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JOHNSON'S WORLD

Dr Johnson lived in four reigns-from 1709 to 1784. He could remember seeing Queen Anne and had an audience of George III; a Jacobite as a boy and a Tory always, he saw the '15 and the '45; he groaned under the Whig domination of Walpole and rejoiced in the Tory triumph of the king who gloried in the name of Briton; he saw the victories of our armies in India and Canada and their failure in America; he saw the damage done in the Gordon Riots and chatted to a South Sea islander brought home by Captain Cook; he dined with John Wilkes and was a guest in the house of Flora Macdonald.

In a tavern, a club, a drawing-room, or a postchaise he would argue, and have the best of the argument, on the institution of slavery or the choice of books for babies; on the government of India or the poetry of Gray; on the doctrine of free will or the points of a bull-dog; on the management of a university press or the writing of a good cookery book.

In 1737 he came to London with twopencehalfpenny and a half-written tragedy in his pocket and for nearly twenty years did the work of an unknown literary drudge; for the last thirty years of his life he was the dominant figure in the educated society of London, laying down the law on politics to Edmund Burke, on literature to Oliver Goldsmith, on painting to Sir Joshua Reynolds, on history to Edward Gibbon, on acting to David Garrick, and on everything to James Boswell.

Let us see what Boswell has to tell us.

3

J

School Days

OHNSON was not born into the worldat which we have just glanced. Indeed, had his character been less remarkable, he might have lived and died a schoolmaster, or a bookseller, in a country town. For his father, Michael Johnson, kept a bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and here his son Samuel was born in 1709.

Of old Mr Johnson Boswell says that "he was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield... He was a zealous high-church man and royalist and retained his attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart."

Now, according to a modern poet:

Every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.

w.s.Gilbert

In those days men talked of Whig and Tory as we talk of Liberal and Conservative, and if ever a man was born a Tory, that man was Samuel Johnson.

To be a Tory in 1710 meant, generally speaking, to disapprove of the Revolution of 1688, when James II was driven from his throne and William III summoned to rule in his place; and great excitement had been caused in the country

by a sermon preached at St Paul's against the principles of the Revolution by a certain Dr Sacheverell.

A visit of this preacher to Lichfield gave young Samuel Johnson the opportunity to shew himself what Boswell calls "the infant Hercules of Toryism." Here is the story told by a Lichfield lady:

"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 such 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, satisfied with beholding him."

Nowadays it is difficult for us to imagine a threeyear-old baby insisting on hearing a sermon, say, by the Dean of St Paul's or even a speech by the Prime Minister. But Johnson, as we shall see, was no ordinary child; and to the end of his life he was no ordinary hater of the Whigs.

Living, as he did, in the atmosphere of a bookshop, it was natural that the boy should be more inclined than others towards learning. His memory was wonderful:

"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

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The birthplace, having been presented to the city of Lichfield by the late Lieut.-Col. John Gilbert, was opened to the public as a Johnson Museum and Library in 1901. In it are preserved various books, manuscripts, portraits and other relics. A full account of Johnson's association with Lichfield is given in Dr Samuel Johnson and His Birthplace: A Retrospect and Guide. Compiled by the Johnson House Committee (Lichfield, 1915).

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