Though Mrs. Porter, now a widow, was double the age of Johnson, and her
person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by
no means pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of
understanding and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more
than ordinary passion. The marriage took place at Derby, on July 9,
1736.

He now set up a private academy, for which purpose he hired a large
house well situated near his native city. In the "Gentleman's Magazine"
for 1736 there is the following advertisement:

"At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded
and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON."

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated
David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young
gentleman of fortune, who died early.

Johnson, indeed, was not more satisfied with his situation as the master
of an academy than with that of the usher of a school; we need not
wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy more than a year and
a half. From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been
profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner and uncouth
gesticulations could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and in
particular, the young rogues used to turn into ridicule his awkward
fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar
appellation of Tetty or Tetsey, which, like Betty or Betsey, is
provincially used as a contraction for Elizabeth, her Christian name,
but which to us seems ludicrous when applied to a woman of her age and