Garrick, who had known her, said that she was very fat, with cheeks coloured both by paint and cordials, flimsy and fantastic in dress and affected in her manners. She is said to have treated her husband with some contempt, adopting the airs of an anti- 5 quated beauty, which he returned by elaborate deference. Garrick used his wonderful powers of mimicry to make fun of the uncouth caresses of the husband, and the courtly Beauclerc used to provoke the smiles of his audience by repeating Johnson's assertion that 10 "it was a love-match on both sides." One incident of the wedding-day was ominous. As the newlymarried couple rode back from church, Mrs. Johnson showed her spirit by reproaching her husband for riding too fast, and then for lagging behind. Resolved 15 "not to be made the slave of caprice," he pushed on briskly till he was fairly out of sight. When she rejoined him, as he, of course, took care that she would soon do, she was in tears. Mrs. Johnson apparently knew how to regain supremacy; but, at any rate, John- 20 son 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 25 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 30 him than those of the severest critics, or the most fervent of personal flatteries. 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 5 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.

ΙΟ Mrs. Johnson had one other recommendation-a fortune, namely, of £800-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 15 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.

20

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 25 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 30 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 excellent mark for his early powers of 5 ridicule. The school, or "academy," failed after a year and a half; and Johnson, once more at a loss for employment, resolved to try the great experiment, made so often and so often unsuccessfully. He left Lichfield to seek his fortune in London. Garrick 10 accompanied him, and the two brought a common letter of introduction to the master of an academy from Gilbert Wamsley, registrar of the Prerogative Court in Lichfield. Long afterward Johnson took an opportunity in the Lives of the Poets, of expressing his 15 warm regard for the memory of his early friend, to whom he had been recommended by a community of literary taste, in spite of party differences and great inequality of age. Wamsley says in his letter, that

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one Johnson" is about to accompany Garrick to 20 London, in order to try his fate with a tragedy and get himself employed in translation. Johnson, he adds, "is a very good scholar and poet, and I have great hopes will turn out a fine tragedy writer."

The letter is dated March 2nd, 1737. Before 25 recording what is known of his early career thus started, it will be well to take a glance at the general condition of the profession of Literature in England at this period.❜

2 The limits of the passage are well emphasized the six years between 1731 and 1737 were the period of Johnson's struggle and experiment before entering definitely into literature.

3. John Richard Green.

Born 1837. Died 1883.

The Norman Conquest.1

[The selection is introduced to represent the narrative treatment of history, in contrast to the expository treatment, as in Mr. Lecky's History of European Morals, and the more pictorial methods of treatment, such as are illustrated in Carlyle's French Revolution. The passage should be compared with the more detailed, and often prolix, account of the battle in the third volume of Mr. Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest. Other well-known examples of excellent narrative style occur in the works of Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude, and Parkman.

From the large amount of material and various sources at his disposal, Green has selected his facts so as to form a coherent and glowing tale. The principle of structure seems to be a balance between the English and the Norman affairs, a principle which is carried out in each paragraph to the end of the selection. Altogether, the period, as is stated in the opening sentence, covers about fifty years, but the events of 1066 constitute the greater part of the selection, and the others serve chiefly to introduce these.]

FOR half a century the two countries [England and Normandy] had been drawing nearer together. At the close of the reign of Richard the Fearless the Danish descents upon the English coast had found

1 From A Short History of the English People (1874), Chapter II., Section 4, from the edition of 1888 of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.

support in Normandy, and their fleet had wintered in her ports. It was to avenge these attacks that Æthelred had dispatched a fleet across the Channel to ravage the Cotentin, but the fleet was repulsed, and the strife appeased by Æthelred's marriage with Emma, a sister 5 of Richard the Good. Ethelred with his children found shelter in Normandy from the Danish kings, and, if Norman accounts are to be trusted, contrary winds alone prevented a Norman fleet from undertaking their restoration. The peaceful recall of Edward 10 to the throne seemed to open England to Norman. ambition, and Godwine was no sooner banished than Duke William appeared at the English court, and received, as he afterward asserted, a promise of succession to its throne from the king. Such a promise, un- 15 confirmed by the national assembly of the Wise Men, was utterly valueless, and for the moment Godwine's recall put an end to William's hopes. They are said to have been revived by a storm which threw Harold, while cruising in the Channel, on the French coast, 20 and William forced him to swear on the relics of the saints to support the Duke's claim as a price of his own return to England; but the news of the King's death was at once followed by that of Harold's accession, and after a burst of furious passion the Duke pre- 25 pared to enforce his claim by arms. William did not claim the Crown. He claimed simply the right which he afterward used when his sword had won it, of presenting himself for election by the nation, and he believed himself entitled so to present himself by the 30 direct commendation of the Confessor. The actual election of Harold which stood in his way, hurried as