Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/168

 Anecdotes.

��leap over a cabriolet stool r, to shew that he was not tired after a chace of fifty miles or more, he suddenly jumped over it too ; but in a way so strange and so unwieldy, that our terror lest he should break his bones, took from us even the power of laughing.

Michael Johnson was past fifty years old when he married his wife, who was upwards of forty ; yet I think her son told me she remained three years childless before he was born into the world, who so greatly contributed to improve it. In three years more she brought another son, Nathaniel, who lived to be twenty- seven or twenty-eight years old 2, and of whose manly spirit I have heard his brother speak with pride and pleasure, mention ing one circumstance, particular enough, that when the company were one day lamenting the badness of the roads, he enquired where they could be, as he travelled the country more than most people, and had never seen a bad road in his life 3. The two brothers did not, however, much delight in each other's com pany 4, being always rivals for the mother's fondness ; and many

��culean strength, or presence of mind.' Ib. v. 329. Mrs. Piozzi says (post, p. 224) : ( He had possessed an athletic constitution.' Perhaps she is now speaking of his state near the end of his life.

1 A cabriolet (cut down into cab) was a late invention; the first instance of its use in the New Eng. Diet, being three years later than the publication of these Anecdotes. The stool, I con jecture, was used in getting into it.

2 Michael Johnson was born in 1656, his wife in 1669 ; they were married in 1706. Samuel was born in 1709, and Nathanael in 1712. Nathanael died in 1737. Life, i. 35, n. I ; iv. 393, n. 2. The father was born under the Commonwealth, the son lived to be kept waiting for his dinner by the Prince of Wales who was afterwards George IV. Ib. iv. 270, n. 2. Michael was eighteen years old when Milton died ; when

��Samuel died Wordsworth was four teen.

3 Cave, the proprietor of the Gentle- marts Magazine, in the latter part of his life travelled a great deal on business. ' Time being more an ob ject to him than expense, and the luxury of turnpike roads being then but little known, [he died in 1754] he generally used four horses.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. v. 43.

For Arthur Young's account in 1768 of the 'detestable' and 'in fernal' roads see Life, iii. 135, n. I. Of the bye-roads in Ireland he writes in 1780 : ' They are the finest in the world.' Tour in Ireland, ed. 1892, i. 116. In 1787 he writes : ' If the French have not husbandry to shew us, they have roads.' Travels in France, ed. 1890, p. 7.

4 Nathanael complained that his brother * scarcely used him with com mon civility. 3 Life, i. 90, n. 3.

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