[3] Boswell, vol. i. p. 14.

    [4] Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines excise “a hateful tax,
        levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common
        judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to
        whom excise is paid;” and, in the Idler (No. 65) he
        calls a commissioner of excise “one of the lowest of
        all human beings.”  This violence of language seems so
        little reasonable, that the editor was induced to suspect
        some cause of personal animosity; this mention of the
        trade in parchment (an excisable article) afforded a
        clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. 
        In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the
        following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at
        Lichfield:—­“July 27, 1725—­The commissioners received
        yours of the 22nd instant; and since the justices would
        not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the
        tanner, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against
        him, the board direct that the next time he offends, you
        do not lay an information against him, but send an
        affidavit of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the
        Exchequer.”  It does not appear whether he offended again,
        but here is sufficient cause of his son’s animosity
        against commissioners of excise, and of the allusion in
        the Dictionary to the special jurisdiction under which
        that revenue is administered.  The reluctance of the
        justices to convict will not appear unnatural, when it is
        recollected that Mr. Johnson was, this very year, chief
        magistrate of the city.—­Note to Boswell, by Croker,
        vol. i.

Johnson’s mother was a woman of distinguished understanding and piety; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world afterwards derived so much benefit.  Johnson was the elder of two sons, the younger of whom died in his infancy.

Of Johnson’s childhood at Lichfield it would not be difficult to assemble many interesting particulars:  from his listening to Dr. Sacheverel, when he was but three years old; his being first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow who kept a school for young children in Lichfield, and who gave him a present of gingerbread, and said he was the best scholar she ever had; to his arrival in London with the unfinished tragedy of Irene in his pocket, and the prospect of a slender engagement with Cave of the Gentleman’s Magazine.  One thing is certain, that however unpromising were Johnson’s early days at Lichfield, he ever retained a warm affection for his native city, and which, by a sudden apostrophe, under the word Lich, he introduces with reverence into his immortal work, the ENGLISH DICTIONARY:  Salve magna parens. (Boswell.) His last visit was in his 75th year when he writes to Boswell:—­“I came to Lichfield, and found every body glad enough to see me.”