'
1725: AETAT. 16.--After having resided for some time at the house of his
uncle, Cornelius Ford, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to
the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth
was then master. This step was taken by the advice of his cousin, the
Reverend Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were
disgraced by licentiousness, but who was a very able judge of what
was right. At this school he did not receive so much benefit as
was expected. It has been said, that he acted in the capacity of an
assistant to Mr. Wentworth, in teaching the younger boys. 'Mr. Wentworth
(he told me) was a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very
severe; but I cannot blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did
not reverence him; and that he should get no honour by me. I had brought
enough with me, to carry me through; and all I should get at his school
would be ascribed to my own labour, or to my former master. Yet he
taught me a great deal.
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