ields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself than to
his companion.'

Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who was long intimately acquainted
with him, and has preserved a few anecdotes concerning him, regretting
that he was not a more diligent collector, informs me, that 'when a
boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he
retained his fondness for them through life; so that (adds his Lordship)
spending part of a summer at my parsonage house in the country, he
chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of
Hircania, in folio, which he read quite through. Yet I have heard him
attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind
which prevented his ever fixing in any profession.'

1725: AETAT. 16.--After having resided for some time at the house of his
uncle, Cornelius Ford, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to
the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth
was then master. This step was taken by the advice of his cousin, the
Reverend Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were
disgraced by licentiousness, but who was a very able judge of what
was right. At this school he did not receive so much benefit as
was expected. It has been said, that he acted in the capacity of an
assistant to Mr. Wentworth, in teaching the younger boys. 'Mr. Wentworth
(he told me) was a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very
severe; but I cannot blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did
not reverence him; and that he should get no honour by me. I had brought
enough with me, to carry me through; and all I should get at his school
would be ascribed to my own labour, or to my former master. Yet he
taught me a great deal.'

He thus discriminated, to Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, his progress
at his two grammar-schools. 'At one, I learnt much in the school, but
little from the master; in the other, I learnt much from the master, but
little in the school.'

He remained at Stourbridge little more than a year, and then returned
home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state
very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several
proofs of his poetical genius, both in his school-exercises and in other
occasional compositions.

He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely
lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner,
wi