literature he suggested to him the taking a large house, fituate in a place adjacent to Lichfield; which, however the name of it be spelt, the common people call Edjal: thither Johnson went, and with him young Garrick, who, though he had been educated in Lichfield school, and was then near eighteen years old, having been diverted in the course of his studies by a call to Lisbon, stood in need of improvement in the Latin and French languages.

The placing Garrick under the tuition of Johnson, was an act of Mr. Walmfley's, and resembles that politic device of country houfe-wives, the placing one egg in the neft of a hen to induce her to lay more: it fucceeded fo far, as to draw from the families of the nighbouring gentry a few pupils, and among the rest, a son of Mr. Offley, of Staffordshire; a name, that for centuries paft, may be traced in the history and records of that county. But, so adverse were his fortunes in this early period, that this well-planned scheme of a fettlement difappointed the hopes of Johnson and his friends; for, neither his own abilities, nor the patronage of Mr. Walmsley, nor the exertions of Mrs. Johnson and her relations, fucceeded farther than to produce an acceffion of about five or fix pupils; fo that his number at no time, exceeded eight, and of those not all were boarders.

After waiting a reasonable time in hopes of more pupils, Johnson, finding they came in but flowly, had recourse to the usual method of raising a school. In the year, 1736, he advertised the instructing young gentlemen in the Greek and Latin languages, by himself, at his house, defcribing it near Lichfield. That this notification failed of its end, we can fcarce wonder, if we reflect,

The following is the advertisement which he published upon the occafion --- At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gen'tlemen are boarded, and taught the Latin and Greek languages by SAMUEL JOHNSON.' Vide Gent. Mag. for 1736, Page 418.

reflect, that he was little more than twenty-feven years of age when he published it, and that he had not the vanity to profefs teaching all fciences, nor the effrontery of thofe, who, in thefe more modern times, undertake, in private boarding-fchools to qualify young men for holy orders.

By means of a paper which I have; now before me, I am able to furnish, what I take to have been his method or plan of inftruction; and, as it may be deemed a curiofity, and may ferve the purpofe of future inftructors of youth, I here infert it:

When the introduction or formation of nouns and verbs is perfectly mastered, the pupils learn

Corderius, by Mr. Clarke; beginning at the fame time to translate out of his introduction. They then proceed to

Erafmus, reading him with Clarke's tranflation. Thefe books form the first class.

Clafs II.

Class III.

Read Eutrophius and Cornelius Nepos, or Juftin with the tranflation. The firft clafs to repeat by memory, in the morning, the rules they had learned before; and, in the afternoon, the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs. They are alfo, on Thurfdays and Saturdays to be examined in the rules they have learned.

The fecond clafs does the fame while in Eutropius; afterwards, they are to get and repeat the irregular nouns and verbs; and alfo, the rules for making and scanning verses, in which they are to be examined as the first class.

Read Ovid's Metamorphofes in the morning, and Cæfar's Commentaries in the afternoon. Continue the Latin rules till they are perfect in them. Proceed then to Leeds's

D

!

Leeds's Greek Grammar, and are examined as before.

*

They then proceed to Virgil, beginning at the fame time to compofe themes and verfes, and learn Greek, and from thence pafs on to Horace, Terence, and Salluft. The Greek authors afterwards read are, first, thofe in the Attic dialect, which are Cebes, Elian, Lucian by Leeds, and Xenophon: next Homer in the Ionic, Theocritus Doric, Euripides Attic and Doric.

From two letters, first inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, and fince in fundry other publications, from Mr. Walmsley to his friend the reverend Mr. Colfon, a mathematician, and, in his later years, Lucasian profeffor at Cambridge, little is to be learnt respecting the hiftory of Johnfon and Garrick, at this period: the one wants the date of the month, the other that of the year; and though, in the order of their publication, the one immediately follows the other, there must have been fome interval between the times of writing the first and the laft. The firft is dated in 1737, and, as it contains a recommendation of Garrick to Mr. Colfon, for inftruction in mathematics, philofophy, and human learning, leads us to fuppofe, that before the time of writing it, Johnson's scheme of taking in boarders had proved abortive, The latter, written in what year we know not, and inferted below, recommends both Johnson and Garrick to his notice, the former as a good scholar and one that gave hopes of turning out a fine tragedy-writer; and, we are from good authority affured, that in March, in the year last above-mentioned, they, on horse-back, arrived in town together.

• Dear

* Johnson had through his life a propensity to Latin composition: he fhewed it very early at fchool, and while there made fome Latin verfes, for which the Earl of Berkshire, who was a good scholar, and had always a Horace in his pocket, gave him a guinea.

Dear Sir,

Lichfield, March 2.

I had the favour of yours, and am extremely obliged to you; but cannot say, I had a greater affection for you upon it, than I had before, being long fince fo much endeared to you, as well by an early friendfhip, as by your many excellent and valuable quali fications. And, had I a fon of my own, it would be my ambition, inftead of fending him to the university, to difpofe of him as this young gentleman is.

• He and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. S. Johnson, fet out this morning for London together, Davy Garrick is to be with you early the next week, and Mr. Johnfon to try his fate with a tragedy, and to fee to get himfelf employed in fome translation either from the Latin or the French. Johnson is a very good scholar and a poet, and, I have great hopes, ⚫ will turn out a fine tragedy-writer. If it fhould any ways lay in your way, doubt not but you would be ready to recommend and affift your countryman.

G. WALMSLEY.'

The hope fuggefted in this letter is grounded on a circumftance which will lead us back to about the year before he quitted his fchool at Edial. It must be imagined, the inftruction of fo fmall a number of scholars as were under his care, left him at leifure to pursue his private ftudies and amusements, which, for the most part, confifted in defultory reading. Let it not excite wonder in any that fhall perufe thefe memoirs, to be told, that Burton on Melancholy was a book that he frequently reforted to for the purpose of exhilaration, or that, at times, he should find entertainment in turning over Knolles's voluminous and neglected history of the Turks. In the many hours of leisure which he may be faid rather to have endured than enjoyed, we muft

D 2

muft fuppofe fome employed in the contemplation of his fortunes, the means of improving them, and of refifting the adverse accidents to which human life is expofed, and of which he had already had some experience. The ftage holds forth temptations to men of genius, which many have been glad to embrace: the profits arifing from a tragedy, including the representation and printing of it, and the connections it fometimes enables the author to form, were in Johnson's idea ineftimable; and, it is not impoffible, but that Garrick, who, before this time, had manifested a propenfity towards the ftage, had fuggefted to him the thought of writing one: certain it is, that during his refidence at Edial, and under the eye of his friend Mr. Walmsley, he planned and completed that poem which gave this gentleman occafion to fay, he was likely to become a fine tragedy-writer.

He chofe for his story an action related by Knolles in his history above-mentioned with all the powers of the most affecting eloquence: to give it at large would be to tranfgrefs the limits I have prescribed myself, and to abridge it would injure it: I will do neither; but referring the reader to the historian himself, will relate it as a bare hiftorical fact.

Mahomet the Great, firft emperor of the Turks, in the year 1453 laid fiege to the city of Conftantinople, then poffeffed by the Greeks, and, after an obftinate refiftance, took and facked it. Among the many young women whom his commanders thought fit to lay hands on and prefent to him, was one, named Irene, a Greek, of incomparable beauty and fuch rare perfection of body and mind, that the emperor becoming enamoured of her, neglected the care of his government and empire for two whole years, and thereby fo exasperated the Janizaries and other of his warlike fubjects, that they mutinied, and threatened to de

throne