Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/181

 Anecdotes.

��time reprimanding the daughter of my housekeeper for havin sat down unpermitted in her mother's presence x. * Why, sKe gets her living, does she not (said he), without her mother's^elp ? Let the wench alone/ continued he. And when we Y,^re again out of the women's sight who were concerned ir* the dispute: ' Poor people's children, dear Lady (saiH L^j, never respect them : I did not respect my own mother, though I loved her : and one day, when in anger she called me a puppy, I asked her if she knew what they called a puppy's mother.' We were talking of a young fellow who used to come often to the house ; he was about fifteen years old, or less, if I remember right, and had a manner at once sullen and sheepish. ' That lad (says Mr. John son) looks like the son of a schoolmaster ; which (added he) is one of the very worst conditions of childhood : such a boy has no father, or worse than none ; he never can reflect on his parent but the reflection brings to his mind some idea of pain inflicted, or of sorrow suffered 2 .'

I. will relate one thing more that Dr. Johnson said about babyhood before I quit the subject ; it was this : ' That little people should be encouraged always to tell whatever they hear particularly striking, to some brother, sister, or servant, im mediately before the impression is erased by the intervention of newer occurrences. He perfectly remembered the first time he ever heard of Heaven and Hell (he said), because when his mother had made out such a description of both places as she

1 The following story is told of the 2 See Life, i. 44, n. 2 ; ii. 144, n. 2,

' proud' Duke of Somerset who died for the brutality of the masters of

in 1748 : ' His two youngest daugh- old. One of the characters in Tom

ters were alternately obliged to stand Jones (bk. xi, ch. 7) represents her

and watch him during his afternoon husband as asking her ' with the

siesta. On one occasion, Lady Char- voice of a schoolmaster, or, what is

lotte, being fatigued, sat down, when often much the same, of a tyrant.'

the Duke awaking unexpectedly ex- A happy change has taken place,

pressed his surprise at her disobe- I, at all events, the son of a school-

dience, and declared he should re- master, can honestly say that the

member her want of decorum in his reflection on my father does not

will. He left this daughter ^20,000 bring to my mind a single idea of

less than the other.' Addison's pain inflicted or of sorrow suffered. Works, v. 340, n. 3.

M 2, thought

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