ry, and to others unknown, penance. The first opportunity which
offered, of course, he seized the book with avidity, but on examination,
not finding himself scholar enough to peruse its contents, set his heart
at rest; and, not thinking to inquire whether there were any English
books written on the subject, followed his usual amusements, and
considered his conscience as lightened of a crime. He redoubled his
diligence to learn the language that contained the information he most
wished for, but from the pain which guilt had given him he now began to
deduce the soul's immortality, which was the point that belief first
stopped at; and from that moment, resolving to be a Christian, became one
of the most zealous and pious ones our nation ever produced. When he had
told me this odd anecdote of his childhood, "I cannot imagine," said he,
"what makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really never mentioned
this foolish story to anybody except Dr. Taylor, not even to my _dear_,
_dear_ Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I loved any human
creature; but poor Bathurst is dead!" Here a long pause and a few tears
ensued. "Why, sir," said I, "how like is all this to Jean Jacques
Rousseau--as like, I mean, as the sensations of frost and fire, when my
child complained yesterday that the ice she was eating _burned_ her
mouth." Mr. Johnson laughed at the incongruous ideas, but the first
thing which presented itself to the mind of an ingenious and learned
friend whom I had the pleasure to pass some time with here at Florence
was the same resemblance, though I think the two characters had little in
common, further than an early attention to things beyond the capacity of
other babies, a keen sensibility of right and wrong, and a warmth of
imagination little consistent with sound and perfect health. I have
heard him relate another odd thing of himself too, but it is one which
everybody has heard as well as me: how, when he was about nine years old,
having got the play of Hamlet in his hand, and reading it quietly in his
father's kitchen, he kept on steadily enough till, coming to the Ghost
scene, he suddenly hurried upstairs to the street door that he might see
people about him. Such an incident, as he was not unwilling to relate
it, is probably in 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