101-) English Literature
Samuel Johnson
Samuel
Johnson (born September 18 , 1709, Lichfield, Staffordshire, England—died
December 13, 1784, London), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who
made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary
critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer, regarded as one of
the greatest figures of 18th-century life and letters. The Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of
letters in English history".
Johnson
once characterized literary biographies as “mournful narratives,” and he
believed that he lived “a life radically wretched.” Yet his career can be seen
as a literary success story of the sickly boy from the Midlands who by talent,
tenacity, and intelligence became the foremost literary figure and the most
formidable conversationalist of his time. For future generations, Johnson was
synonymous with the later 18th century in England. The disparity between his
circumstances and achievement gives his life its especial interest.
Born
in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack
of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London
and began writing for The Gentleman's Magazine. Early works include Life of Mr
Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes and the play
Irene. After nine years' effort, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language
appeared in 1755 , and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements
of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated The Plays of
William Shakespeare, and the apologue The History of Rasselas, Prince of
Abissinia. In 1763 he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to
Scotland, as Johnson described in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
Near the end of his life came a massive, influential Lives of the Most Eminent
English Poets of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Dr
Johnson was a devout Anglican, and a committed Tory. Tall and robust, he displayed
gestures and tics that disconcerted some on meeting him. Boswell's Life of
Samuel Johnson, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour
and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis
of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century.
After several illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784 and was
buried in Westminster Abbey.
In
his later life Johnson became a celebrity, and following his death he was
increasingly seen to have had a lasting effect on literary criticism, even
being claimed to be the one truly great critic of English literature. A
prevailing mode of literary theory in the 20th century drew from his views, and
he had a lasting impact on biography. Johnson's Dictionary had far-reaching
effects on Modern English, and was pre-eminent until the arrival of the Oxford
English Dictionary 150 years later. Boswell's Life was selected by Johnson
biographer Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical
art in the whole of literature".
Life
and career
Early
life
Samuel
Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 to Sarah (née Ford) and Michael Johnson,
a bookseller. His mother was 40 when she gave birth to Johnson in the family
home above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire. This was
considered an unusually late pregnancy, so precautions were taken, and a
man-midwife and surgeon of "great reputation" named George Hector was
brought in to assist. The infant Johnson did not cry, and there were concerns
for his health. His aunt exclaimed that "she would not have picked such a
poor creature up in the street". The family feared that Johnson would not
survive, and summoned the vicar of St Mary's to perform a baptism. Two godfathers
were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College,
Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner and Lichfield town clerk.
Johnson's
health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. Some time later
he contracted scrofula, known at the time as the "King's Evil"
because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former physician
to King Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the
"royal touch", and he did so from Queen Anne on 30 March 1712.
However, the ritual proved ineffective, and an operation was performed that
left him with permanent scars across his face and body. Queen Anne gave Johnson
an amulet on a chain he would wear the rest of his life.
When
Johnson was three, Nathaniel was born. In a letter he wrote to his mother,
Nathaniel complained that Johnson "would scarcely ever use me with common
civility." With the birth of Johnson's brother their father was unable to
pay the debts he had accrued over the years, and the family was no longer able
to maintain its standard of living.
Samuel
Johnson was the son of Michael Johnson, a bookseller, and his wife, Sarah. From
childhood he suffered from a number of physical afflictions. By his own
account, he was born “almost dead,” and he early contracted scrofula
(tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands). Because of a popular belief that the
sovereign’s touch was able to cure scrofula (which, for that reason, was also
called the king’s evil), he was taken to London at the age of 30 months and
touched by the queen, whose gold “touch piece” he kept about him for the rest
of his life. This was succeeded by various medical treatments that left him
with disfiguring scars on his face and neck. He was nearly blind in his left
eye and suffered from highly noticeable tics that may have been indications of
Tourette syndrome. Johnson was also strong, vigorous, and, after a fashion,
athletic. He liked to ride, walk, and swim, even in later life. He was tall and
became huge. A few accounts bear witness to his physical strength—as well as
his character—such as his hurling an insolent theatregoer together with his
seat from the stage into the pit or his holding off would-be robbers until the
arrival of the watch. Johnson displayed signs of great intelligence as a child,
and his parents, to his later disgust, would show off his "newly acquired
accomplishments". His education began at the age of three, and was
provided by his mother, who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book
of Common Prayer. When Samuel turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, and,
at the age of six he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education.
A year later Johnson went to Lichfield Grammar School , where he excelled in Latin. For his most
personal poems, Johnson used Latin.] During this time, Johnson started to
exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years,
and which formed the basis for a posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. He
excelled at his studies and was promoted to the upper school at the age of
nine. During this time, he befriended Edmund Hector, nephew of his
"man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, with whom he remained
in contact for the rest of his life.
From
his earliest years Johnson was recognized not only for his remarkable
intelligence but also for his pride and indolence. In 1717 he entered grammar
school in Lichfield. The master of the school, John Hunter, was a learned
though brutal man who “never taught a boy in his life—he whipped and they
learned.” This regime instilled such terror in the young boy that even years
later the resemblance of the poet Anna Seward to her grandfather Hunter caused
him to tremble. At school he made two lifelong friends: Edmund Hector, later a
surgeon, and John Taylor, future prebendary of Westminster and justice of the
peace for Ashbourne. In 1726 Johnson visited his cousin, the urbane Reverend
Cornelius Ford in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, who may have provided a model
for him, though it was Ford’s conviviality and scholarship rather than his
dissipation (he is thought to be one of those depicted carousing in William
Hogarth’s A Midnight Modern Conversation [1733]) that attracted Johnson. At the
age of 16, Johnson stayed with his cousins, the Fords, at Pedmore,
Worcestershire. There he became a close friend of Cornelius Ford, who employed
his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending
school. Ford was a successful, well-connected academic , and notorious
alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years later. After
spending six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but
Hunter, the headmaster, "angered by the impertinence of this long
absence", refused to allow Johnson to continue at the school. Unable to
return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson enrolled at the King Edward VI
grammar school at Stourbridge. As the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson
was able to spend more time with the Fords, and he began to write poems and
verse translations. However, he spent only six months at Stourbridge before
returning once again to his parents' home in Lichfield.
During
this time, Johnson's future remained uncertain because his father was deeply in
debt. To earn money, Johnson began to stitch books for his father, and it is
likely that Johnson spent much time in his father's bookshop reading and
building his literary knowledge. The family remained in poverty until his
mother's cousin Elizabeth Harriotts died in February 1728 and left enough money
to send Johnson to university. On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned
19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford. The inheritance did not cover all
of his expenses at Pembroke, and Andrew Corbet, a friend and fellow student at
the college, offered to make up the deficit.
In
1728 Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford. He stayed only 13 months, until
December 1729, because he lacked the funds to continue. Yet it proved an
important year. While an undergraduate, Johnson, who claimed to have been
irreligious in adolescence, read a new book, William Law’s A Serious Call to a
Devout and Holy Life, which led him to make concern for his soul the polestar
of his life. Despite the poverty and pride that caused him to leave, he
retained great affection for Oxford. He would later say with reference to the
poets of his college, “We were a nest of singing birds.” In 1731, the year of
his father’s death, his first publication, a translation of Alexander Pope’s
“Messiah” into Latin, appeared in A Miscellany of Poems, along with the poetry
of other Oxford students. Pope was the leading poet of the age, and throughout
most of his lifetime Johnson would comment on Pope’s achievement in various
writings. Johnson made friends at Pembroke and read much.[a] His tutor asked
him to produce a Latin translation of Alexander Pope's Messiah as a Christmas
exercise. Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the
rest the following morning. Although the poem brought him praise, it did not
bring the material benefit he had hoped for. The poem later appeared in
Miscellany of Poems (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and is
the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent
the rest of his time studying, even during the Christmas holiday. He drafted a "plan
of study" called "Adversaria", which he left unfinished, and
used his time to learn French while working on his Greek.
Johnson's
tutor, Jorden, left Pembroke some months after Johnson's arrival, and was
replaced by William Adams. Johnson enjoyed Adams's tutoring, but by December,
was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and was forced to return to
Lichfield without a degree, having spent 13 months at Oxford. He left behind
many books that he had borrowed from his father because he could not afford to
transport them, and also because he hoped to return.
He
eventually did receive a degree. Just before the publication of his Dictionary
in 1755, the University of Oxford awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765 by Trinity College Dublin and in
1775 by the University of Oxford. In 1776 he returned to Pembroke with Boswell
and toured the college with his former tutor Adams, who by then was the Master
of the college. During that visit he recalled his time at the college and his
early career, and expressed his later fondness for Jorden.
In
the following year Johnson became undermaster at Market Bosworth grammar
school, a position made untenable by the overbearing and boorish Sir Wolstan
Dixie, who controlled appointments. With only £20 inheritance from his father,
Johnson left his position with the feeling that he was escaping prison. After
failing in his quest for another teaching position, he joined his friend Hector
in Birmingham. In 1732 or 1733 he published some essays in The Birmingham
Journal, none of which have survived. Dictating to Hector, he translated into
English Joachim Le Grand’s translation of the Portuguese Jesuit Jerome Lobo’s A
Voyage to Abyssinia, an account of a Jesuit missionary expedition. Published in
1735, this work shows signs of the mature Johnson, such as his praise of Lobo,
in the preface, for not attempting to present marvels: “He meets with no
basilisks that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their prey
without tears, and his cataracts fall from the rock without deafening the
neighbouring inhabitants.”
In
1735 Johnson married Elizabeth Porter, a widow 20 years his senior. Convinced
that his parents’ marital unhappiness was caused by his mother’s want of
learning, he would not follow their example, choosing instead a woman whom he
found both attractive and intelligent. His wife’s marriage settlement enabled
him to open a school in Edial, near Lichfield, the following year. One of his
students, David Garrick, would become the greatest English actor of the age and
a lifelong friend, though their friendship was not without its strains. It was
with Garrick that some of the unflattering accounts of Johnson’s wife
originated, and his mimicry of the couple later became a favourite comic
setpiece of his. While at Edial, Johnson began his historical tragedy Irene,
which dramatizes the love of Sultan Mahomet (Mehmed II) for the lovely Irene, a
Christian slave captured in Constantinople. The school soon proved a failure,
and he and Garrick left for London in 1737.
The
Gentleman’s Magazine and early publications of Samuel Johnson
In
1738 Johnson began his long association with The Gentleman’s Magazine, often
considered the first modern magazine. He soon contributed poetry and then
prose, including panegyrics on Edward Cave, the magazine’s proprietor, and
another contributor, the learned Elizabeth Carter. Johnson intended to
translate the Venetian Paolo Sarpi’s The History of the Council of Trent but
was forestalled by the coincidence of another Johnson at work on the same
project. However, his biography of Sarpi, designed as a preface to that work,
appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine, as did a number of his early biographies
of European scholars, physicians, and British admirals.
In
1738 and 1739 he published a series of satiric works that attacked the
government of Sir Robert Walpole and even the Hanoverian monarchy: London (his
first major poem), Marmor Norfolciense, and A Compleat Vindication of the
Licensers of the Stage. London is an “imitation” of the Roman satirist
Juvenal’s third satire. (A loose translation, an imitation applies the manner
and topics of an earlier poet to contemporary conditions.) Thales, the poem’s
main speaker, bears some resemblance to the poet Richard Savage, of whom
Johnson knew and with whom he may have become friendly at this time. Before he
leaves the corrupt metropolis for Wales, Thales rails against the pervasive
deterioration of London (and English) life, evident in such ills as
masquerades, atheism, the excise tax, and the ability of foreign nations to
offend against “English honour” with impunity. The most famous line in the poem
(and the only one in capitals) is: “SLOW RISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESSED,”
which may be taken as Johnson’s motto at this time. When the poem appeared
anonymously in 1738, Pope was led to predict that its author would be “déterré”
(unearthed). Pope undoubtedly approved of Johnson’s politics along with
admiring his poetry and tried unsuccessfully to arrange patronage for him. Marmor
Norfolciense satirizes Walpole and the house of Hanover. A Compleat Vindication
of the Licensers of the Stage is an ironic defense of the government’s Stage
Licensing Act of 1737 requiring the lord chamberlain’s approval of all new
plays, which in 1739 led to the prohibition of Henry Brooke’s play Gustavus
Vasa attacking the English monarch and his prime minister by Swedish analogy.
The latter two works show the literary influence of the Irish writer Jonathan
Swift.
Johnson
at this time clearly supported the governmental opposition, which was composed
of disaffected Whigs, Tories, Jacobites (those who continued their allegiance
to the Stuart line of James II), and Nonjurors (those who refused to take
either the oath of allegiance to the Hanover kings or the oath of abjuration of
James II and the Stuarts). Despite claims to the contrary, Johnson was neither
a Jacobite nor a Nonjuror. His Toryism, which he sometimes expressed for shock
value, was based upon his conviction that the Tories could be counted upon to
support the Church of England as a state institution. When Johnson attacked
Whiggism or defended Toryism (an ideology for him more than a practical
politics, especially since Tories remained a minority throughout most of his
lifetime), he always took an outsider’s position. Later in life he expressed a
high regard for Walpole.
In
1739 Johnson published a translation and annotation of the Swiss philosopher
Jean-Pierre de Crousaz’s Commentary on Pope’s philosophical poem An Essay on
Man. Although he was able to show that many of Crousaz’s critical observations
rested on a faulty French translation, Johnson often agreed with his judgment
that some of Pope’s philosophical and social ideas are marred by complacency.
About this time Johnson tried again to obtain a position as a schoolteacher.
His translations and magazine writings barely supported him; a letter to Cave
is signed “impransus,” signifying that he had gone without dinner. Despite his
claim that “no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” he never made
a hard bargain with a bookseller and often received relatively little payment,
even for large projects. He also contradicted his assertion frequently by
contributing prefaces and dedications to the books of friends without payment.
From
1741 to 1744 Johnson’s most substantial contribution to The Gentleman’s
Magazine was a series of speeches purporting to represent the actual debates in
the House of Commons. This undertaking was not without risk because reporting
the proceedings of Parliament, which had long been prohibited, was actually
punished since the spring of 1738. The series was dubbed “Debates in the Senate
of Magna Lilliputia,” and this Swiftian expedient gives the speeches satiric
overtones. Their status was complicated by the fact that Johnson, who had
visited the House of Commons only once, wrote the debates on the basis of scant
information about the speakers’ positions. Hence they were political fictions,
though paradoxically they appeared to be fact masquerading as fiction. Johnson
later had misgivings about his role in writing speeches that were taken as
authentic and may have stopped writing them for this reason. While Johnson’s
claim that he “took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it” has
become notorious, Johnson’s Walpole defends himself skillfully, and many of the
debates seem evenhanded.
In
the early 1740s Johnson continued his strenuous work for The Gentleman’s
Magazine; collaborated with William Oldys, antiquary and editor, on a catalog
of the great Harleian Library; helped Dr. Robert James, his Lichfield
schoolfellow, with A Medicinal Dictionary; and issued proposals for an edition
of Shakespeare. His Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth
(1745), intended as a preliminary sample of his work, was his first significant
Shakespeare criticism. In 1746 he wrote The Plan of a Dictionary of the English
Language and signed a contract for A Dictionary of the English Language. His
major publication of this period was An Account of the Life of Mr. Richard
Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers (1744). If, as Johnson claimed, the best
biographies were written by those who had eaten and drunk and “lived in social
intercourse” with their subjects, this was the most likely of his many
biographies to succeed. The Life was widely admired by, among others, the
painter Joshua Reynolds, and it was reviewed in translation by the French
philosopher Denis Diderot. Although Johnson had few illusions about his
self-publicizing friend’s conduct and character, he nonetheless became his
defender to a significant extent. Johnson’s title supports Savage’s claim to be
the natural son of a nobleman—a claim of which others have been highly
skeptical—but his biography, in its mixture of pathos and satire, at once
commemorates and criticizes Savage. Johnson thought that Savage’s poverty cost
society a great deal:
On
a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glasshouse among thieves and beggars, was to be
found the author of The Wanderer,…the man whose remarks on life might have
assisted the statesman, whose ideas of virtue might have enlightened the
moralist, whose eloquence might have influenced senates, and whose delicacy
might have polished courts.
Yet
the conclusion leaves no doubt about Johnson’s ultimate judgment: “negligence
and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous,
and genius contemptible.” If Johnson served as defense attorney throughout much
of the biography, no prosecutor could have summed up the case against Savage
more devastatingly.
Friendships and household
In
1763 Johnson met the 22-year-old James Boswell, who would go on to make him the
subject of the best-known and most highly regarded biography in English. The
first meeting with this libertine son of a Scottish laird and judge was not
auspicious, but Johnson quickly came to appreciate the ingratiating and
impulsive young man. Boswell kept detailed journals, published only in the 20th
century, which provided the basis for his biography of Johnson and also form
his own autobiography.
Johnson
participated actively in clubs. In 1764 he and his close friend Sir Joshua
Reynolds founded The Club (later known as The Literary Club), which became
famous for the distinction of its members. The original nine members included
the politician Edmund Burke, the playwright Oliver Goldsmith, and Sir John
Hawkins, the historian of music whom Johnson was to call “unclubable.” Boswell,
whose 1768 account of the Corsican struggle against Genoese rule and its
revolutionary leader, General Pasquale Paoli, earned him a reputation
throughout Europe, was admitted in 1773. Other members elected later included
Garrick, the historian Edward Gibbon, the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
the economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith, and the Orientalist Sir William
Jones. In 1749 Johnson had been one of 10 members of the Ivy Lane Club, and the
year before his death he founded The Essex Head Club. These clubs, at which he
often “talked for victory,” provided the conversation and society he desired
and kept him from the loneliness and insomnia that he faced at home.
This
is not to say that his house was empty after the death of his wife. He had
living with him at various times Anna Williams, a blind poet; Elizabeth
Desmoulins, the daughter of his godfather Dr. Samuel Swynfen, and her daughter;
Poll Carmichael, probably a former prostitute; “Dr.” Robert Levett, a medical
practitioner among the poor; Francis Barber, Johnson’s black servant, whom he
treated in many ways like a son and made his heir; and Barber’s wife Betsy.
They were at once recipients of Johnson’s charity and providers of company, but
the relationship among them was not always amicable. In a letter of 1778
Johnson says, “We have tolerable concord at home, but no love. Williams hates
everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins
hates them both; Poll loves none of them.”
In 1765 Johnson established a friendship that soon enabled him to call another place “home.” Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and member of Parliament for Southwark, and his lively and intelligent wife, Hester, opened their country house at Streatham to him and invited him on trips to Wales and, in 1775, to France, his only tour outside Great Britain. Their friendship and hospitality gave the 56-year-old Johnson a new interest in life. Following her husband’s death in 1781 and her marriage to her children’s music master, Gabriel Piozzi, Hester Thrale’s and Johnson’s close friendship came to an end. His letters to Mrs. Thrale, remarkable for their range and intimacy, helped make him one of the great English letter writers.
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