JOHNSON, SAMUEL, son of Michael Johnson, was b. at Lichfield, on Sept. 18, 1709. He received his early education in native town, from a man named Hunter.; of whom he has recorded that " he beat me very well"—adding, " without that I should have done nothing." In 1728 he went to Pembroke college, Oxford, having been engaged for the two previous years of his life in learning his father's business of book seller. The Short Account of Lichfield, 1819, says that books of his binding are still extant in that city. At Oxford Johnson spent probably the most unhappy period of his unhappy life. Overpowered by debts, difficulties, and religions doubts, he became a prey to the morbid melancholy of his constitution. Poverty prevented him from taking his degree. In 1731 his father died insolvent. In the same year he went to Bosworth as usher of a school. Finding the drudgery of this situation unbearable, he soon gave it up, gaining a meager livelihood by working for booksellers in Birmingham. In 1736 he married Mrs. Porter, a widow; she brought him £800. He then set agoing a school, which having no success, he repaired (1737) to London in the company of his celebrated pupil, David Garrick. Here he formed a connection with Cave, the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to which periodical he became a contributor. In the following year he published London, a poem in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. which was very favorably received, Pope, in particular, being warm in its praise. But for many years he was miserably remunerated for his work, and had great difficulty in keep ing the wolf of hunger from his door. Little is known respecting Johnson's life from this period till lie was turned of fifty. We may form, however, some guess of the ,measure of its unhappiness, when we consider the character and constitution of the man, and what was the position of the majority of men of letters at that time—for literature,. "a dark night between two sunny days"—when the day of patrician patronage was at its close, and that of public patronage had not yet dawned. After 1740 be began to "report" (if we may be allowed to misuse this word) the parliamentary debates fo Cave's magazine. These "debates" were drawn up by Johnson himself, after he had ascertained the order in which the different speakers rose, and the drift of their argu ments. One can readily believe that statesmen were surprised at the splendor and pomp of their own eloquence when they saw it in print. In 1744 Johnson published his
interesting Life of Richard Savage; in 1749 his best poem, The Vanity of Human 'Wishes, an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and in 1750 commenced The Rambler, a periodical which he conducted for two years, and the contents of which were almost wholly his own composition. His _Dictionary, a noble piece of work, entitling its author to being considered the founder of English lexicography, appeared in 1755, after eight years of solid labor; The Idler, another periodical, was begun by Johnson in 1758, and carried on for two years also; and in 1759 occurred one of the most touching episodes of his life—the writing of Rasselas to pay thb expenses of his mother's funeral. It was written, he tells us, " in the evenings of a week." At last he emerged from obscurity. In 1762 a pension of £300 a year was conferred on him by lord Bute; and in the fol lowing year occurred an event, apparently of little moment, but which has had a last ing influence upon his fame; this was his introduction to James Boswell, whose Life of Dr. Johnson is probably more imperishable than any of the doctor's own writings. In 1764 the famous literary club was instituted, and the fo]l'owing year began his intimacy with the Thrales. In the same year appeared his edition of Shakespeare. In 1773 he visited the Highlands with Boswell. In 1781 appeared his Lives of the Poets, his last literary work of any importance. He died on Dec. 13, 1784. He was buried in West minster abbey, close by the grave of Garrick.
Strength, or at le'ast force of mind, a certain sage solemnity in the treatment of moral themes, a sharp eye for the observation of character as it manifests itself in society, and a great power of caustic wit, are the chief qualities noticeable in Johnson. He had little aptitude for abstract thinking, and no great vigor of imagination—hence he was neither a philosopher nor a poet; but he had good sense, a solid judgment, and a serious. thoughtful nature—hence we find scattered through his numerous works a multitude of valuable remarks on books and men and manners. His written style is very sonor ous, inflated, and antithetic; the language is frequently grander than the thought, but his conversational style, as reported by Boswell, is terse, robust, and felicitous in the highest degree.