Lives of the English Poets | Page 3

to Lichfield, his father died; and the following
memorandum, extracted from the little register which he kept in Latin,
of the more remarkable occurrences that befel him, proves at once the
small pittance that was left him, and the integrity of his mind: "1732,
Julii 15. Undecim aureos deposui: quo die quicquid ante matris funus
(quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperare licet, viginti scilicet
libras accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea ne
paupertate vires animi languescant nec in flagitium egestas abigat,
cavendum.--1732, July 15. I laid down eleven guineas. On which day, I
received the whole of what it is allowed me to expect from my father's
property, before the decease of my mother (which I pray may be yet far
distant) namely, twenty pounds. My fortune therefore must be of my
own making. Meanwhile, let me beware lest the powers of my mind
grow languid through poverty, or want drive me to evil." On the

following day we find him setting out on foot for Market Bosworth, in
Leicestershire, where he had engaged himself as an usher to the school
of which Mr. Crompton was master. Here he described to his old
school-fellow, Hector, the dull sameness of his life, in the words of the
poet: Vitam continct una dies: that it was as unvaried as the note of the
cuckoo, and that he did not know whether it were more disagreeable for
him to teach, or for the boys to learn the grammar rules. To add to his
misery, he had to endure the petty despotism of Sir Wolstan Dixie, one
of the patrons of the school. The trial of a few months disgusted him so
much with his employment, that he relinquished it, and, removing to
Birmingham, became the guest of his friend Mr. Hector, who was a
chirurgeon in that town, and lodged in the house of a bookseller;
having remained with him about six months, he hired lodgings for
himself. By Mr. Hector he was stimulated, not without some difficulty,
to make a translation from the French, of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia,
for which he received no more than five guineas from the bookseller,
who, by an artifice not uncommon, printed it at Birmingham, with the
date of London in the title-page. To Mr. Hector, therefore, is due the
impulse which first made Johnson an author. The motion being once
given did not cease; for, having returned to Lichfield in 1735, he sent
forth in August proposals for printing by subscription Politian's Latin
Poems, with a Life of the Author, Notes, and a History of Latin Poetry,
from the age of Petrarch to that of Politian. His reason for fixing on this
era it is not easy to determine. Mussato preceded Petrarch, the interval
between Petrarch and Politian is not particularly illustrated by
excellence in Latin poetry; and Politian was much surpassed in
correctness and elegance, if not in genius, by those who came after
him--by Flaminio, Navagero, and Fracastorio. Yet in the hands of
Johnson, such a subject would not have been wanting in instruction or
entertainment. Such as were willing to subscribe, were referred to his
brother, Nathaniel Johnson, who had succeeded to his father's business
in Lichfield; but the design was dropped, for want of a sufficient
number of names to encourage it, a deficiency not much to be
wondered at, unless the inhabitants of provincial towns were more
learned in those days than at present.
In this year, he made another effort to obtain the means of subsistence

by an offer of his pen to Cave, the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine;
but the immediate result of the application is not known; nor in what
manner he supported himself till July 1736, when he married Elizabeth
Porter, the widow of a mercer at Birmingham, and daughter of William
Jervis, Esq. of Great Peatling, in Leicestershire. This woman, who was
twenty years older than himself, and to whose daughter he had been an
unsuccessful suitor, brought him eight hundred pounds; but, according
to Garrick's report of her, was neither amiable nor handsome, though
that she was both in Johnson's estimation appears from the epithets
"formosae, cultae, ingeniosae," which he inscribed on her tombstone.
Their nuptials were celebrated at Derby, and to that town they went
together on horseback from Birmingham; but the bride assuming some
airs of caprice on the road, like another Petruchio he gave her such
effectual proofs of resolution, as reduced her to the abjectness of
shedding tears. His first project after his marriage was to set up a
school; and, with this intention, he hired a very commodious house, at
the distance of about two miles from Lichfield, called Edial Hall, which
has lately been taken down, and of which a representation is to be seen