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PREFACE.

WORK better calculated to lead the young mind to an acquaintance with English Literature, than Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, is, perhaps, not in exiftence. It has been univerfally read and admired, for ftrength and dignity of style, originality of fentiment, and perfpicuity of remark. It is not easy, indeed, to fay, whether we more admire the author for the entertainment and inftruction he affords us, or revere him for his invariable attachment to the cause of religion and virtue. That this great man did not in any instance write under the influence of partiality or prejudice, is not meant to be afferted, because it is not to be believed. Yet, notwithstanding fome defects of this kind, his work is a masterpiece of criticism and biography.

That young perfons, or others, to whom the price of the original work may be an inconvenience, may yet have access to the information

it contains, the prefent abridgement has been made. On examination, we truft it will be found to comprize, in a condensed form, all that is moft worthy of attention: the parts neceffarily omitted are those which it was thought could best be spared, and would be least regretted.

Every Poet recorded by Dr. Johnson is here included: and of the Editor's Annotations, fome are calculated to confirm conjectures or elucidate facts, and others to introduce anecdotes unnoticed by the Doctor, and with which, probably, he was not acquainted.

In fine, the volume now offered to the Public will be found at leaft a faithful abstract of its great original; the information, it communicates, though compendious, is yet fatisfactory; and in it have been blended, with attentive care, the agreeable and the ufeful.

SOME

SOME ACCOUNT

OF THE

LIFE

DR

OF

DR. JOHNSON.

R. SAMUEL JOHNSON, who has been styled the brightest ornament of the 18th century, was born in the city of Litchfield in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September N. S. 1709. His father Michael was a bookfeller, and must have had some reputation in the city, as he more than once bore the office of chief magiftrate,

When arrived at a proper age for grammatical inftruction, he was placed in the free fchool of Litchfield, of which one Mr. Hunter was then mafter; a man whom his illuftrious pupil thought "very fevere, and wrong-headedly fevere," because he would beat a boy for not anfwering queftions which he could not expect to be afked. He was, however, a fkilful teacher; and Johnson, when he ftood in the very front of learning, was fenfible how much he owed to him; for upon being afked how he had acquired fo accurate a knowledge of the Latin tongue, he replied, My mafter beat me very welk; without that, Sir, I fhould have done nothing."

At the age of 15 Johnfon was removed from Litchfield to the fchool of Stourbridge in Worcestershire, at which he remained little more than a year, and then returned home, where he ftaid two years without any fettled plan of life or any regular course of study. He read, however, a great deal in a defultory manner, as chance threw books in his way, and as inclination directed him through them; fo that when in his 19th year he was entered a commoner of Pembroke college, Oxford, his mind was ftored with a variety of fuch knowledge as is not often acquired in univerfities, where boys feldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors. He had given very early proofs of his poetical genius both in his school exercifes and in other occafional compofitions: but what is perhaps more remarkable, as it fhows that he muft have thought much on a fubject on which other boys of that age feldom think at all, he had before he

was 14 entertained doubts of the truth of revelation. From the melancholy caft of his temper thefe would naturally prey upon his fpirits, and give him great uneasinefs: but they were happily removed by a proper courfe of reading: for "his ftudies, being honeft, ended in conviction. He found that religion is true; and what he had learned, he ever afterward endeavoured to teach."

For fome tranfgreffion or abfence his tutor had impofed upon him as a Chriftmas exercise the task of tranflating into Latin verfe Pope's Meffiah; which being fhown to the author of the original, was read and returned with this encomium, "The writer of this poem will leave it a queftion for pofterity, whether his or mine be the original." The particular courfe of his reading while in college, and during the vacation which he paffed at home, cannot be traced. That at this period he read much, we have his own evidence in what he afterwards told the king; but his mode of

ftudy