Immortal Memories | Page 5

have ever read, and I am
surprised that it is not constantly reprinted in a handy form. {19} It is a
valuable inspiration to men to keep up their spirits under adverse
conditions, to conquer the weaknesses of their natures; not in the
stifling manner of Thomas a Kempis, but in a breezy, robust way. Yes,
I think that these three works, Rasselas, The Lives of the Poets, and the
Prayers and Meditations, make it quite clear that Johnson still holds his
place as one of our greatest writers, even if we were not familiar with
his many delightful letters, and had not read his Rambler--which his old
enemy, Miss Anna Seward, insisted was far better than Addison's
Spectator.
All this is only to say that we cannot have too much of Dr. Johnson.
The advantage of such a gathering as this is that it helps us to keep that
fact alive. Moreover, I feel that it is a good thing if we can hearten
those who have devoted themselves to laborious research connected
with such matters. Take, for example, the work of Dr. Birkbeck Hill:
his many volumes are a delight to the Johnson student. I knew Dr. Hill
very well, and I have often felt that his work did not receive half the
encouragement that it deserved. We hear sometimes, at least in London,
of authors who advertise themselves. I rather fancy that all such
advertisement is monopolized by the novelist, and that the newspapers
do not trouble themselves very much about literary men who work in
other fields than that of fiction. Fiction has much to be said for it, but as
a rule it reaps its reward very promptly, both in finance and in fame. No
such rewards come to the writer of biography, to the writer of history,
to the literary editor. Dr. Hill's beautiful edition of Boswell's Life, with
all its fascinating annotation, did not reach a second edition in his
lifetime. I am afraid that the sum that he made out of it, or that his
publishers made out of it, would seem a very poor reward indeed when
gauged by the results in other fields of labour.
Within the past few weeks I have had the privilege of reading a book

that continues these researches. Mr. Aleyn Lyell Reade has published a
handsome tome, which he has privately printed, entitled Dr. Johnson's
Ancestry: His Kinsfolk and Family Connexions. I am glad to hear that
the Johnson Museum has purchased a copy, for such a work deserves
every encouragement. The author must have spent hundreds of pounds,
without the faintest possibility of obtaining either fame or money from
the transaction. He seems to have employed copyists in every town in
Staffordshire, to copy wills, registers of births and deaths, and kindred
records from the past. Now Dr. Birkbeck Hill could not have afforded
to do this; he was by no means a rich man. Mr. Reade has clearly been
able to spare no expense, with the result that here are many interesting
facts corrective of earlier students. The whole is a valuable record of
the ancestry of Dr. Johnson. It shows clearly that whereas Dr. Johnson
thought very little of his ancestry, and scarcely knew anything of his
grandfather on the paternal or the maternal side, he really sprang from a
very remarkable stock, notably on the maternal side; and that his
mother's family, the Fords, had among their connexions all kinds of
fairly prosperous people, clergymen, officials, professional men as well
as sturdy yeomen. These ancestors of Dr. Johnson did not help him
much to push his way in the world. Of some of them he had scarcely
heard. All the same it is of great interest to us to know this; it in a
manner explains him. That before Samuel Johnson was born, one of his
family had been Lord Mayor of London, another a Sheriff, that they
had been associated in various ways, not only with the city of his birth,
but also with the great city which Johnson came to love so much, is to
let in a flood of fresh light upon our hero. My time does not permit me
to do more than make a passing reference to this book, but I should like
to offer here a word of thanks to its author for his marvellous industry,
and a word of congratulation to him for the extraordinary success that
has accrued to his researches.
I mention Mr. Reade's book because it is full of Lichfield names and
Lichfield associations, and it is with Dr. Johnson's life-long connexion
with Lichfield that all of us are thinking to-night. Now here I may say,
without any danger of being challenged by some visitor who has the
misfortune not to be