Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 by Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

B >> Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill >> Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58

[238] 'March 16, 1728-9. Yesterday in a Convocation Mr. Wm. Jorden of
Pembroke Coll. was elected the Univ. of Oxford rector of Astocke in com.
Wilts (which belongs to a Roman Catholic family).' Hearne's _Remains_,
iii. 17. His fellowship was filled up on Dec. 23, 1730. Boswell's
statement therefore is inaccurate. If Johnson remained at college till
Nov. 1731, he would have really been for at least ten months Adams's
pupil. We may assume that as his name remained on the books after Jorden
left so he was _nominally_ transferred to Adams. It is worthy of notice
that Thomas Warton, in the account that he gives of Johnson's visit to
Oxford in 1754, says:--'He much regretted that his _first_ tutor
was dead.'

[239] According to Hawkins (_Life_, pp. 17, 582 and _post_, Dec. 9,
1784) Johnson's father was at one time a bankrupt. Johnson, in the
epitaph that he wrote for him (_post_, Dec. 2, 1784) describes him as
'bibliopola admodum peritus,' but 'rebus adversis diu conflictatus.' He
certainly did not die a bankrupt, as is shown by his leaving property to
his widow and son, and also by the following MS. letter, that is
preserved with two others of the same kind in Pembroke College.

Ashby, April 19, 1736.

Good Sr.,

I must truble you again, my sister who desiurs her survis to you, & begs
you will be so good if you can to pravale with Mr. Wumsley to paye you
the little money due to her you may have an opertunity to speak to him &
it will be a great truble for me to have a jerney for it when if he
pleasd he might paye it you, it is a poore case she had but little left
by Mr. Johnson but his books (not but he left her all he had) & those
sold at a poore reat, and be kept out of so small a sume by a gentleman
so well able to paye, if you will doe yr best for the widow will be
varey good in you, which will oblige yr reall freund JAMES BATE.

To Mr. John Newton

a Sider Seller at Litchfield.

Pd. L5 to Mr. Newton.

In another hand is written,

To Gilbert Walmesley Esq.

at Lichfield.

And in a third hand,

Pd. L5 to Mr. Newton.

The exact amount claimed, as is Shewn by the letter, dated Jan. 31,
1735, was L5 6s. 4d. There is a yet earlier letter demanding payment of
L5 6s. 4d. as 'due to me' for books, signed D. Johnson, dated
Swarkstone, Aug. 21, 1733. It must be the same account. Perhaps D.
Johnson was the executor. He writes from Ashby, where Michael Johnson
had a branch business. But I know of no other mention of him or of James
Bate. John Newton was the father of the Bishop of Bristol. _Post_, June
3,1784, and Bishop Newton's _Works_, i. I.

[240] Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, dated Aug. 18, 1763, advised
him, in some trouble that he had with his wife, 'to consult our old
friend Mr. Howard. His profession has acquainted him with matrimonial
law, and he is in himself a cool and wise man.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th
S. v. 342. See _post_, March 20, 1778, for mention of his son.

[241] See _post_, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by
Johnson's lines (_post_, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family.

[242] Mr. Warton informs me, 'that this early friend of Johnson was
entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698;
and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the _Gent. Mag_.
(vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of:

'My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.' &c.

He died Aug, 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in
the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward,
one of the Prebendaries. BOSWELL.

[243] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 380.

[244] See _post_, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'

[245] See _post_, 1743.

[246] See _post_ April 24, 1779.

[247] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739),
Johnson went to Appleby, in Leicestershire, to apply for the mastership
of Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to London.
It is likely that he visited Ashbourne.

[248] 'Old Meynell' is mentioned, _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's
'Collection,' as the author of 'the observation, "For anything I see,
foreigners are fools;"' and 'Mr. Meynell,' _post_, April 1, 1779, as
saying that 'The chief advantage of London is, that a man is always _so
near his burrow_.'

[249] See _post_, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21, 1773. Mr.
Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens.

[250] See _post_, 1780, end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'

[251] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said, 'I find
myself very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I
am well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear
Miss Boothby.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of the
_Piozzi Letters_ are given some of his letters to her. They were
republished together with her letters to him in _An Account of the Life
of Dr. Samuel Johnson_, 1805.

[252] The words of Sir John Hawkins, P. 316. BOSWELL. 'When Mr. Thrale
once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his past life,
he replied, "it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with
Molly Aston. That, indeed," said he, "was not happiness, it was rapture;
but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add that the
evening alluded to was not passed tete-a-tete, but in a select company
of which the present Lord Kilmorey was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson,
"was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in
praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her--She was the
loveliest creature I ever saw--

'Liber ut esse velim suasisti
pulchra Maria;
Ut maneam liber--pulchra Maria
vale.'

'Will it do this way in English, Sir,' said I:--

'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly
from you;
If freedom we seek--fair Maria,
adieu!'

'It will do well enough,' replied he; 'but it is translated by a lady,
and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.'" Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 157. See
_post_, May 8, 1778.

[253] Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724-5, left one
son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine
married Johnson's friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey [_post, 1737]; Margaret,
Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell
[the man who cut down Shakspeare's mulberry tree, _post_, March 25,
1776]; Mary, or _Molly_ Aston, as she was usually called, became the
wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE.

[254] Luke vi. 35.

[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he
received his share of his father's property, _ante_, p. 80. A letter
published in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short
time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood.

[256] Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth,
headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred
under Blackwall. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (_post_, Dec. 1784) that
Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth.

[257] See _Gent. Mag_. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL.

[258] See _ante_, p. 78.

[259] The patron's manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton,
writing of this town in 1770, says,--'The inhabitants set their dogs at
me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable roads, no
intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their
rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.' _Life, of W.
Hutton_, p. 45.

[260] It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, dated
Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house
recently, before that letter was written. MALONE.

[261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his
twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to
those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all.
One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man
with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned
to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow
and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably
to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his
talents might have illustrated and his virtues adorned. Such things have
been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream
of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious
destiny.' Conway's _Carlyle_, p. 176.

[262] This newspaper was the _Birmingham Journal_. In the office of the
_Birmingham Daily Post_ is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21,
1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is
described by W. Hutton (_Life_, p. 77) as one of the 'three eminent
booksellers' in Birmingham in 1750. 'His house was "over against the
Swan Tavern," in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered
houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].' Timmins's _Dr. Johnson in
Birmingham_, p. 4.

[263] 'In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a
person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.' Hawkins, p. 21. His wife's maiden
name was Jarvis or Jervis.

[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He
says,--'I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby,
Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of
wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the
buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance.
Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this.
The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among
dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street
showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces
of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a
pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes
of civil life.' _Life of W. Hutton_, p. 41.

[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing
the destruction of a Mr. Taylor's house, says,--'The sons of plunder
forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter,
father to the man whose property they were destroying;' ib. p. 181.

[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself ill-used by Warren;
for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,--'What news of poor
Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.' _Notes and Queries_,
6th S. iii. 301.

[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson's _Preface_
shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has
been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome.

[268] In the original, _Segued_.

[269] In the original, _Zeila_.

[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:--'The fall
of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be
heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the
neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and
was as easily heard by them as I heard them,' p. 101.

[271] In the original, _without religion, polity, or articulate
language_.

[272] See _Rambler_, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages
insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same _Rambler_ he
says:--'Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of
a vigorous intellect.' In the allegory in _Rambler_, No. 105, he calls
curiosity his 'long-loved protectress,' who is known by truth 'among the
most faithful of her followers.' In No. 150 he writes:--'Curiosity is in
great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps
always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative
faculties.' In No. 5 he assert that 'he that enlarges his curiosity
after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to
happiness.'

[273] Rasselas, _post_, 1759.

[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson's
_Annales_:--'Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have
trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I
read to-night in Roger's sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law
(sic) anew.'

[275] May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and
Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, '...
in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitarem oris
excellentis ingenii praestantia compensavit.' _Comment, de reb. ad eum
pertin_. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius
Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sevigne's friend,
Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, 'qu'il abusait de
la permission qu'ont les hommes d'etre laids.' See _Mme. de Sevigne's
Letter_, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER.

[276] The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be
two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings
and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. BOSWELL.
'Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a
very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to
belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.' HAWKINS, p. 445. See _post_, Nov.,
1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He
says:--'Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known
to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had
consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom
Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally
neglected.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 299.

[277] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 266, says 'that he
has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his
brother "scarcely using him with common civility," and says, "I believe
I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!"' Nathanael died in
Lichfield in 1737; see _post_, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the
MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath.
Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a person of
little education.

[278] Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly
shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, to
him, which were first published in the _Gent. Mag_. [lv. 3], with notes
by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that
valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally
transcribe in the course of this work. BOSWELL. I was able to examine
some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of
Cave's collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places corrected
errors of transcription.

[279] Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. _Gent. Mag_. 1734, p.
197. BOSWELL. This letter shews how uncommon a thing a cold bath was.
Floyer, after recommending 'a general method of bleeding and purging'
before the patient uses cold bathing, continues, 'I have commonly cured
the rickets by dipping children of a year old in the bath every morning;
and this wonderful effect has encouraged me to dip four boys at
Lichfield in the font at their baptism, and none have suffered any
inconvenience by it.' (For mention of Floyer, see _ante_, p. 42, and
_post_, March 27 and July 20, 1784.) Locke, in his _Treatise on
Education_, had recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his
review of Lucas's _Essay on Waters_ (_post_, 1756), thus attacks cold
bathing:--'It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other
men, to mistake subsequence for consequence. "The old gentleman," says
Dr. Lucas, "that uses the cold bath, enjoys in return an uninterrupted
state of health." This instance does not prove that the cold bath
produces health, but only that it will not always destroy it. He is well
with the bath, he would have been well without it.' _Literary
Magazine_, p. 229.

[280] A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on 'Life, Death,
Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.' See _Gent. Mag_. vol. iv. p. 560. N.
BOSWELL. 'Cave sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes
for the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which,
being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of
fifty pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the
kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered the allotment of the prize
to the universities. But when the time came, no name was seen among the
writers that had ever been seen before; the universities and several
private men rejected the province of assigning the prize.' Johnson's
_Works_, vi. 432.

[281] I suspect that Johnson wrote 'the Castle _Inn_, Birmingham.'

[282] Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition
from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was
rightly attributed to him:--'I think it is now just forty years ago,
that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he
courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her
in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at
the time agreed on--Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund' [see _post_,
May 7, 1773, for Johnson's 'way of contracting the names of his
friends'], 'and I'll fetch them thee--So stepped aside for five minutes,
and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.' _Anec_. p. 34.

In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this
account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me
from Miss Seward, of Lichfield:--'_I know_ those verses were addressed
to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or
three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote
them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my
mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them
to me, when I asked her for _the Verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a Sprig
of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom_. We all know
honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying
to herself a compliment not _intended_ for her.' Such was this lady's
statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it
shews how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional
testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me
that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was
the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been
erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond.

I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness
of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, that
however often, she is not always inaccurate.

The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward,
in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be found in the
_Gent. Mag_. vol. liii. and liv.) received the following letter from Mr.
Edmund Hector, on the subject:

'DEAR SIR,

'I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, who seems
unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more
ingenuous to acknowledge, than to persevere.

'Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the
original manuscript of the _Myrtle_, with the date on it, 1731, which I
have inclosed.

'The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan
Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with whom I
was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting
presented him the branch. He shewed it me, and wished much to return the
compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about
half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend.

'I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to
the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced
him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my cloaths of.

'If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the
publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use
you please of this statement.

'I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing
you _multos et felices annos_, I shall subscribe myself,

'Your obliged humble servant,

'E. HECTOR.'

_Birmingham_,
Jan. 9th, 1794.

BOSWELL. For a further account of Boswell's controversy with Miss
Seward, see _post_, June 25, 1784.

[283] See _post_, beginning of 1744, April 28, 1783, and under Dec. 2,
1784.

[284] See _post_, near end of 1762, note.

[285] In the registry of St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, are the
following entries:--'Baptisms, Nov. 8, 1715, Lucy, daughter of Henry
Porter. Jan. 29, 1717 [O. S.], Jarvis Henry, son of Henry Porter.
Burials, Aug. 3, 1734, Henry Porter of Edgbaston.' There were two sons;
one, Captain Porter, who died in 1763 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 130), the
other who died in 1783 (_post_, Nov. 29, 1783).

[286] According to Malone, Reynolds said that 'he had paid attention to
Johnson's limbs; and far from being unsightly, he deemed them well
formed.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says:--'His stature was
remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large; his features were
strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the
original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat
unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes,
though of a light-grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times
so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of
all his beholders.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 297. See _post_, end of the
book, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the beginning.

[287] If Johnson wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him
to ridicule. Graves, the author of _The Spiritual Quixote_, tells us
that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often
exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his
sensc. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party
of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for
not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face his
enemies in the gate."'

[288] See _post_, 1739.

[289] Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688-9. MALONE. She was married
on July 9, 1735, in St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, as is shewn by the
following copy of the marriage register: '1735, July 9, Mar'd Sam'll
Johnson of ye parish of St Mary's in Litchfield, and Eliz'th Porter of
ye parish of St Phillip in Burmingham.' _Notes and Queries_, 4th S. vi.
44. At the time of their marriage, therefore, she was forty-six, and
Johnson only two months short of twenty-six.

[290] The author of the _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr.
Johnson_, 1785, p. 25, says:--'Mrs. Porter's husband died insolvent, but
her settlement was secured. She brought her second husband about seven
or eight hundred pounds, a great part of which was expended in fitting
up a house for a boarding-school.' That she had some money can be almost
inferred from what we are told by Boswell and Hawkins. How other-wise
was Johnson able to hire and furnish a large house for his school?
Boswell says that he had but three pupils. Hawkins gives him a few more.
'His number,' he writes (p. 36) 'at no time exceeded eight, and of those
not all were boarders.' After nearly twenty months of married life, when
he went to London, 'he had,' Boswell says, 'a little money.' It was not
till a year later still that he began to write for the _Gent. Mag_. If
Mrs. Johnson had not money, how did she and her husband live from July
1735 to the spring of 1738? It could scarcely have been on the profits
made from their school. Inference, however, is no longer needful, as
there is positive evidence. Mr. Timmins in his _Dr. Johnson in
Birmingham_ (p. 4) writes:--'My friend, Mr. Joseph Hill, says, A copy of
an old deed which has recently come into my hands, shews that a hundred
pounds of Mrs. Johnson's fortune was left in the hands of a Birmingham
attorney named Thomas Perks, who died insolvent; and in 1745, a bulky
deed gave his creditors 7_s_. 4_d_. in the pound. Among the creditors
for L100 were "Samuel Johnson, gent., and Elizabeth his wife, executors
of the last will and testament of Harry Porter, late of Birmingham
aforesaid, woollen draper, deceased." Johnson and his wife were almost
the only creditors who did not sign the deed, their seals being left
void. It is doubtful, therefore, whether they ever obtained the amount
of the composition L36 13_s_. 4_d_.'

[291] Sir Walter Scott has recorded Lord Auchinleck's 'sneer of most
sovereign contempt,' while he described Johnson as 'a dominie, monan
auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 397, note.

[292] 'Edial is two miles west of Lichfield.' Harwood's _Lichfield_, p.
564.

[293] Johnson in more than one passage in his writings seems to have in
mind his own days as a schoolmaster. Thus in the _Life of Milton_ he
says:--'This is the period of his life from which all his biographers
seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton should be
degraded to a schoolmaster; but, since it cannot be denied that he
taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another that
his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; and
all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act which
no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was
alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by
an honest and useful employment.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 75. In the
_Life of Blackmore_ he says:--'In some part of his life, it is not known
when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, an humiliation with
which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did
not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite
malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been
once a school-master is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of
malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.'
Johnson's _Works_, viii. 36.