Samuel Johnson was a consumate Latinist. He translated poems from Latin into English and composed

original poems in Latin. Johnson had an extenstive knowledge of classical languages and literature: he

even translated ancient Greek epigrams into Latin just to help him cope with the insomnia that plagued

his later years.

Johnson began writing poems in Latin whilst he was attending Lichfield Grammar School. The bulding is

still there on St Jonhs Street. Johnson’s school-boy poems in Latin were so good that they attracted the

attention of the Earl of Berkshire, who rewarded the young scholar with a whole guinea. Johnson

continued to write Latin when he went up to Oxford. As an undergarduate, he composed many poems -

one of which was about the quality of beer at Pembroke College. He wrote many excellent poems

on more serious subjects, including prayers and celebrations and attacks on aquaintances.

If you visit the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, you can see for yourself the tiny kitchen in which the school-boy Sam would sit to do his Latin studies. There he would have declined his Latin nouns and conjugated his Latin verbs; by the light of a candle, he would have read his Latin primer and made his first tentative forays into reading real Latin - the Latin writen by Ovid and Virgil, Cicero and Julius Caesar. You, however, will be conducting your Latin studies in the light and airy room in which Samuel was born, so once again, his family home will resound with the sounds of Latin.