��every one's possession now ; he told it as a testimony to the merits of Shakespeare : but one day when my son was going to school, and dear Dr. Johnson followed as far as the garden gate, praying for his salvation x , in a voice which those who listened attentively could hear plain enough, he said to me suddenly, ' Make your boy tell you his dreams : the first corruption that entered into my heart was communicated in a dream.' What was it, Sir? said I. 'Do not ask me/ replied he with much violence, and walked away in apparent agitation. I never durst make any further enquiries. He retained a strong aversion for the memory of Hunter, one of his schoolmasters, who, he said once, was a brutal fellow : so brutal (added he), that no man who had been educated by him ever sent his son to the same school.' I have however heard him acknowledge his scholarship to be very great 2 . His next master he despised, as knowing less than himself, I found ; but the name of that gentleman has slipped my memory 3 . Mr. Johnson was himself exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them 4 : he had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase early impressions either of kindness or resentment, and said, ' he should never have so loved his mother when a man, had she not given him coffee s she could ill afford, to gratify his appetite when a boy.' If you had had children Sir, said I, would you have taught them any thing? 'I hope (replied he), that I should have willingly lived on bread and water to obtain
1 For Johnson's love for the boy, a very able man, but an idle man, who died early, see Life, ii. 468, and and to me very severe. . . . Yet Letters, i. 383. he taught me a great deal.' Life,
2 Johnson said of him : 'Abating i. 50.
his brutality he was a very good 4 Boswell mentions ' Johnson's
master.' Life, ii. 146. See also ib. love of little children, which he dis-
i. 44. covered upon all occasions, calling
3 Wentworth, master of Stour- them "pretty dears" and giving bridge school. According to Haw- them sweetmeats.' Ib. iv. 126. kins (p. 9) his real-name was Wink- 5 In the list of prices given in the worth, 'but affecting to be thought early numbers of the Gentleman's allied to the Strafford family, he Magazine, though six or seven quali- assumed the name of Wentworth.' ties of tea are included, I can find no Johnson told Boswell that ' he was mention of coffee.
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