4 JOHNSON. 



all ; and no one is likely to deny that he may justly be 

 ranked among the most remarkable men of his age, even 

 if we regard the works which he has left, but much more 

 if we consider the resources of his conversation. This 

 must be the result of a calm and candid review of his 

 history, after all due allowance shall be made for the 

 undoubted effects of manner and singularity in exalting 

 the impression of both his writings and his talk. 



Samuel Johnson was born 18th of September, 1709, 

 at Lichfield, where his father, originally from Derby- 

 shire, was a bookseller and stationer in a small way of 

 business. His mother was of a yeoman's family named 

 Ford, for many generations settled in Warwickshire. He 

 inherited from his father a large and robust bodily frame, 

 with a disposition towards melancholy and hypochon- 

 driacism, which proved the source of wretchedness to him 

 through life. From his nurse he is supposed (though 

 probably it was hereditary too,) to have caught a scro- 

 fulous disorder, of whose ravages he always bore the 

 scars, which deprived him of the sight of one eye, and 

 which, under the influence of the vulgar supposition so 

 long prevalent, made his parents bring him to London 

 that he might be touched by Queen Anne. His father 

 was a man of respectable character and good abilities ; 

 and while he devoted himself to his trade, frequenting 

 various parts of the country to sell his books, he seems to 

 have had much pleasure in the diffusion of knowledge, 

 and to have been himself knowing in several branches 

 of ordinary learning. His mother was uneducated, but 

 had a strong natural understanding, and a deep sense of 

 religion, which she early instilled into her son. There 

 was only one other child, a younger brother, who followed 



