field, the field of the dead, a
city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna
parens.'_ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the _Dictionary_ he
struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article.
_Salve magna parens_, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil's _Georgics_,
ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:--'I
visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used
to kiss when he came to Lichfield.' _Recreations and Studies of a
Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 227.

[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson,
and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by
the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:--'Mr. Simpson has now before
him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of
Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr.
Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two
fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon
waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was
then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the
bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any
solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor
of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine
years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as
Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him,
and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the
occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died
possessed of this property.' BOSWELL.

[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.

[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson
once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's
_Letters_, i. 335.

[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his
_Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is
clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter,
yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at
Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off
at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he
returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which
had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the