HE general fenfe of mankind and the practice of the learned in all ages, have given a fanction to biographical hiftory, and concurred to recommend that precept of the wife fon of Sirach, in which we are exhorted to praife famous men, fuch as by their counfels and by their knowledge of learning were meet for the people, and were wife and eloquent in their instructions, and fuch as recited verfes in writing*.' In each of these faculties did the perfon, whofe hiftory I am about to write, fo greatly excel, that, except for my presumption in the attempt to difplay his worth, the undertaking may be thought to need no apology; efpe cially if we contemplate, together with his mental endowments, thofe moral qualities which distinguished him, and reflect that, in an age when literary acqui

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Ecclus. chap. xliv. ver. 1, & feqq.
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fitions and fcientific improvements are rated at their utmoft value, he refted not in the applaufe which thefe procured him; but adorned the character of a scholar and a philofopher with that of a chriftian.

Juftified, as I truft, thus far in the opinion of the reader, I may, nevertheless, stand in need of his excufe; for that, in the narration of facts that respect others, I have oftener fpoke of myfelf, and in my own perfon, than the practice of fome writers will warrant. To this objection, if any shall please to make, it, I answer, that the reverfe of wrong is not always right. By the office I have undertaken I stand engaged to relate facts to which I was a witness, converfations in which I was a party, and to record memorable sayings uttered only to myself. Whoever attends to thefe circumftances, muft, befides the difguft which fuch an affectation of humility would excite, be convinced, that in fome inftances, the avoiding of egotifms had been extremely difficult, and in many impoffible.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the subject of the following memoirs, was the elder of the two fons of Michael Johnson, of the city of Lichfield, bookseller, and of Sarah his wife, a fifter of Dr. Jofeph Ford, a phyfician of great eminence, and father of the famous Cornelius otherwife called Parfon Ford. He was born, as I

find

* Of this perfon, who yet lives in the remembrance of a few of his affociates, little can be related but from oral tradition. He was, as I have heard Johnson say, a man of great wit and ftupendous parts, but of very profligate manners. He was chaplain to Lord Chesterfield during his refidence at the Hague; but, as his lordship was used to tell him, precluded all hope of pre

ferment

find it noted in his diary, on the seventh day of September, 1709: his brother, named Nathanael, was born fome years after. Mr. Johnson was a man of eminence in his trade, and of fuch reputation in the city abovementioned, that he, more than once, bore, for a year, the office of bailiff or chief magiftrate thereof, and difcharged the duties of that exalted ftation with honour and applaufe. It may here be proper, as it will account for fome particulars refpecting the character of his fon Samuel, to mention, that his political principles led him to favour the pretenfions of the exiled family, and that though a very honest and fenfible man, he, like many others inhabiting the country of Stafford, was a Jacobite.

It may farther be fuppofed, that he was poffeffed of fome amiable qualities either moral or perfonal, from a circumstance in his early life, of which evidence is yet remaining. While he was an apprentice at Leek in Staffordshire, a young woman of the fame town fell in love with him, and upon his removal to Lichfield followed him, and took lodgings oppofite his house. Her paffion was not unknown to Mr. Johnfon, but he had no inclination to return it, till he heard that it fo affected her mind that her life was in danger, when he visited her, and made her a tender of his hand, but feeling the approach of death, fhe declined it, and fhortly after died, and was interred in Lichfield cathedral. In pity

ferment by the want of a vice, namely, hypocrify. It was fuppofed that the parfon in Hogarth's modern midnight converíation, was intended to reprefent him in his hour of feftivity, four in the morning.

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to her fufferings, Mr. Johnfon caufed a ftone to be placed over her grave with this infcription:

Her lies the body of

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a ftranger.

She departed this life,

2d of September, 1694.

The first born child of Mr. Johnson and his wife, their fon Samuel, had the misfortune to receive, together with its nutriment derived from a hired nurse, the feeds of that difeafe which troubled him through life, the struma, or, as it is called, the king's-evil; for the cure whereof his mother, agreeable to the opinion then entertained of the efficacy of the royal touch, prefented him to Queen Anne, who, for the laft time, as it is faid, that fhe ever performed that office, with her accustomed grace and benignity adminiftered to the child as much of that healing quality as it was in her power to difpenfe, and hung about his neck the usual amulet of an angel of gold, with the imprefs of St. Michael the archangel on the one fide, and a fhip under full fail on the other.* It was probably this

This healing gift is faid to have been derived to our princes from Edward the Confeffor, and is recorded by his hiftorian, Alured Rivallenfis. In Stow's annals we have a relation of the firft cure of this kind which Edward performed; but, as it is rather difgufting to read it, I chufe to give it in the words of the author from whence it is apparently taken, with this remark, that the kings of France lay claim to the fame miraculous power. Adolefcentula quædam tradita nuptiis duplici laborabat incommodo. Nam faciem ejus morbus deformaverat, amorem viri fterilitas prolis ademerat : fub faucibus quippe quafi glandes ei fuccreverant, quæ totam faciem deformi tumore foedantes, putrefactis fub cute humoribus, fanguinem in faniem verterant, inde nati vermes odorem teterri• mum exhalabant. Ita viro incutiebat morbus horrorem, fterilitas ' minucbat

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