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��this exigence, determined that poverty should neither depress his spirit nor warp his integrity, he became under-master of a Grammar-school at Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. That resource, however, did not last long. Disgusted by the pride of Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of that little seminary, he left the place in discontent, and ever after spoke of it with abhorrence *. In 1733 he went on a visit to Mr. Hector, who had been his school-fellow, and was then a surgeon at Birmingham, lodging at the house of Warren, a bookseller 2 . At that place Johnson
��precor) de paternis bonis sperare licet, viginti scilicet libras, accepi. Usque adeo mihi mea fortuna fin- genda est interea, et ne paupertate vires animi languescant. ne in flagitia egestas adigat, cavendum.' Note by Murphy. Bos well gives the date Julii 15 ; for sperare he has sperari, and he thus gives the last para graph : ' Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea, ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nee in fla gitia egestas abigat, cavendum.' Life, i. 80. Hawkins (p. 21) differs both from Murphy and Boswell.
1 Life, i. 84 ; Letters, i. 2.
Boswell recorded in his note-book at Lichfield in March, 1776 :' After leaving Oxford Mr. Johnson lived at home. Then, as Miss Porter in formed me, he got the school of Bosworth. He was very unhappy there, with Sir Woolston Dixey, an abandoned brutal rascal. Dr. Taylor told me this, and said Dr. Johnson did not like to recollect that diss- agreeable [sic] period of his life, that he said to him that it was uneasy to him to see that side of the town (I suppose of Ashburn) which leads to Bosworth ; that he could not bear the horrid disgust of that state, and threw up the school. He then was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby. His pupil did not live to inherit the estate.' Morrison Autographs, 2nd
��Series, i. 369. In Dixey's house Johnson is said ' to have officiated as a kind of domestick chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table.' Life, i. 84. Addison, in the Guardian, No. 163, gives a letter from a young nobleman's chaplain, who writes : ' I have, with much ado, maintained my post hitherto at the dessert, and every day eat tart in the face of my patron, but how long I shall be in vested with this privilege I do not know. For the servants, who do not see me supported as I was in my old lord's time, begin to brush very familiarly by me, and thrust aside my chair when they set the sweet meats on the table.' South (Sermons, iv. 136) describes how ' some keep chaplains, not out of any concern for religion, but as it is a piece of grandeur something above keeping a coach ; though in such cases he who serves at the altar has gene rally as much contempt and disdain passed upon him as he who serves in the kitchen.'
2 Life, i. 85.
' Miss Porter told me the Birming ham people could not bear Mr. Johnson, and he did not say why. I suppose from envy of his parts, though I do not see how traders could envy such qualities.' Morrison Allographs, 2nd Series, i. 369.
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