"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 occur rences. 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 flow, as an indication 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 fufpence; 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 feries of actions or preferments; and have fo 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 fervants, 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 evanefcent kind, fuch as foon escape the memory, and are tranfmitted by tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent and obfervable particularities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be loft in imparting it, and how foon a fucceffion 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 • Rambler, No. 60. adapted adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule by men of fuperficial 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 diftinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that almost any thing which my illuftrious friend thought it worth his while to express, with any degree of point, 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 fermon there is the following paffage: “ Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish commentator who lived above five hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first Pfalm, His leaf also shall not wither, from Rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That even the idle talk, fo he expresses it, of a good man ought to be regarded; the most superfluous things he faith are always of some value. And other ancient authours have the fame phrafe, nearly in the same sense." Of one thing I am certain, that confidering 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 pleafure does there arife 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 CÆSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that " in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we fee that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wife and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle7." Having faid thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the publick. 7 Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Book I. SAMUEL 1709. SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N. S. 1709; and his initiation into the Chriftian church was not delayed; for his baptifm 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 stiled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now loft in the indifcriminate assumption of Esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnfon, a native of Derbyshire, of obfcure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, defcended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they married, and never had more than two children, both fons; 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 unfound fubstance 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 fober." 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, fome of which were at a confiderable 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. Johnfon used to open a shop every market-day. 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 reafonable share of wealth, of which however he afterwards loft 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 neceffity, to take the oaths imposed by the prevailing power. * Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 213. There There is a circumstance in his life fomewhat 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 paffion 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 infcription: Here lies the body of Johnson's mother was a woman of diftinguished understanding. I asked his old school-fellow Mr. Hector, furgeon, of Birmingham, if she was not vain of her fon. He said, " she had too much good sense to be vain, but she knew her fon's value." Her piety was not inferiour to her understanding; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion upon the mind of her fon, from which the world afterwards derived fo much benefit. He told me, that he remembered distinctly having had the first notice of Heaven a place to which good people went," and Hell " a place to which bad people went," communicated to him by her, when a little child in bed with her; and that it might be the better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson, their man-fervant. He not being in the way, this was not done; but there was no occafion for any artificial aid for its preservation. In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his grave, every minute particular, which can throw light on the progress of his mind, is interefting. That he was remarkable, even in his earliest years, may easily be supposed; for to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham, "That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his difcernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy, by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt. For, there is no instance of any man, whofe C 1 1712. } whose history has been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover the fame proportion of intellectual vigour." Ætat. 3. In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much attention to incidents which the credulous relate with eager satisfaction, and the more fcrupulous or witty enquirer considers only as topicks of ridicule: Yet there is a traditional story of the infant Hercules of toryifm, so curiously characteristick, that I shall not withhold it. It was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye, of Lichfield. "When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite three years old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon his father's shoulders, listening, and gaping at the much celebrated preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of bringing fuch an infant to church, and in the midst of so great a croud. He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young as he was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, fatisfied with beholding him." Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit, and impetuosity of temper, which never forsook him. The fact was acknowledged to me by himself, upon the authority of his mother. One day, when the fervant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home, had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so near-fighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel before he ventured to step over it. His fchoolmistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention as an infult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, and beat her, as well as his strength would permit. Of the strength of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible, the following early instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her by his mother. When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs, Johnson one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, "Sam, you must get this by heart.” She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. "What's the matter?" faid she. "I can say it," he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it over more than twice. But |