Editing Samuel Johnson (section)

===Early life and education===
{{Main|Early life of Samuel Johnson}}
[[File:Johnson house Lichfield.jpg|thumb|alt=Large three-storey house on a corner site|[[Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum|Johnson's birthplace]] in Market Square, [[Lichfield]]]]
Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 to Sarah Johnson (née Ford) (1669–1759) and Michael Johnson (1656–1732), a bookseller.<ref name="Bate p. 5">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 5}}</ref> His mother was 40 when she gave birth to Johnson in the [[Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum|family home]] above his father's bookshop in [[Lichfield]], Staffordshire. This was considered an unusually late pregnancy, so precautions were taken, and a man-midwife and surgeon of "great reputation" named George Hector was brought in to assist.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp=15–16}}</ref> The infant Johnson did not cry, and there were concerns for his health. His aunt exclaimed that "she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street".<ref name="Watkins p.25"/> The family feared that Johnson would not survive, and summoned the vicar of [[St Mary's Church, Lichfield|St Mary's]] to perform a baptism.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p= 16}}</ref> Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of [[Pembroke College, Oxford]], and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner and Lichfield town clerk.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 5–6}}</ref>

Johnson's health improved and he was put to [[wet-nurse]] with Joan Marklew. Some time later he contracted [[scrofula]],<ref name="Lane pp. 16-17">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp= 16–17}}</ref> known at the time as the "King's Evil" because it was thought royalty could cure it. [[John Floyer (physician)|Sir John Floyer]], former physician to [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]], recommended that the young Johnson should receive the "[[royal touch]]",<ref name="Lane p. 18">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p= 18}}</ref> and he did so from [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] on 30 March 1712. However, the ritual proved ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body.<ref name="Lane pp. 19-20">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp= 19–20}}</ref> Queen Anne gave Johnson an amulet on a chain he would wear the rest of his life.<ref name="Boswell">{{Citation |last=Boswell |first=James |editor-first1=R.W |editor-last1=Chapman |title=The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. |date=12 June 2008 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/owc/9780199540211.003.0001 |work=Life of Johnson |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/owc/9780199540211.003.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-954021-1 |access-date=9 December 2022}}</ref>

When Johnson was three, his brother Nathaniel was born. In a letter he wrote to his mother, Nathaniel complained that Johnson "would scarcely ever use me with common civility."<ref>{{Citation |last=Rogers |first=Pat |title=Conversation |date=10 November 2011 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139047852.023 |work=Samuel Johnson in Context |pages=151–156 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/cbo9781139047852.023 |isbn=9780521190107 |access-date=9 December 2022}}</ref> With the birth of Johnson's brother their father was unable to pay the debts he had accrued over the years, and the family was no longer able to maintain its standard of living.<ref name="Lane pp. 20-21">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp= 20–21}}</ref>

{{quote box|width=25em|align=left|quote= When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson
one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the [[collect]] for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?' said she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice.<ref>{{Harvnb|Boswell|1986|p= 38}}</ref>
|source=Boswell's ''Life of Johnson''}}
Johnson displayed signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust, would show off his "newly acquired accomplishments".<ref>{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 18–19}}</ref> His education began at the age of three, and was provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]''.<ref name="Bate p. 21">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 21}}</ref> When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, and, at the age of six he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp= 25–26}}</ref> A year later Johnson went to [[Lichfield Grammar School]], where he excelled in Latin.<ref name="Lane p. 26">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p=&nbsp;26}}</ref> For his most personal poems, Johnson used Latin.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Tyers, Thomas |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/931123214 |title=A biographical sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson. By Thomas Tyers, Esq. |date=1785 |publisher=Printed |oclc=931123214}}</ref> During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the [[tic]]s that would influence how people viewed him in his later years, and which formed the basis for a posthumous diagnosis of [[Tourette syndrome]].<ref name="Demaria pp. 5-6">{{Harvnb|DeMaria|1994|pp= 5–6}}</ref> He excelled at his studies and was promoted to the upper school at the age of nine.<ref name="Lane p. 26"/> During this time, he befriended Edmund Hector, nephew of his "man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, with whom he remained in contact for the rest of his life.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 23,&nbsp;31}}</ref>

At the age of 16, Johnson stayed with his cousins, the Fords, at [[Pedmore]], Worcestershire.<ref name="Lane p. 29">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p= 29}}</ref> There he became a close friend of Cornelius Ford, who employed his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending school.<ref name="Wain p. 32">{{Harvnb|Wain|1974|p= 32}}</ref> Ford was a successful, well-connected academic, and notorious alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years later.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p= 30}}</ref> After spending six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but Hunter, the headmaster, "angered by the impertinence of this long absence", refused to allow Johnson to continue at the school.<ref name="Lane p. 33">{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p= 33}}</ref> Unable to return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson enrolled at the [[King Edward VI College, Stourbridge|King Edward VI grammar school]] at [[Stourbridge]].<ref name="Wain p. 32"/> As the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson was able to spend more time with the Fords, and he began to write poems and verse translations.<ref name="Lane p. 33"/> However, he spent only six months at Stourbridge before returning once again to his parents' home in Lichfield.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 61}}</ref>

[[File:Pembroke Lodge.jpg|thumb|Entrance of [[Pembroke College, Oxford]]]]
During this time, Johnson's future remained uncertain because his father was deeply in debt.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p=34}}</ref> To earn money, Johnson began to stitch books for his father, and it is likely that Johnson spent much time in his father's bookshop reading and building his literary knowledge. The family remained in poverty until his mother's cousin Elizabeth Harriotts died in February 1728 and left enough money to send Johnson to university.<ref name="Bate p. 87">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 87}}</ref> On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|p=39}}</ref> The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, and Andrew Corbet, a friend and fellow student at the college, offered to make up the deficit.<ref name="Bate p. 88">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 88}}</ref>

Johnson made friends at Pembroke and read much.{{efn|Bate (1977) comments that Johnson's standard of effort was very high, so high that Johnson said he had never known a man to study hard.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 90–100}}</ref>}} His tutor asked him to produce a Latin translation of [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''Messiah'' as a Christmas exercise.<ref>{{Harvnb|Boswell|1986|pp= 91–92}}</ref> Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the rest the following morning. Although the poem brought him praise, it did not bring the material benefit he had hoped for.<ref name="Bate p. 92">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 92}}</ref> The poem later appeared in ''Miscellany of Poems'' (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and is the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent the rest of his time studying, even during the Christmas holiday. He drafted a "plan of study" called "Adversaria", which he left unfinished, and used his time to learn French while working on his Greek.<ref name="Bate p. 9394">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 93–94}}</ref>

Johnson's tutor, Jorden, left Pembroke some months after Johnson's arrival, and was replaced by [[William Adams (master)|William Adams]]. Johnson enjoyed Adams's tutoring, but by December, was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and was forced to return to Lichfield without a degree, having spent 13 months at Oxford. He left behind many books that he had borrowed from his father because he could not afford to transport them, and also because he hoped to return.<ref name="Bate p. 106107">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|pp= 87, 106–107}}</ref>

He eventually did receive a degree. Just before the publication of his ''Dictionary'' in 1755, the [[University of Oxford]] awarded Johnson the degree of [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|Master of Arts]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lane|1975|pp= 128–129}}</ref> He was awarded an honorary [[Honorary degree|doctorate]] in 1765 by [[Trinity College Dublin]] and in 1775 by the University of Oxford.<ref name="Bate Achievement p. 36">{{Harvnb|Bate|1955|p= 36}}</ref> In 1776 he returned to Pembroke with [[James Boswell|Boswell]] and toured the college with his former tutor Adams, who by then was the Master of the college. During that visit he recalled his time at the college and his early career, and expressed his later fondness for Jorden.<ref name="Bate p. 99">{{Harvnb|Bate|1977|p= 99}}</ref>