JOHNSON, SAMUEL, the son of Michael Johnson, a bookseller at Lichfield, and Sarah, his wife, was born at Lichfield on the 18th of September 1709. As a child he was afflicted with the king's evil, which disfigured his face and impaired his eyesight, and he was taken to Queen Anne to be touched. His education was commenced at Lich field, whence he was removed to a school at Stourbridge; and in 172S, two years after he had left Stourbridge, he was placed at Pembroke College, Oxford. Young Johnson had early shown a vigorous under standing and an eagerness for knowledge : though he had poverty to contend with and a natural indolence, lied was aka subject to consti tutional infirmity, and periodical attacks of morbid melancholy, he acquired a large fund of information at the university. Necessity compelled him to abandon the hope of taking a degree; his debts, though small, were increasing ; remittances from Lichfield could no longer be supplied ; and he quitted college aud returned to his father's house. In the December following (1731) his father died in such pecuniary distress, that Johnson was soon afterwards glad to become usher of a school at Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, to which it appears from his diary that he went ou foot : "Julii 10," lie writes, "Bosvortiam pedea pea" But finding the drudgery of this employ ment intolerable, he sought other means of obtaining his bread, and procured temporary employment in translating for a bookseller in Birmingham. During his residence in this town he became intimate with the family of a mercer named Porter, whose widow he subee quently married (1736). Mrs. l'orter was more than twenty years older than himself, but he was fondly attached to her, and she added to other powers of increasing his happiness the possession of 800/. With this capital he established a school, but his advertisements produced few scholars, the scheme failed, and ho left Staffordshire with his pupil Garrick to seek his fortune in the metropolis.
His prospects at this time must have been very gloomy : he had nothing but literature to trust to for subeieteuce, and those were times when the condition of literary men was most miserable and degraded. In the reigns of William, of Anne, and George I., successful writers were rewarded by private munificence and public situations; but such patronage was now at an end, and the year in which Johnson left his home formed part of an interval which elapsed before a new source of remuneration arose—before the number of readers became large. Of readers there were still but few ; the prices therefore that booksellers could afford to pay to authors were necessarily small ; and an author, whatever were his talents or his industry, had great difficulty in keeping a shilling in his purse. The poverty and neglected condition
of his friend and brother author, Savage, were the causes of Johnson's writing his 'London,' an imitation of the third satire of Juveual, for which Mr. Dodaley gave him ten guineas, and by which ho obtained certain degree of reputation. We are told that when Pope read it he said, "The author, whoever he is, will not be long concealed." No great advantage however immediately accrued to him. Again he sought to be a schoolmaster, again his scheme miscarried, and he returned to his drudgery io the service of Cave the bookseller, who was his only patron. his pen was continually at work, and his pamphlets, prefaces, epitaphs, essays, and biographical memoirs, were oontinually published by Cave, either by themselves or in his periodical the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' For many years his bread continued to be earned by literary slavery ; by slow degrees only did his great talents become known, and the trust reposed in him by publishers increase.
In 1740, and for more than two years afterwards, Johnson wrote the parliamentary speeches in the Gentleman's Magazine.' In 1744 be published his 'Life of Savage;' in the following year some observations on Shakspere, whose plays be proposed to edit; and in 1747 he commenced his 'English Dictionary,' which he engaged to complete in three years for 15751., a small sum if we consider that the author agreed to bear the heavy expenses necessary for preparing a work of such magnitude and importance. In 1749 appeared The Vanity of Human Wishes,' an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and in the following year was printed the first paper of the 'Rambler.' These are some of his most remarkable publications, for a complete list of which, and the dates at which they were published, we must refer to Boewell's Life.' For ' The Vanity of Human Wishes' 15 guineas only were received from Mr. Dodsley. We mention this because the frame and condition of Johnson's mind and temper, his views of things and persons, were probably influenced in no small degree by the deficiency of his mane. He was now engaged in a steady course of occupation sufficient to employ his time for several years ; and so assiduous were his labours that, whilst preparing his 'Dictionary,' he bad an upper room at his residence in Gough Square fitted up like a counting-house, in which several copyists sat, whom he supplied with continual employment.