or the Beauties of the Poets,’ acted at the Haymarket, and printed in 1732 with a frontispiece representing the author in the part of Lord Wildfire, evidently a replica of Lord Flame (Earwaker, ii. 570, note; this piece is not mentioned by Genest). The name of a play by him performed—not to his satisfaction—in April 1735 (Byrom, Remains, i. 442) is unknown. In 1737 was acted his comedy ‘All Alive and Merry,’ not known to exist either in print or in manuscript; according to a report which reached Manchester, Johnson on the first night of this play ‘was for fighting with somebody in the pit;’ it was received with applause on the second night, and ran five or six more (ib. ii. 88; cf. Genest, iii. 511). There are also attributed to him a comic opera, ‘A Fool made Wise,’ and a farce, ‘Sir John Falstaff in Masquerade,’ both acted in 1741 and never printed (Biographia Dramatica), as well as a tragedy, ‘Pompey the Great,’ likewise unprinted (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. i. 338–9). Besides these plays Johnson composed ‘A Vision of Heaven,’ published in 1738, which is introduced by divers ‘essays’ and ‘characters,’ and consists of second-hand rubbish and rodomontade. In the preface the author professes to have ‘acted’ part of what follows before the Duke of Wharton and Bishop Gastrell (of Chester). The subscription list is less ample than that of ‘Hurlothrumbo.’ He is also said to have written ‘Harmony in Uproar,’ and a dialogue (published) entitled ‘Court and Country’ (Earwaker).
For some years after the production of ‘Hurlothrumbo’ Johnson hung more or less about London, apparently in fair circumstances and spirits, though in 1737 Byrom thought he would ruin himself by his plays (Remains, ii. 127). He seems, however, to have carried on his profession as dancing-master at Manchester, where he was said to have vindictively resented a refusal to take lessons from him (ib. pp. 174–5). During the last thirty years of his life, or thereabouts, he lived in retirement at the village of Gawsworth, near Macclesfield, known under the names of Maggoty or Fiddler Johnson, and of Lord Flame, and himself not unconscious of his former distinction (Earwaker, ii. 571). Here he died in 1773 at a house called the New Hall, and was buried by his own desire in a small wood in the neighbourhood (ib.) Over his grave was placed a stone with a florid but harmless inscription (cited ib. and in Notes and Queries, 6th ser. v. 157–8), commemorating him under both his own name and that of Lord Flame. By its side another stone was afterwards erected with an inscription of a reproachfully pious cast (cited by Earwaker and in Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vi. 257). The ghost of the buried man was said to have long haunted the spot (ib. v. 238).
[The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, ed. for Chetham Soc. by Canon Parkinson, 2 vols., 1854–7; J. P. Earwaker's East Cheshire Past and Present, vol. ii. 1880; Biographia Dramatica, edit. 1812, vol. i. pt. ii. and vol. ii.; Notes and Queries.]
JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1709–1784), lexicographer, son of Michael Johnson, bookseller at Lichfield, by his wife Sarah (Ford), was born at Lichfield on 18 Sept. (N.S.) 1709, and was baptised 17 Sept. (i.e. 28 Sept. N.S.), according to the parish register (Gent. Mag. October 1829). The father, born in 1656, remembered the publication of ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ in 1681 (Johnson, Life of Dryden). He transmitted to his son a powerful frame and ‘a vile melancholy.’ Besides keeping his shop (now preserved as a public memorial) at Lichfield he sold books occasionally at Birmingham, at Uttoxeter, and at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 33). He was churchwarden in 1688, sheriff of Lichfield (then a county) in 1709, junior bailiff in 1718, and senior bailiff in 1725. As became a bookseller in a cathedral town, he was a high churchman, and something of a Jacobite. Unbusinesslike habits or a speculation in the ‘manufacture of parchment’ brought him into difficulties. His wife, born in 1669 at King's Norton, Worcestershire, is described as ‘descendant of an ancient race of yeomanry in Warwickshire.’ They married on 9 June 1706 (ib. ii. 384), and had, besides Samuel, a son Nathanael, born in 1712, who died in 1737.
Strange stories were told of Samuel's precocity. It is said that before he was three years old he insisted upon going to church to hear Sacheverell preach (Boswell, Life, by Hill, i. 39). His father was foolishly proud of him, and passed off an epitaph on ‘Good Master Duck,’ really written by himself, as Samuel's composition at the age of three. The child suffered from scrofula, which disfigured his face and injured or destroyed the sight of one eye. He was ‘touched’ by Queen Anne, and he retained a vague recollection of a ‘lady in diamonds and a long black hood’ (Piozzi, Anecdotes, p. 10). He learnt his letters at a dame-school under one Jane Brown, who published a spelling-book, and ‘dedicated it to the Universe,’ which, however, has preserved no copies. He next learnt Latin in Lichfield school. After two years he was under the head-master, Hunter, who was a brutal but efficient teacher. Johnson afterwards valued the birch as a
