He told Mr. Langton, that
'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of
eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on
been hindered by ill-health (_post_, Feb. 1767).
[168] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 9) says that his father took him home,
probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard
Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. 'It were better
bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you
did one year in our thatched summer-house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 375. It
was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to
Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age
(_post_, November, 1784).
[169] Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus
describes Pope's reading at about the same age. 'During this period of
his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting
health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having
excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he
spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his
mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with
undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager
to be nice.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 239.
[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke
College in 1727.
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