THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE

CHAPTER VI.
JOHNSON'S WRITINGS




SAMUEL JOHNSON.


CHAPTER I.


CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE.


Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield in 1709. His father, Michael
Johnson, was a bookseller, highly respected by the cathedral clergy, and
for a time sufficiently prosperous to be a magistrate of the town, and,
in the year of his son's birth, sheriff of the county. He opened a
bookstall on market-days at neighbouring towns, including Birmingham,
which was as yet unable to maintain a separate bookseller. The tradesman
often exaggerates the prejudices of the class whose wants he supplies,
and Michael Johnson was probably a more devoted High Churchman and Tory
than many of the cathedral clergy themselves. He reconciled himself with
difficulty to taking the oaths against the exiled dynasty. He was a man
of considerable mental and physical power, but tormented by
hypochondriacal tendencies. His son inherited a share both of his
constitution and of his principles. Long afterwards Samuel associated