Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 13 December 1784) was an English author born in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He was a sickly infant who early on began to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years. From childhood he displayed great intelligence and an eagerness for learning, but his early years were dominated by his family's financial strain and his efforts to establish himself as a school teacher.
After a year spent studying at Pembroke College, Oxford, Johnson was forced to leave by lack of financial support. He tried to find employment as a teacher, but was unable to secure a long-term position. In 1735 he married Elizabeth "Tetty" Porter, a widow 20 years older than himself, and the responsibilities of this marriage made him determined to succeed as an educator. He established his own school, but the venture was unsuccessful. Thereafter, leaving his wife behind in Lichfield, he moved to London, where he spent the rest of his life. In London he began writing essays for The Gentleman's Magazine, and also befriended Richard Savage, a notorious rake and aspiring poet who claimed to be the disavowed son of a nobleman. Eventually he wrote the Life of Mr Richard Savage, his first successful literary biography. He also wrote the powerful poem London, an 18th-century version of Juvenal's Third Satire, as well as the tragic drama Irene, which was not produced until 1749, and even then was not successful.
Johnson began his literary career as a minor Grub Street hack writer, but he went on to make lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. His early works, especially London and Life of Mr Richard Savage, contain Johnson's emerging views on biography, morality, and literature in general.
Parents
Johnson's parents were Michael Johnson, a bookseller, and his wife, Sarah Ford. Michael was the first bookseller of reputation in the Staffordshire community of Lichfield. He also owned a parchment factory, which allowed him to produce his own books. Little is known of his background, except that he and his brothers were apprenticed as booksellers. Michael's father, William Johnson, was described as a "yeoman" and a "gentleman" in the Stationers' Company records, but there is little evidence to suggest that he was from a noble family. William was the first Johnson to move to Lichfield and died shortly thereafter. Michael Johnson, after leaving his apprenticeship at 24, followed in his father's footsteps and took up a job selling books on Sadler Street, Lichfield. Three years later Michael Johnson became warden of a charity known as the Conduit Lands Trust, and shortly afterwards was made churchwarden of St Mary's church.
At the age of 29, Michael Johnson was engaged to be married to a local woman, Mary Neild, but she cancelled the engagement. Twenty years later, in 1706, he married Sarah Ford. She came from a middle-class milling and farming family and was twelve years his junior, daughter of Cornelius Ford. Although both families had money, Samuel Johnson often claimed that he grew up in poverty. It is uncertain what happened between the marriage of his parents and Samuel's birth three years later to provoke a decline in the family's fortunes, but Michael Johnson quickly became overwhelmed with debt from which he was never able to recover.
Childhood
Johnson was born in Lichfield at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, 18 September 1709 at the family home above his father's bookshop, near Market Square, across from St Mary's Church. His mother was 40 when she gave birth, a matter for sufficient concern that George Hector, a "man-midwife" and a surgeon of "great reputation", was brought in to assist during the birth. The baby was named Samuel, after Sarah's brother Samuel Ford. He did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborn's health, his aunt claimed "that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street". As it was feared the baby might die, the vicar of St Mary's was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen: Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, and Lichfield town clerk.
Johnson's health improved and he was placed in the nursing care of Joan Marklew. During this period he contracted what is believed to have been scrofula. Upon the recommendation of Sir John Floyer, a former physician to King Charles II, the young Johnson received the "royal touch" from Queen Anne on 30 March 1712 at St James's Palace. Johnson was given a ribbon in memory of the event, which he claimed to have worn for the rest of his life. However, the ritual was ineffective and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scarring across his face and body. Sarah later gave birth to a second boy, Nathaniel. Having two children put financial strain on the family; Michael was unable to keep on top of the debts he had accumulated over the years, and his family was no longer able to maintain the lifestyle it had previously enjoyed.
Johnson demonstrated signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust, took pleasure in showing off his "newly acquired accomplishments". His education began at the age of three, when his mother had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Johnson turned four, he was sent to a nearby "school" on Dam Street, where "Dame" Anne Oliver, the proprietor, gave lessons to young children in the living-room of a cottage. Johnson especially enjoyed his time with Dame Oliver, later remembering her fondly. At the age of six he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education, and a year later was enrolled at Lichfield Grammar School; he excelled in Latin under Humphrey Hawkins, his teacher in the lower school.
During this time Johnson began exhibiting the tics that would influence how others viewed him in his later years, and which formed the basis for his posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS). TS develops in childhood; it follows a fairly reliable course in terms of the age of onset and the history of the severity of symptoms. Tics may appear up to the age of eighteen, but the most typical age of onset is from five to seven. Johnson's tics and gesticulations manifested after his childhood scrofula; studies suggest that environmental and infectious factors—while not causing Tourette's—can affect the severity of the disorder. Pearce describes Johnson's birth as a "very difficult and dangerous labour", and adds that Johnson had many illnesses throughout his life: he "suffered from bouts of melancholy, crushing guilt, habitual insomnia, and he endured a morbid fear of loneliness and of dying." He also was "disturbed by scruples of infidelity" from the age of 10.
Although TS caused problems in his private and public life, it lent Johnson "great verbal and vocal energy". He excelled in his education and was promoted to the upper school at the age of nine, to be tutored by Edward Holbrooke. The school was directed by the Reverend John Hunter, a man known for his scholarship and, like Holbrooke, his brutality, which caused Johnson to become dissatisfied with his education.; However, during this time he did befriend Edmund Hector, nephew of his "man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, both of whom he remained in contact with throughout his life.
Cornelius Ford At the age of 16, Johnson was given the opportunity to stay with his cousins, the Fords, at Pedmore, Worcestershire. There he bonded with Cornelius Ford, the son of his mother's brother, and Ford employed his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending school. Johnson enjoyed his time with Ford, who encouraged Johnson to pursue his studies and to become a man of letters. Johnson remembered one moment of Ford's teachings: Ford told him to "grasp the leading praecognita of all things... grasps the trunk hard only, and you will shake all the branches". Ford was a successful, well-connected academic, familiar with many society figures such as Alexander Pope.
Ford was also a notorious alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years after Johnson's visit. This event deeply affected Johnson, and he remembered Ford in his Life of Fenton, saying that Ford's abilities, "instead of furnishing convivial merriments to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise". Having spent six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but Hunter, "angered by the impertinence of this long absence", refused to allow him to continue at the grammar school.
Unable to return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson was enrolled, with the help of Ford and his half-brother Gregory Hickman, into the King Edward VI Grammar School at Stourbridge. The headmaster was John Wentworth, and he took care to work with Johnson on his translation exercises. Because the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson was able to spend more time with the Fords and get to know his other relatives in the area. During this time he began writing poems and produced many verse translations. However, he spent only six months at Stourbridge before returning once again to his parents' home in 1727. When Boswell was writing his Life of Samuel Johnson, he was told by Johnson's school friend Edmund Hector Johnson's leaving the Stourbridge school was due in part to a fight Johnson and Wentworth had over Latin grammar. For companionship, Johnson spent time with Hector and John Taylor, two of his schoolfriends, and he soon fell in love with Hector's younger sister, Ann. This first love was not to last, and Johnson later claimed to Boswell, "She was the first woman with whom I was in love. It dropped out of my head imperceptibly, but she and I shall always have a kindness for each other."
Johnson's future now began to look uncertain, as his father was deeply in debt. To earn money, Johnson stitched books for his father, although poor eyesight—a result of his childhood illness—meant he eschewed the work involved. It is possible that Johnson spent most of his time in his father's bookshop reading various works and building his literary knowledge. During this time, Johnson met Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court and a frequent visitor to the bookshop. Walmesley took a liking to Johnson, and the two discussed various intellectual topics during the two years Johnson spent working in the shop. Their relationship was soon put on hold; Sarah Johnson's cousin, Elizabeth Harriotts, died in February 1728 and left her £40 (about £ as of ), which was used to send Johnson back to school.
College On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford as a fellow-commoner. The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, but Andrew Corbet, a friend and student at Pembroke, offered to make up the deficit. Corbet left Pembroke soon after Johnson arrived, so this source of aid disappeared. To meet the expenses, Michael Johnson allowed his son to borrow a hundred books from his bookshop, at a great cost to himself, and these books were not fully returned to Michael until many years later.