��Essay on
��delight in talking of his relations. ' There is little pleasure,' he said to Mrs. Piozzi, ' in relating the anecdotes of beggary V
Johnson derived from his parents, or from an unwholesome nurse, the distemper called the King's Evil. The Jacobites at that time believed in the efficacy of the royal touch ; and ac cordingly Mrs. Johnson presented her son, when two years old, before Queen Anne, who, for the first time, performed that office, and communicated to her young patient all the healing virtue in her power 2 . He was afterwards cut for that scrophulous humour, and the under part of his face was seamed and disfigured by the operation. It is supposed, that this disease deprived him of the sight of his left eye, and also impaired his hearing. At eight years old, he was placed under Mr. Hawkins, at the Free- school at Lichfield, w r here he was not remarkable for diligence or regular application 3 . Whatever he read, his tenacious memory made his own 4 . In the fields with his school-fellows he talked more to himself than with his companions 5 . In 1725, when he was about sixteen years old, he went on a visit to his cousin Cornelius Ford, who detained him for some months, and in the mean time assisted him in the classics. The general direction for his studies, which he then received, he related to Mrs. Piozzi.
��) p. 148.
2 Ante, pp. 133, 152.
3 Ante, p. 138.
4 In theZz/<? of Johnson published by Kearsley, said to be written by ' Conversation ' Cooke (Nichols's Lit. Hist. vii. 467), it is stated (p. 107) that Hawkesworth read his Ode on Life to Johnson, ' and asked him for his opinion, " Why, Sir, (says John son,) I can't well determine on a first reading, second thoughts are best." Hawkesworth complied, after which Johnson read it himself and returned it. Next morning at break fast Johnson said he had but one objection to make to it, which was that he doubted its originality. Hawkesworth alarmed at this chal
��lenged him to the proof; when the Doctor repeated the whole of the poem with only the omission of a very few lines. " What do you say now, Hawkey?" says the Doctor. " Only this," replied the other, "that I shall never repeat anything I write before you again, for you have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world." The poem contains 68 lines.'
5 ' Mr. Hector relates that " he could not oblige him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in the fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself than to his companion." ' Life, i. 48, and Hawkins's/^^, p. 7.
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