no very easy operation, as his size was remarkably large. His defective sight, indeed, prevented him from enjoying the common sports; and he once pleasantly remarked to me how wonderfully well he had contrived to be idle without them. Lord Chesterfield, however, has justly observed in one of his letters, when earnestly cautioning a friend against the pernicious effects of idleness, that active sports are not to be reckoned idleness in young people; and that the listless torpor of doing nothing, alone deserves that name. Of this dismal inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too great a share. Mr. Hector relates, that he could not oblige him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in the fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself than to his companion.

Dr. Percy, the bishop of Dromore, who was long intimately acquainted with him, and has preserved a few anecdotes concerning him, regretting that he was not a more diligent collector, informs me, that "when a boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he retained his fondness for them through life; so that," adds his lordship, "spending part of a summer at my parsonage-house in the country, he chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of Hircania, in folio, which he read quite through. Yet I have heard him attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing in any pro

fession."

After having resided for some time at the house of his uncle, Cornelius Ford, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was then master. This step was taken by the advice of his cousin, the rev. Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were disgraced by licentiousness, but who was a very able judge

Cornelius Ford, according to sir John Hawkins, was his cousin german, being the son of Dr. Joseph [Q. Nathanael,] Ford, an eminent physician, who was brother to Johnson's mother.-MALONE.

a He was a man, says Johnson, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convi

of what was right. At this school he did not receive so much benefit as was expected. It has been said, that he acted in the capacity of an assistant to Mr. Wentworth, in teaching the younger boys. "Mr. Wentworth," he told me,." was a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very severe; but I cannot blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did not reverence him; and that he should get no honour by me. I had brought enough with me, to carry me through; and all I should get at his school would be ascribed to my own labour, or to my former master. Yet he taught me a great deal."

He thus discriminated to Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, his progress at his two grammar schools “At one, I learned much in the school, but little from the master; in the other, I learned much from the master, but little in the school."

The bishop also informs me, that "Dr. Johnson's father, before he was received at Stourbridge, applied to have him admitted as a scholar and assistant to the rev. Samuel Lea, M. A. head master of Newport school, in Shropshire; a very diligent good teacher, at that time in high reputation, under whom Mr. Hollis is said, in the memoirs of his life, to have been also educated. This application to Mr. Lea was not successful; but Johnson had afterwards the gratification to hear that the old gentleman, who lived to a very advanced age, mentioned it as one of the most memorable events of his life, "that he was very near having that great man for a scholar."

He remained at Stourbridge little more than a year, and then he returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several proofs of

vial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise. Life of Fenton.-ED.

b He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's Modern Midnight Conversation. Sir John Hawkins communicated to Mr. Nichols that the original of the parson was orator Henley. Nichols' Works of Hogarth, 4to. vol. ii. P. 110.

© As was likewise the bishop of Dromore many years afterwards.--Boswell.

his poetical genius, both in his school exercises and in other occasional compositions. Of these I have obtained a considerable collection, by the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one of his masters, and of Mr. Hector, his schoolfellow and friend; from which I select the following specimens:

Translation of Virgil. Pastoral I.

Melibaus.

Now, Tityrus, you, supine and careless laid,
Play on your pipe beneath this beechen shade;
While wretched we about the world must roam,
And leave our pleasing fields and native home,
Here at your ease you sing your amorous flame,
And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.

Tityrus.

Those blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd,
For I shall never think him less than god;
Oft on his altar shall my firstlings lie,
Their blood the consecrated stones shall dye:
He gave my flocks to graze the flowery meads,
And me to tune at ease th' unequal reeds.

Melibæus.

My admiration only I exprest,

(No spark of envy harbours in my breast,)
That, when confusion o'er the country reigns,

Το

you alone this happy state remains.

Here I, though faint myself, must drive my goats,
Far from their ancient fields and humble cots.

This scarce I lead, who left on yonder rock
Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock.
Had we not been
and careless grown,
perverse
This dire event by omens was foreshown;
Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke,
And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak,
Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak.

Translation of Horace. Book I. Ode xxii.

THE man, my friend, whose conscious heart
With virtue's sacred ardour glows,
Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart,
Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows:

Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads,
Or horrid Africk's faithless sands,
Or where the fam'd Hydaspes spreads
His liquid wealth o'er barbarous lands.

For while by Chloe's image charm'd,
Too far in Sabine woods I stray'd;
Me singing, careless and unarm'd,
A grizzly wolf surprised, and fled:

No savage more portentous stain'd
Apulia's spacious wilds with gore;
No fiercer Juba's thirsty land,

Dire nurse of raging lions, bore.

Place me where no soft summer gale
Among the quivering branches sighs;
Where clouds condens'd for ever veil

With horrid gloom the frowning skies:

Place me beneath the burning line,
A clime denied to human race;

I'll sing of Chloe's charms divine,

Her heav'nly voice, and beauteous face.

Translation of Horace. Book II. Ode ix.

CLOUDS do not always veil the skies,

Nor showers immerse the verdant plain ;

Nor do the billows always rise,

Or storms afflict the ruffled main :

Niphates rolls an humbler wave,

At length the undaunted Scythian yields,
Content to live the Roman's slave,

And scarce forsakes his native fields.

Translation of part of the dialogue between Hector and Andromache; from the sixth book of Homer's Iliad.

SHE ceas'd; then godlike Hector answer'd kind,

His various plumage sporting in the wind:
That post, and all the rest, shall be my care;
But shall I, then, forsake the unfinished war?

How would the Trojans brand great Hector's name!
And one base action sully all my fame,
Acquir'd by wounds and battles bravely fought!
Oh! how my soul abhors so mean a thought.
Long since I learn'd to slight this fleeting breath,
And view with cheerful eyes approaching death.
The inexorable sisters have decreed

That Priam's house, and Priam's self shall bleed:
The day will come, in which proud Troy shall yield,
And spread its smoking ruins o'er the field.