melancholy, little short of madness x . His mother was sister to Dr. Ford, a practising physician, and father of Cornelius Ford, generally known by the name of PARSON FORD, the same who is represented near the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Modern Mid night Conversation 2 . In the Life of Fenton, Johnson says, that 'his abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise.' Being chaplain to the Earl of Chesterfield, he wished to attend that nobleman on his embassy to the Hague. Colley Cibber has recorded the anecdote 3 . 'You should go,' said the witty peer, 'if to your many vices you would add one more.' ' Pray, my Lord, what is that ? ' ' Hypocrisy, my dear Doctor/ Johnson had a younger brother named Nathaniel, who died at the age of twenty-seven or twenty- eight 4 . Michael Johnson, the father, was chosen in the year 1718 Under Bailiff of Lichfield, and in the year 1725 he served the office of the Senior Bailiff 5 . He had a brother of the name of Andrew, who, for some years, kept the ring at Smithfield, appropriated to wrestlers and boxers. Our author used to say, that he was never thrown or conquered 6 . Michael, the father, died December 1731, at the age of seventy-six 7 ; his mother at eighty-nine, of a gradual decay, in the year 1759. Of the family nothing more can be related worthy of notice. Johnson did not
��1 Ante, p. 148. reproached for my deficiency that
2 Ante, p. 154. way." "True," replied the earl, "but
3 Murphy probably got this anec- if you had still one more, almost dote from the Monthly Review, 1787, worse than all the rest put together, p. 275, where it is assigned to Colley it would hinder these from giving Cibber. I do not think that it is in scandal." ' Jonathan Richardson's his Apology. Richardsoniana, p. 225.
' When parson Ford, an infamous Chesterfield was minister at the fellow, but of much off-hand and Hague from 172810 1732. His chap- conversation wit, besought Lord lain, Richard Chenevix, was after - Chesterfield to carry him over with wards Bishop of Waterford. Chester- him as his chaplain, when he went field's Misc. Works, i. 91. ambassador to Holland, he said to 4 He was born in 1712, and died him, " I would certainly take you, if in 1737. Life, iv. 393, n. 2. you had one vice more than you 5 Ib. i. 36, n. 4. already have." "My lord," said 6 Ante, p. 149. Fordj " I thought I should never be 7 Seventy-five. Life, iv. 393, n. 2.
delight
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