Budworth, then head master of the
Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, "an excellent person, who
possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree
which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of
literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely
found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr.
Budworth, "who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure
situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most
accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred
under Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was
some time an usher [_ante_, i. 84]; which might naturally lead to the
application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or
abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been
under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension
that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist
laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of
ridicule, among his pupils.
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