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BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES

OF

Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON,

EXTRACTED FROM.

The Productions of Mrs. Piozzi (late Mrs. THRALEJ Mr. BoswELL, and other authentic Papers.

WITH

His WILL, and a Fac-simile of his HAND-WRITING. Also, a SERMON written for Dr. DODD.

EXTRACTS from Mrs. Prozzi.

AMUEL JOHNSON was the son of Michael John

SAM

son, a bookseller, at Litchfield, in Staffordshire; a very pious and worthy man, but wrongheaded, positive, and afflicted with melancholy, as his son, from whom alone I had the information, once told me: his business, however, leading him to be much on horseback, contributed to the preservation of his bodily health, and mental sanity; which, when he staid long at home, would sometimes be about to give way; and Mr. Johnson said, that when his work-shop, a detached building, had fallen half down for want of money to repair it, his father was not less diligent to lock the door every night, though he saw that any body might walk in at the back part, and knew that there was no security obtained by barring the front door. "This (says his son) was madness, you may see, and would have been discoverable in other instances of the prevalence of imagination, but that poverty prevented it from playing such tricks as riches and leisure encourage."

He had an uncle (Andrew) who kept the ring in Smithfield (where they wrestled and boxed) for a whole B

year

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