They are unwilling that Milton should be
degraded to a schoolmaster; but, since it cannot be denied that he
taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another that
his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; and
all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act which
no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was
alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by
an honest and useful employment.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 75. In the
_Life of Blackmore_ he says:--'In some part of his life, it is not known
when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, an humiliation with
which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did
not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite
malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been
once a school-master is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of
malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.'
Johnson's _Works_, viii. 36.
[294] In the original _To teach. Seasons, Spring_, l. 1149, Thomson is
speaking, not of masters, but of parents.
[295] In the _Life of Milton_, Johnson records his own experience.
'Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what
slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it
requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish
indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.
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