[108] _Rambler_, No. 60. BOSWELL.
[109] Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, Book I. BOSWELL.
[110] Johnson's godfather, Dr. Samuel Swinfen, according to the author
of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson_, 1785, p. 10, was
at the time of his birth lodging with Michael Johnson. Johnson had
uncles on the mother's side, named Samuel and Nathanael (see _Notes and
Queries_, 5th S. v. 13), after whom he and his brother may have been
named. It seems more likely that it was his godfather who gave him
his name.
[111] So early as 1709 _The Tatler_ complains of this 'indiscriminate
assumption.' 'I'll undertake that if you read the superscriptions to all
the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to
any but Esquires.... In a word it is now _Populus Armigerorum_, a people
of Esquires, And I don't know but by the late act of naturalisation,
foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of being
Englishmen.' _The Tatler_, No. 19.
[112] 'I can hardly tell who was my grandfather,' said Johnson. See
_post_, May 9, 1773.
[113] Michael Johnson was born in 1656. He must have been engaged in the
book-trade as early as 1681; for in the _Life of Dryden_ his son says,
'The sale of Absalom and Achitophel was so large, that my father, an old
bookseller, told me, he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's
Trial.' Johnson's _Works_, vii.
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