scientific improvements are rated at their utmost value, he rested not in the applaufe which these procured him; but adorned the character of a scholar and a philofopher with that of a chriftian. Justified, as I trust, thus far in the opinion of the reader, I may, nevertheless, stand in need of his excuse; for that, in the narration of facts that respect others, I have oftener spoke of myself, and in my own person, than the practice of fome writers will warrant. To this objection, if any shall please to make it, I answer, that the reverse of wrong is not always right. By the office I have undertaken I stand engaged to relate facts to which I was a witness, conversations in which I was a party, and to record memorable fayings uttered only to myself. Whoever attends to these circumstances, muft, befides the disguft which such an affectation of humility would excite, be convinced, that in some instances, the avoiding of egotisms 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 Johnfon, of the city of Lichfield bookfeller, and of Sarah his wife, a fifter of Dr. Joseph Ford, a phyfician of great eminence, and father of the famous Cornelius otherwise called Parfon Ford.* He was born, as I find * Of this person, who yet lives in the remembrance of a few of his aflociates, little can be related but from oral tradition. He was, as I have heard Johnson say, a man of great wit and stupendous parts, but of very profligate manners. He was chaplain to Lord Chesterfield during his residence at the Hague; but, as his lordship was find it noted in his diary, on the seventh day of September, 1709: his brother, named Nathanael, was born some 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 magistrate thereof, and difcharged the duties of that exalted station with honour and applause. It may here be proper, as it will account for some particulars respect-ing the character of his son Samuel, to mention, that his political principles led him to favour the pretenfions of the exiled family, and that though a very honest and sensible man, he, like many others inhabiting the county of Stafford, was a Jacobite. It may farther be supposed, that he was poffefsed of fome amiable qualities either moral or personal, 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. Johnson, 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, she declined it, and shortly after died, and was interred in Lichfield cathedral. In pity was used to tell him, precluded all hope of preferment by the want of a vice, namely, hypocrify. It was supposed that the parson in Hogarth's modern midnight conversation, was intended to represent him in his hour of festivity, four in the morning. 1 to her fufferings, Mr. Johnson caused a stone to be placed over her grave with this inscription : Here lies the body of She departed this life, 1 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 disease 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, presented him to Queen Anne, who, for the last time, as it is faid, that she ever performed that office, with her accustomed grace and benignity administered to the child as much of that healing quality as it was in her power to dispense, and hung about his neck the usual amulet of an angel of gold, with the impress of St. Michael the archangel on the one fide, and a ship under full fail on the other.* It was probably this * This healing gift is said to have been derived to our princes from Edward the Confeffor, and is recorded by his historian, Alured Rivallenfis. In Stow's annals we have a relation of the first cure of this kind which Edward performed; but, as it is rather disgusting 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 quasi glandes ei succreverant, quæ totam faciem deformi tu• more fœdantes, putrefactis fub cute humoribus, fanguinem in faniem • verterant, this disease that deprived him of the fight of his left eye, for he has been heard to say, that he never remembered to have enjoyed the use of it. verterant, inde nati vermes odorem teterrimum exhalabant. Ita • viro incutiebat morbus horrorem, sterilitas minuebat affectum. • Vivebat infelix mulier odiosa marito, parentibus onerosa. Rarus • ad eam vel amicorum accessus propter fætorem, vel aspectus viri propter horrorem. Hinc dolor, hinc lacrimæ, hinc die noctuque fufpiria, cum ei vel sterilitas opprobrium, vel contemptum infir⚫ mitas generaret. Industriam medicorum avertebat inopia. Quid • ageret mifera ? Quod folum supererat, ubi humanum deerat divi⚫ num precabatur auxilium, quasi in illam illius æque miseræ mulieris ، vocem erumpens, Peto, Domine, ut de vinculo improperii hujus ab* folvas me, aut certe fuper terram eripias me. Jubetur tandem in • fomnis adire palacium, ex regiis manibus fperare remedium, quibus fi lota, si tacta, si signata foret, reciperet ejus meritis sani⚫tatem. Expergefacta mulier, sexus fimul et conditionis oblita, prorumpit in curiam, regis se repræfentat obtutibus, exponit oracu• lum, auxilium deprecatur. Ille more fuo victus pietate, nec fordes ⚫ cavit, nec fætorem exhorruit. Allata denique aqua, partes corporis ⚫ quas morbus fœdaverat propriis manibus lavit, locaque tumentia < contrectans digitis fignum sanctæ crucis impreffit. Quid plura ? • Subito rupta cute, cum sanie vermes ebulliunt, resedit tumor, dolor * omnis abcessit: ammirantibus qui aderant tantam fub purpura fanctitatem, tantam fceptrigeris manibus inesse virtutem. Paucis vero diebus substitit in curia mulier regiis ministris necessaria mi⚫ niftrantibus, donec obducta vulneribus cicatrice incolumis rediret ⚫ ad propria. Verum ut nichil deeffet regi ad gloriam, pauperculæ ⚫ nichil ad gratiam, donatur sterili inopina fœcunditas, ventrisque sui ⚫ desiderato fructu ditata, facile sibi mariti gratiam conciliavit.' The reader will find much curious matter relating to the royal touch, in Mr. Barrington's observations on ancient statutes 107, and in Chambers's dictionary, art. EVIL, to which I shall add, that the vindication of this power, as inherent in the pretender, by Mr. Carte, destroyed the credit of his intended history of England, and put a stop to the completion of it. The ritual for this is to be found in Bishop Sparrow's collection of articles, canons, &c. and also in all or most of the impressions of the Common Prayer Book, printed in Queen Anne's reign, but in these latter with great variations. B3 It It may feem a ridiculous attempt to trace the dawn of his poetical faculty so far back as to his very infancy; but the following incident I am compelled to mention, as it is well attested, and therefore makes part of his history. When he was about three years old, his mother had a brood of eleven ducklings, which she permitted him to call his own. It happened that in playing about he trod on and killed one of them, upon which running to his mother, he, in great emotion bid her write. Write, child? faid she, what must I write? Why write, answered he, fo: Here lies good Master Duck, If't had liv'd 'twould have been good luck, and she wrote accordingly. Being arrived at a proper age for grammatical instruction, he was placed in the free school of Lichfield, of which Mr. Hunter was then master. The progress he made in his learning foon attracted the notice of his teachers; and among other difcernible qualities that diftinguished him from the rest of the school, he was bold, active and enterprising, fo that without affecting it, the feniors in the school looked on him as their head and leader, and readily acquiefced in whatever he propofed or did. There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, the father of the reverend Mr. Butt, now a King's Chaplain, to whose house on holidays and in school-vacations he was ever welcome. The children in the family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing, said, you |