Schooldays

Abstract

Johnson and I were, early in life, schoolfellows at Lichfield, and for many years in the same class. As his uncommon abilities for learning far exceeded us, we endeavoured by every boyish piece of flattery to gain his assistance, and three of us, by turns, used to call on him in a morning, on one of whose backs, supported by the other two, he rode triumphantly to school. He never associated with us in any of our diversions, except in the winter when the ice was firm, to be drawn along by a boy barefooted. His ambition to excel was great, though his application to books, as far as it appeared, was very trifling. I could not oblige him more than by sauntering away every vacation that occurred, in the fields, during which time he was more engaged in talking to himself than to his companion. Verses or themes he would dictate to his favourites, but he would never be at the trouble of writing them. His dislike to business was so great, that he would procrastinate his exercises to the last hour. I have known him after a long vacation, in which we were rather severely tasked, return to school an hour earlier in the morning, and begin one of his exercises, in which he purposely left some faults, in order to gain time to finish the rest.

Sir John Hawkins, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (2nd edn, 1787) pp. 7–8.