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Scientific improvements are rated at their utmoft value, he rested not in the applause which thefe procured him; but adorned the character of a scholar and a philofopher with that of a chriftian.

rant.

Juftified, as I truft, thus far in the opinion of the reader, I may, nevertheless, ftand in need of his excufe; for that, in the narration of facts that refpect others, I have oftener spoke of myself, and in my own perfon, than the practice of fome writers will warTo this objection, if any fhall 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 witnefs, converfations in which I was a party, and to record memorable fayings 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 egotifins had been extremely difficult, and in many impoffible.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the fubject 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. 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 aflociates, little can be related but from oral tradition. He was, as I have heard Johnfon fay, 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

find it noted in his diary, on the feventh day of September, 1709: his brother, named Nathanael, was born fome years after. Mr. Johnfon 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 discharged the duties of that exalted station 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 county of Stafford, was a Jacobite.

It may farther be fuppofed, that he was poffeffed of fome amiable qualities either moral or perfonal, from a circumftance 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 houfe. Her paffion was not unknown to Mr. Johnfon, but he had no inclination to return it, till he heard that it so affected her mind that her life was in danger, when he vifited her, and made her a tender of his hand, but feeling the approach of death, she declined it, and fhortly 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 fuppofed that the parfon in Hogarth's modern midnight converfation, was intended to reprefent him in his hour of feftivity, four in the morning.

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

Here lies the body of

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a ftranger.

She departed this life,

2d of September, 1694.

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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, prefented him to Queen Anne, who, for the last time, as it is faid, that the 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 difpenfe, and hung about his neck the ufual amulet of an angel of gold, with the impress 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 annais 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 de⚫ formaverat, amorem viri fterilitas prolis ademerat: fub faucibus ⚫ quippe quafi glandes ei fuccreverant, 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, fterilitas minuebat affectum. • Vivebat infelix mulier odiofa marito, parentibus onerofa. Rarus • ad eam vel amicorum acceffus propter fætorem, vel aspectus viri propter horrorem. Hinc dolor, hinc lacrimæ, hinc die noctuque fufpiria, cum ei vel fterilitas opprobrium, vel contemptum infir<mitas generaret. Induftriam medicorum avertebat inopia. Quid ageret mifera? Quod folum fupererat, ubi humanum deerat divi· num precabatur auxilium, quafi in illam illius æque miferæ mulieris ⚫ vocem erumpens, Peto, Domine, ut de vinculo improperii hujus abfolvas me, aut certe fuper terram eripias me. Jubetur tandem in

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• fomnis adire palacium, ex regiis manibus fperare remedium, quibus fi lota, fi tacta, fi fignata foret, reciperet ejus meritis fanitatem. Expergefacta mulier, fexus fimul et conditionis oblita, prorumpit in curiam, regis se repræfentat obtutibus, exponit oraculum, 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 fanctæ crucis impreffit. Quid plura? • Subito rupta cute, cum fanie vermes ebulliunt, refedit tumor, dolor ⚫ omnis abceffit: ammirantibus qui aderant tantam fub purpura fanctitatem, tantam fceptrigeris manibus ineffe virtutem. Paucis ⚫ vero diebus fubftitit in curia mulier regiis miniftris necessaria miniftrantibus, donec obducta vulneribus cicatrice incolumis rediret ⚫ ad propria. Verum ut nichil deeffet regi ad gloriam, pauperculæ ⚫ nichil ad gratiam, donatur fterili inopina fœcunditas, ventrifque fui ⚫ defiderato fructu ditata, facile fibi mariti gratiam conciliavit.'

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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 fhall 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 alfo in all or most of the impreffions of the Common Prayer Book, printed in Queen Anne's reign, but in these Jatter with great variations.

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It may feem a ridiculous attempt to trace the dawn of his poetical faculty fo far back as to his very infancy; but the following incident I am compelled to mention, as it is well attefted, and therefore makes part of his history. When he was about three years old, his mother had a brood of eleven ducklings, which the 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, so :

Here lies good Master Duck,

That Samuel Johnfon trod on,

If't had liv'd 'twould have been good luck,
For then there'd been an odd one.

and fhe 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 mafter. The progress he made in his learning foon attracted the notice of his teachers; and among other difcernible qualities that distinguished him from the reft of the fchool, he was bold, active and enterprifing, fo that without affecting it, the feniors in the fchool 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 whofe houfe 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, faid,

you

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