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 ��every one's possession now ; he told it as a testimony to the merits of Shakespeare : but one day when my son was going to school, and dear Dr. Johnson followed as far as the garden gate, praying for his salvation x, in a voice which those who listened attentively could hear plain enough, he said to me suddenly, ' Make your boy tell you his dreams : the first corruption that entered into my heart was communicated in a dream.' What was it, Sir? said I. 'Do not ask me/ replied he with much violence, and walked away in apparent agitation. I never durst make any further enquiries. He retained a strong aversion for the memory of Hunter, one of his schoolmasters, who, he said once, was a brutal fellow : so brutal (added he), that no man who had been educated by him ever sent his son to the same school.' I have however heard him acknowledge his scholarship to be very great 2. His next master he despised, as knowing less than himself, I found ; but the name of that gentleman has slipped my memory 3. Mr. Johnson was himself exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them 4 : he had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase early impressions either of kindness or resentment, and said, ' he should never have so loved his mother when a man, had she not given him coffee s she could ill afford, to gratify his appetite when a boy.' If you had had children Sir, said I, would you have taught them any thing? 'I hope (replied he), that I should have willingly lived on bread and water to obtain

1 For Johnson's love for the boy, a very able man, but an idle man, who died early, see Life, ii. 468, and and to me very severe. . . . Yet Letters, i. 383. he taught me a great deal.' Life,

2 Johnson said of him : 'Abating i. 50.

his brutality he was a very good 4 Boswell mentions ' Johnson's

master.' Life, ii. 146. See also ib. love of little children, which he dis-

i. 44. covered upon all occasions, calling

3 Wentworth, master of Stour- them "pretty dears" and giving bridge school. According to Haw- them sweetmeats.' Ib. iv. 126. kins (p. 9) his real-name was Wink- 5 In the list of prices given in the worth, 'but affecting to be thought early numbers of the Gentleman's allied to the Strafford family, he Magazine, though six or seven quali- assumed the name of Wentworth.' ties of tea are included, I can find no Johnson told Boswell that ' he was mention of coffee.

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