ner
explains him. That before Samuel Johnson was born, one of his family had
been Lord Mayor of London, another a Sheriff, that they had been
associated in various ways, not only with the city of his birth, but also
with the great city which Johnson came to love so much, is to let in a
flood of fresh light upon our hero. My time does not permit me to do
more than make a passing reference to this book, but I should like to
offer here a word of thanks to its author for his marvellous industry,
and a word of congratulation to him for the extraordinary success that
has accrued to his researches.

I mention Mr. Reade's book because it is full of Lichfield names and
Lichfield associations, and it is with Dr. Johnson's life-long connexion
with Lichfield that all of us are thinking to-night. Now here I may say,
without any danger of being challenged by some visitor who has the
misfortune not to be a citizen of Lichfield--you who are will not wish to
challenge me--that this city has distinguished itself in quite an unique
way. I do not believe that it can be found that any other town or city
of England--I will not say of Scotland or of Ireland--has done honour to
a literary son in the same substantial measure that Lichfield has done
honour to Samuel Johnson. The peculiar glory of the deed is that it was
done to the living Johnson, not coming, as so many honours do, too late
for a man to find pleasure in the recognition. We know that--

Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.

But I doubt whether in the whole history of literature in England it can
be found that any other purely literary man has received in his lifetime
so substantial a mark of esteem from the city which gave him birth, as
Johnson did when your Corporation, in 1767, "at a common-hall of the
bailiffs and citizens, without any solicitation," presented him with the
ninety-nine years' lease of the house in which he was born. Your
citizens not only did that for Johnson, but they gave him other marks of
their esteem. He writes from Lichfield to Sir Joshua Reynolds to express
his pleasure that his portrait has been "much visited and much admired."
"Every man," he adds, "has a lurking desire to appear considerable in his
native place." Then we all remember Boswell's naive confession that his
pleasure at finding his hero so much beloved led him, when the pair
arrived at this very hostelry, to imbibe too