40

Johnson's birth and baptism.

[A.D. 1709.

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N.S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth. His father is there stiled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire', was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction', who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer". His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they

1

1 Johnson's godfather, Dr. Samuel Swinfen, according to the author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, 1785, p. 10, was at the time of his birth lodging with Michael Johnson. Johnson had uncles on the mother's side, named Samuel and Nathaniel (see Notes and Queries, 5th S. v. 13), after whom he and his brother may have been named. It seems more likely that it was his godfather who gave him his name.

2 So early as 1709 The Tatler complains of this 'indiscriminate assumption.' 'I'll undertake that if you read the superscriptions to all the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to any but Esquires. . . . In a word it is now Populus Armigerorum, a people of Esquires. And I don't know but by the late act of naturalisation, foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of being Englishmen.' The Tatler, No. 19.

36

I can hardly tell who was my grandfather,'. said Johnson. See post, May 9, 1773.

Michael Johnson was born in 1656. He must have been engaged in the book-trade as early as 1681; for in the Life of Dryden his son says, 'The sale of Absalom and Achitophel was so large, that my father, an old bookseller, told me, he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverel's Trial.' Johnson's Works, vii. 276. In the Life of Sprat he is described by his son as an old man who had been no careless observer of the passages of those times.' Ib. 392.

Her epitaph says that she was born at Kingsnorton. Kingsnorton is in Worcestershire, and not, as the epitaph says, 'in agro Varvicensi.' When Johnson a few days before his death burnt his papers, some

married,

A.D. 1709.]

His parentage.

4I

married, and never had more than two children, both sons; Samuel, their first born, who lived to be the illustrious character whose various excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathaniel, who died in his twenty-fifth year.

Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body, and of a strong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness'. From him then his son inherited, with some other qualities, 'a vile melancholy,' which in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life, at least not sober'.' Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his shop, but by occasionally resorting to several fragments of his Annals escaped the flames. One of these was never seen by Boswell; it was published in 1805 under the title of An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, written by himself. In this he says (p. 14), 'My mother had no value for my father's relations; those indeed whom we knew of were much lower than hers.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale on his way to Scotland he said: 'We changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect. Piozzi Letters, i. 105. His uncle Harrison he described as 'a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but luckily not rich.' Annals, p. 28. In Notes and Queries, 6th S. x. 465, is given the following extract of the marriage of Johnson's parents from the Register of Packwood in Warwickshire:

1706. Mickell Johnsones of lichfield and Sara ford maried June the 9th.'

' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 3) records that Johnson told her that 'his father was wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with melancholy.' Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 213 [Sept. 16]. Bos

2

WELL.

'Stockdale in his Memoirs, ii. 102, records an anecdote told him

towns

42

Character of Michael Johnson.

[A.D. 1709. towns in the neighbourhood', some of which were at a considerable distance from Lichfield'. At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield'; and, being a man of good sense, and skill in by Johnson of the generosity of one of the customers of his father. "This man was purchasing a book, and pressed my father to let him have it at a far less price than it was worth. When his other topics of persuasion failed, he had recourse to one argument which, he thought, would infallibly prevail:-You know, Mr. Johnson, that I buy an almanac of you every year."'

1 Extract of a letter, dated 'Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716,' written by the Rev. George Plaxton, Chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, which may serve to show the high estimation in which the Father of our great Moralist was held: 'Johnson, the Litchfield Librarian, is now here; he propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth knowledge to its just height; all the Clergy here are his Pupils, and suck all they have from him; Allen cannot make a warrant without his precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance sine directione Michaelis.' Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1791. Boswell.

In Notes and Queries, 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page of one of his books · 'Hapμako-Baσavos: or the Touchstone of Medicine. etc. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, 1687.'

'Johnson writing of his birth says: 'My father being that year sheriff of Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of the county [Mr. Croker suggests city, not being aware that 'the City of Lichfield was a county in itself.' See Harwood's Lichfield, p. 1. In like manner, in the Militia Bill of 1756 (post 1756) we find entered, 'Devonshire with Exeter City and County,' 'Lincolnshire with Lincoln City and County'] next day, which was a ceremony then performed with great pomp, he was asked by my mother whom he would invite to the Riding; and answered, "all the town now." He feasted the citizens with uncommon magnificence, and was the last but one that maintained the splendour of the Riding,' Annals, p. 10. He served the office of church-warden in 1688; of sheriff in 1709; of junior bailiff in 1718; and senior bailiff in 1725.' Harwood's Lichfield, p. 449.