not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.’ [Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, ’It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson’s virtues were of a much higher tone than those of the stayed, orderly man, here described.’  BOSWELL.

[1147] ’Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. Salve magna parens.’ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the Dictionary he struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article. Salve magna parens, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil’s Georgics, ii. 173.  The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:—­’I visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used to kiss when he came to Lichfield.’ Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century, p. 227.

[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:—­’Mr. Simpson has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson.  His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years’ lease, which was then expired.  On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings.  Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.’  BOSWELL.

[1149] See vol. i. p. 37.  BOSWELL.

[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White’s cousin, ’Johnson once called him “the rising strength of Lichfield."’ Seward’s Letters, i. 335.

[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his Tour through the Northern Counties, i. 105, a fuller account.  He is clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, yet his story may in the main be true.  He says that Johnson’s friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither they knew not.  Just before supper he returned.  He informed his hostess