remacy; but, at any rate, Johnson loved her devotedly
during life, and clung to her memory during a widowhood of more than
thirty years, as fondly as if they had been the most pattern hero and
heroine of romantic fiction.

Whatever Mrs. Johnson's charms, she seems to have been a woman of good
sense and some literary judgment. Johnson's grotesque appearance did not
prevent her from saying to her daughter on their first introduction,
"This is the most sensible man I ever met." Her praises were, we may
believe, sweeter to him than those of the severest critics, or the most
fervent of personal flatterers. Like all good men, Johnson loved good
women, and liked to have on hand a flirtation or two, as warm as might
be within the bounds of due decorum. But nothing affected his fidelity
to his Letty or displaced her image in his mind. He remembered her in
many solemn prayers, and such words as "this was dear Letty's book:" or,
"this was a prayer which dear Letty was accustomed to say," were found
written by him in many of her books of devotion.

Mrs. Johnson had one other recommendation--a fortune, namely, of
L800--little enough, even then, as a provision for the support of the
married pair, but enough to help Johnson to make a fresh start. In 1736,
there appeared an advertisement in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. "At
Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and
taught the Latin and Greek languages by Samuel Johnson." If, as seems
probable, Mrs. Johnson's money supplied the funds for this venture, it
was an unlucky speculation.

Johnson was not fitted to be a pedagogue. Success in that profession
implies skill in the management of pupils, but perhaps still more
decidedly in the management of parents. Johnson had little
qualifications in either way. As a teacher he would probably have been
alternately despotic and over-indulgent; and, on the other hand, at a
single glance the rough Dominie Sampson would be enough to frighten the
ordinary parent off his premises. Very few pupils came, and they seem to
have profited little, if a story as told of two of his pupils refers to
this time. After some months of instruction in English history, he asked
them who had destroyed the monasteries? One of them gave no answer; the
other replied "Jesus Christ." Johnson, however, could boast of one
eminent pupil in David Garrick, though, by Garrick's account, his master
was of little service except as affording an excellen