Johnsonian Gleanings. By Aleyn Lyell Reade. Part III. The Doctor's
Boyhood. (Privately printed for the author, Blundellsands, Liverpool. 21s. net.)—Mr. Reade is a patient and resolute investigator, who has with infinite pains added to our knowledge of Dr. Johnson's ancestry and boyhood. This new volume covers Johnson's early life, from his birth in 1709 up to 1728 when he went to Oxford, helped, it would seem, by a timely legacy from a wealthy cousin of his mother. Michael Johnson, his father, is shown to have been a prominent citizen of Lichfield his mother, Sarah Ford, came of a good yeoman family, of which Mr. Reads gives an elaborate account. There is a chapter on Johnson's schoolfellows at Lichfield Grammar SchooL Mr. Reads has traced a remote family connexion, by marriage, between Dr. Johnson and Lord Chesterfield.
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