remember right, and had a manner at once sullen and sheepish. "That lad,"
says Mr. Johnson, "looks like the son of a schoolmaster, which," added he,
"is one of the very worst conditions of childhood. Such a boy has no
father, or worse than none; he never can reflect on his parent but the
reflection brings to his mind some idea of pain inflicted, or of sorrow
suffered."

I will relate one thing more that Dr. Johnson said about babyhood before I
quit the subject; it was this: "That little people should be encouraged
always to tell whatever they hear particularly striking to some brother,
sister, or servant immediately, before the impression is erased by the
intervention of newer occurrences. He perfectly remembered the first time
he ever heard of Heaven and Hell," he said, "because when his mother had
made out such a description of both places as she thought likely to seize
the attention of her infant auditor, who was then in bed with her, she got
up, and dressing him before the usual time, sent him directly to call a
favourite workman in the house, to whom he knew he would communicate the
conversation while it was yet impressed upon his mind. The event was what
she wished, and it was to that method chiefly that he owed his uncommon
felicity of remembering distant occurrences and long past conversations."

At the age of eighteen Dr. Johnson quitted school, and escaped from the
tuition of those he hated or those he despised. I have heard him relate
very few college adventures. He used to say that our best accounts of his
behaviour there would be gathered from Dr. Adams and Dr. Taylor, and that
he was sure they would always tell the truth. He told me, however, one day
how, when he was first entered at the University, he passed a morning, in
compliance with the customs of the place, at his tutor's chambers; but,
finding him no scholar, went no more. In about ten days after, meeting the
same gentleman, Mr. Jordan, in the street, he offered to pass by without