and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| Vol. 20. No. 572. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1832 | [PRICE 2d. |
BIRTHPLACE OF DR. JOHNSON, AT LICHFIELD.
In the large corner house, on the right of the Engraving, SAMUELJOHNSON was born on the 18th of September, N.S. 1709. We learn fromBoswell, that the house was built by Johnson's father, and that thetwo fronts, towards Market and Broad Market-street stood upon wasteland of the Corporation of Lichfield, under a forty years lease; thisexpired in 1767, when on the 15th of August, "at a common hall of thebailiffs and citizens, it was ordered, (and that without anysolicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson,Doctor of Laws, of the incroachments at his house, for the term ofninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Ofwhich, as town clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure ofinforming him, and that he was desired to accept it, without payingany fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and thedoctor died possessed of this property."1
In the above house, the doctor's father Michael Johnson, a native ofDerbyshire, of obscure extraction, settled as a bookseller andstationer. He was diligent in business, and not only "kept shop" athome, but, on market days, frequented several towns in theneighbourhood,2 some of which were at a considerable distance fromLichfield. "At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns ofEngland were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham,in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. Hewas a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to bemade one of the magistrates of Lichfield; and, being a man of goodsense and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share ofwealth, of which, however, he afterwards lost the greatest part, byengaging unsuccessfully in the manufacture of parchment."3 Thisfailure is attributed to the dishonesty of a servant; but it isobservable in connexion with an incident in Dr. Johnson's literaryhistory, which has not escaped the keen eye of Mr. Croker, theingenious annotator of Boswell's Life of the great lexicographer.4
Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished[pg 258]understanding and piety;and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion uponthe mind of her son, from which the world afterwards derived so muchbenefit. Johnson was the elder of two sons, the younger of whom diedin his infancy.
Of Johnson