r, I
should have done nothing." Indeed, upon all occasions, he expressed his
approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod. "The rod,"
said he, "produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is
afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't;
whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay
the foundation of lasting mischief."

From his earliest years Johnson's superiority was perceived and
acknowledged. He was from the beginning a king of men. His schoolfellow,
Mr. Hector, has assured me that he never knew him corrected at school
but for talking and diverting other boys from their business. He seemed
to learn by intuition; for though indolence and procrastination were
inherent in his constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more
than anyone else. He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so
tenacious that he never forgot anything that he either heard or read.
Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, after
a little pause, he repeated _verbatim_.

He never joined with the other boys in their ordinary diversions, for
his defective sight prevented him from enjoying them; and he once
pleasantly remarked to me "how wonderfully well he had contrived to be
idle without them." Of this inertness of disposition Johnson had all his
life too great a share.

After having resided for some time at the house of his uncle, Cornelius
Ford, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to the school of
Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was then master.
At this school he did not receive so much benefit as was expected, and
remaining there little more than a year, returned home, where he may be
said to have loitered for two years. He had no settled plan of life, and
though he read a great deal in a desultory manner, he read only as
chance and inclination directed him. "What I read," he told me, "were
not voyages and travels, but all literature, sir, all ancient writers,
all manly; though but little Greek, only some of Anacreon and Hesiod.
But in this irregular manner I had looked into many books which were not
known at the universities, where they seldom read any books but what are
put into their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr.
Adams, now Master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best qualified
for the university that he had ever known come there."

_II--Marriage and Settlement in Lo