Samuel Johnson.html



Samuel Johnson LLD MA
Samuel Johnson c. 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Born	18 September 1709 (O.S. 7 September) Lichfield, England
Died	13 December 1784 (age 75) London, England
Occupation	essayist, lexicographer, biographer, poet
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Jervis Porter

Samuel Johnson (often referred to as Dr Johnson) (18 September 1709 O.S. 7 September] – 13 December 1784) was an English author. Beginning as a Grub Street journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".^[1] He is also the subject of one of the most celebrated biographies in English, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS):^[2] a condition unknown to 18th-century physicians.

Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford for a year before he was forced to leave due to lack of funds. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began writing essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage and the poem The Vanity of Human Wishes.

After nine years of work, his A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and brought him popularity and success. He continued to write essays, began an edition of William Shakespeare's plays, and published the novel Rasselas. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, who would become one of Johnson's biographers. With Boswell, he travelled to Scotland and wrote A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. After a series of illnesses, Johnson died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Biography

Early life and education

Johnson's birthplace in Market Square, Lichfield

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, 18 September 1709. His parents were Michael Johnson, a bookseller, and his wife, Sarah Ford.^[3] Michael was the first bookseller of "reputation" in the community, having opened a parchment factory which produced book bindings. In 1706, he married Sarah Ford, daughter of Cornelius Ford, from a middle-class milling and farming family; he was 49 and she 37. Although both families had money, Johnson often claimed that he grew up in poverty. It is uncertain what happened between Michael and Sarah's marriage and the birth of Samuel just three years later to provoke such a change in fortune.^[4]

Johnson was born in the family home above his father's bookshop, near Market Square in Lichfield, across from St Mary's Church.^[3] His mother, Sarah, was 40 when she gave birth, a matter for sufficient concern that George Hector, a "man-midwife" and a surgeon of "great reputation", was brought in to assist during the birth.^[5] The baby was named Samuel, after Sarah's brother Samuel Ford.^[3] He did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborn's health, his aunt claimed "that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street".^[6] As it was feared the baby might die, the vicar of St Mary's was summoned to perform a baptism.^[7] Two godfathers were chosen: Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, and Lichfield town clerk.^[8]

Johnson's health improved and he was placed in the nursing care of Joan Marklew. During this period he contracted what is believed to have been scrofula,^[9] known at that time as the "King's Evil". Sir John Floyer, a former physician to Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the "royal touch",^[10] which he received from Queen Anne on 30 March 1712 at St James's Palace. Johnson was given a ribbon in memory of the event, which he claimed to have worn for the rest of his life. However, the ritual was ineffective and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scarring across his face and body.^[11] Sarah later gave birth to a second boy, Nathaniel, which put financial strain on the family. Michael was unable to keep on top of the debts he had accumulated over the years, and his family was no longer able to maintain the lifestyle it had previously enjoyed.^[12]

Johnson demonstrated signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust, would show off his "newly acquired accomplishments".^[14] His initial education began at the age of three, and came from his mother who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer.^[15] When Johnson turned four, he was sent to a nearby "school" on Dam Street, where "Dame" Anne Oliver, the proprietor, gave lessons to young children in the living-room of a cottage. Johnson especially enjoyed his time with Dame Oliver, later remembering her fondly, and when he reached the age of six, he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education.^[16] A year later, Johnson was sent to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin under Humphrey Hawkins, his teacher in the lower school.^[17] 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 his posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. Although TS caused problems in his private and public life, it lent Johnson "great verbal and vocal energy".^[18] He excelled in his education and was promoted to the upper school at the age of nine,^[17] to be tutored by Edward Holbrooke.^[19] The school was directed by the Reverend John Hunter, a man known for his scholarship and, like Holbrooke, his brutality, which caused Johnson to become dissatisfied with his education.^[20] However, he did befriended Edmund Hector, nephew of his "man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, during this time and remained in contact with them throughout his life.^[21]

At the age of 16, Johnson was given the opportunity to stay with his cousins, the Fords, at Pedmore, Worcestershire.^[22] There he bonded with Cornelius Ford, the son of his mother's brother,^[23] and Ford employed his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending school.^[24] Ford was a successful, well-connected academic, familiar with many society figures such as Alexander Pope.^[25] However, he was also a notorious alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years after Johnson's visit.^[25] This event deeply affected Johnson, and he remembered Ford in his Life of Fenton, saying that Ford's abilities, "instead of furnishing convivial merriments to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise".^[26] Having spent six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but Hunter, "angered by the impertinence of this long absence", refused to allow him to continue at the grammar school.^[27]

Unable to return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson was enrolled into the King Edward VI grammar school at Stourbridge.^[24] Because the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson was able to spend more time with the Fords,^[27] and he began writing poems and produced many verse translations.^[28] However, he spent only six months at Stourbridge before returning once again to his parents' home in Lichfield. For companionship, Johnson spent time with Edmund Hector and John Taylor, two of his schoolfriends, and he soon fell in love with Hector's younger sister, Ann. This first love was not to last, and Johnson later claimed to Boswell, "She was the first woman with whom I was in love. It dropped out of my head imperceptibly, but she and I shall always have a kindness for each other."^[29]

During this time, Johnson's future was uncertain as his father was deep in debt.^[29] To earn money, Johnson began stitching books for his father, although poor eyesight—resulting from his childhood illness—made him ill-suited to the work. It is possible that Johnson spent most of his time in his father's bookshop reading various works and building his literary knowledge. During this time, Johnson met Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court and a frequent visitor to the bookshop.^[30] Walmesley took a liking to Johnson, and the two discussed various intellectual topics during the two years Johnson spent working in the shop.^[31] Their relationship was soon put on hold; Sarah Johnson's cousin, Elizabeth Harriotts, died in February 1728 and left her £40, which was used to send Johnson back to school.^[32]

College

Entrance of Pembroke College, Oxford

On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford as a fellow-commoner.^[33] The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, but Andrew Corbet, a friend and student at Pembroke, offered to make up the deficit. Corbet left Pembroke soon after Johnson arrived, so this source of aid disappeared. To meet the expenses, Michael Johnson allowed his son to take a hundred books from his bookshop, at a great cost to himself, and these books were not fully returned to Michael until many years later.^[34]

On the day of Johnson's entrance interview for Pembroke, his anxious father introduced him to his future tutor, William Jorden, hoping to make an impression.^[35] During the interview, his father was "very full of the merits of his son, and told the company he was a good scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses", which caused Johnson significant embarrassment.^[36] Michael's praise was unnecessary; Johnson's interview went so well that one of the interviewers, a 26-year-old William Adams (Jorden's cousin, later Master of Pembroke), claimed that Johnson was "the best qualified for the University that he had ever known come there".^[37] Throughout the interview, Johnson sat quietly while listening to his father and the interviewers, until he interrupted and quoted Macrobius.^[36] The interviewers were surprised that "a School-boy should know Macrobius", and he was accepted immediately.^[38]

At Pembroke, Johnson made many friends, but neglected a number of mandatory lectures, and ignored calls for poems. He did complete one poem, the first of his tutorial exercises, on which he spent comparable time, and which provoked surprise and applause.^[39] He was later asked by his tutor to produce a Latin translation of Alexander Pope's Messiah as a Christmas exercise.^[40] 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 was brought to Pope's attention; according to Sir John Hawkins, Pope claimed that he could not tell if it was the original or not. However, John Taylor, his friend, dismissed this "praise" because Johnson's father had already published the translation before Johnson sent a copy to Pope, and Pope could have been remarking about it being a duplication of the published edition.^[41] Regardless, Pope remarked that the work was very finely done, but that did not prevent Johnson from being violently angry at his father's actions in preempting his sending Pope a copy of the poem. The poem later appeared in Miscellany of Poems (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and was the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent the rest of his time studying, even over the Christmas vacation. He drafted a "plan of study" called "Adversaria", which was left unfinished, and used his time to learn French while working on his knowledge of Greek.^[42]

Although he later praised Jorden, Johnson came to odds with him over what he considered to be Jorden's "meanness" of abilities.^[44] He discouraged his friend Taylor, who came to Pembroke in March, from having Jorden as his tutor, and Taylor was soon encouraged to go to Christ Church to be taught by Edmund Bateman. Johnson appreciated Bateman's skill as a lecturer, and he would often travel to meet Taylor to discuss the lectures.^[45] However, Johnson lacked the funds to even replace his shoes, and so he started to make the journey barefoot. In response, those of Christ Church began to mock Johnson, and he soon kept to his own room for the rest of his time at Pembroke, with Taylor visiting him instead.^[46]

After thirteen months, poverty forced Johnson to leave Oxford without taking a degree, and he returned to Lichfield.^[47] During his last weeks at Oxford, Jorden left Pembroke, and Johnson was given William Adams as a tutor in his place. He enjoyed Adams as a tutor, but by December, Johnson was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and he was forced to return home. He left behind many of the books that his father had previously lent him because he could not afford the expense of transporting all of them and as a symbolic gesture that he hoped to return to the school soon.^[48]

Just before the publication of his Dictionary in 1755, Oxford University awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts.^[49] He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765 by Trinity College Dublin and in 1775 by Oxford University.^[50] In 1776, he returned to Pembroke with Boswell and toured the school with his previous tutor Adams, who was then the school's Master. He used that visit to recount his time at the college, his early career, and to express his later fondness for Jorden.^[51]

Early career

There is little record of Johnson's life between the end of 1729 and 1731; he most likely lived with his parents while experiencing bouts of mental anguish.^[52] Although it is not known when Johnson first displayed the signs of Tourette syndrome, we know that following this time he exhibited the various tics and gesticulations associated with the disorder.^[53] To further complicate Johnson's life, his father was deeply in debt by 1731 and had lost much of his standing in Lichfield. An usher's position became available at Stourbridge Grammar School, but Johnson's lack of a degree saw him passed over, on 6 September 1731.^[52] Instead, he stayed at the home of Gregory Hickman, Cornelius Ford's half brother, writing poetry. It was there that he heard the devastating news that Cornelius had died in London, on 22 August 1731; later, in his personal "Annales", he pointed to that moment as one of the most important of his life.^[54]

At about the same time, Johnson's father became ill; he developed an "inflammatory fever" by the end of the year.^[55] He died in December 1731 and was buried at St. Michael's Church on 7 December 1731. He left no will, and Johnson received only £20 from Michael's estate of £60.^[55] In an act "almost like religious penance", Johnson honoured his father's memory 50 years later by returning to his father's bookstall in Uttoxeter to make amends for his refusal to work the stall while his father lay dying.^[56] Richard Warner kept Johnson's account of the scene:

... a postchaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the weather.^[57]

Elizabeth "Tetty" Porter, Johnson's wife

Johnson eventually found employment as undermaster at a school in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. He was paid £20 a year, enough to support himself. The school was run by Sir Wolstan Dixie, who allowed Johnson to teach even though he did not have a degree. The unconventional Dixie allowed Johnson to live at his own mansion, Bosworth Hall.^[58] Although the arrangement may seem congenial, Johnson was treated as "a kind of domestick chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness; and, after suffering for a few months such complicated misery, he relinquished a situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aversion, and even a degree of horrour."^[59] Still, Johnson found pleasure in teaching even though he thought it boring. By June 1732, he had returned home, and, after a fight with Dixie, quit the school.^[60]

Johnson spent the rest of his time at Lichfield looking for a position at the other local schools, and, after being turned down for a position in Ashbourne, he spent his time with his friend, Hector.^[61] Hector lived in the home of Thomas Warren, on High Street Birmingham, and Johnson was invited to stay there as a guest in the autumn of 1732. Warren was at that time starting his Birmingham Journal, and he enlisted Johnson's help, though no copies of the essays he wrote for the paper now survive.^[62] His stay with Hector and Warren was not to last, and Johnson moved into the house of a man named Jarvis on 1 June 1733.^[63] During this time, Johnson started to slip into a "state of 'absence'" and he began to treat his friends with "abuse".^[64]

His connection with Warren continued to grow, and Johnson proposed to translate Jeronimo Lobo's account of the Abyssinians.^[65] Johnson read Abbe Joachim Le Grand's French translations, and he thought that a shorter version might be "useful and profitable".^[66] He began work on the edition and a finished section was taken to be printed during the winter of 1733–1734. To finish the rest, Johnson dictated directly to Hector, who then took the copy to the printer and made any corrections. It amounted to a month's work, and, a year later, his A Voyage to Abyssinia was finally published.^[66]

Edial Hall School

Johnson returned to Lichfield in February 1734, where he began an annotated edition of Poliziano's Latin poems, along with a history of Latin poetry from Petrarch to Poliziano. Johnson began on 15 June 1743 and printed a Proposal for the work on 5 August 1734. However, the project did not receive enough funds and it was soon brought to an end.^[67]

Johnson was close to a man named Harry Porter, and remained with him during his terminal illness.^[68] Porter died on 3 September 1734, leaving his wife, Elizabeth Jervis Porter (otherwise known as "Tetty"), widowed at the age of 41, with three children.^[69] Months later, Johnson began to court the widow; Reverend William Shaw claims that "the first advances probably proceeded from her, as her attachment to Johnson was in opposition to the advice and desire of all her relations".^[70] Johnson was inexperienced in terms of relationships, but the well-to-do widow encouraged him and provided for him with her substantial savings.^[71] Johnson married Elizabeth on 9 July 1735, at St. Werburgh's Church in Derby.^[72] The Porter family did not approve of the match, partly because Johnson was 25 and Elizabeth was 21 years his elder. His mother's marriage to Johnson so disgusted her son Jervis that he stopped talking to her.^[73] However, her other son, Joseph, later accepted the marriage, and her daughter, Lucy, accepted Johnson from the start.^[74]

During the previous June, Johnson, while working as a tutor for Thomas Whitby's children, applied for the position of headmaster at Solihull School.^[76] Walmesley lent his support to Johnson's application, but Johnson was passed over because the school's directors thought he was "a very haughty, ill-natured gent., and that he has such a way of distorting his face (which though he can't help) the gent[s] think it may affect some lads".^[77] With the encouragement of Walmesley, Johnson decided that he could be a successful teacher if he ran his own school.^[78] In the autumn of 1735, Johnson opened a private academy at Edial, near Lichfield. The building, Edial Hall, was a large house with a pyramid-shaped roof and a unique design; a back room served as the schoolroom while the rest housed Johnson's family. He had only three pupils, David Garrick, George Garrick and Lawrence Offley; David Garrick—18 at the time—went on to become one of the most famous actors of his day.^[77] In the June and July (1736) editions of The Gentleman's Magazine, Johnson advertised the school:

At Edial, near Litchfield, in Staffordshire, Young Gentlemen are Boarded, and Taught the Latin and Greek Languages, by Samuel Johnson

The venture was unsuccesful however, and Johnson began to write his first major work, the historical tragedy Irene. The play did not earn him the money he had hoped for though, until Garrick produced it in 1749.^[79]

On 2 March 1737, penniless, Johnson left for London with his former pupil David Garrick. To make things worse, Johnson received word that his brother had died on the day they left. However, their prospects were not completely hopeless, as Garrick was set to inherit a large sum the next year. Also, Garrick had connections in London, and the two would stay with his distant relative, Richard Norris, who lived on Exeter Street.^[80] Johnson did not stay there long, and set out for Greenwich near the Golden Hart Tavern to finish Irene.^[81] During that time, he wrote to Edward Cave on 12 July 1737 and proposed a translation for Paolo Sarpi's The History of the Council of Trent (1619), which Cave did not accept until months later.^[82] In October 1737, Johnson brought his wife to London; they first lived at Woodstock Street and then moved to 6 Castle Street. Soon, Johnson found employment with Cave, and wrote for his The Gentleman's Magazine.^[83] His work for the magazine and other publishers during this time "is almost unparalleled in range and variety", and "so numerous, so varied and scattered" that "Johnson himself could not make a complete list".^[84]

Title page of London second edition

In May 1738, his first major work, a poem called London, was published anonymously.^[85] The work was based on Juvenal's Satire III and describes the character Thales's leaving for Wales to escape the problems of London.^[86] In particular, the poem describes how London is a place of crime, corruption, and the neglect of the poor. Johnson could not bring himself to regard the poem as granting him any merit as a poet;^[87] however, Alexander Pope claimed that the author "will soon be déterré" (brought to light, become well known), although it did not immediately happen.^[85]

In August, Johnson was denied a position as master of the Appleby Grammar School because a Masters degree from Oxford or Cambridge was required. To ensure that he would not suffer rejection again, Pope asked John Gower, a man with influence in the Appleby community, to have a degree awarded to Johnson.^[6] Gower attempted to have a degree awarded to Johnson from Oxford, but he was told that it was "too much to be asked."^[88] Gower then wrote to a friend of Jonathan Swift to persuade him to use his influence at the University of Dublin to have a masters awarded to Johnson, which could then be used to justify a masters awarded to Johnson from Oxford.^[88] However, Swift refused to act on Johnson's behalf.^[89] Regardless of Swift's motivation in not acting on Johnson's behalf, or how Johnson reacted to Swift's actions, it is known that Johnson then after refused to appreciate Swift as a poet, writer, or a satirist, with one exception: Swift's Tale of a Tub, to which Johnson doubted Swift's authorship.^[90]

Between 1737 and 1739, Johnson became close to Richard Savage.^[91] Feeling guilty for his own poverty, Johnson stopped living with his wife and spent time with Savage.^[92] Together, they would roam the streets at night without enough money to stay in taverns or sleep in "night-cellars".^[93] Savage was both a poet and a playwright, and Johnson was reported to enjoy spending time and discussing various topics with him, along with drinking and other merriment.^[93] However, poverty eventually caught up with Savage, and Pope, along with Savage's other friends, gave him an "annual pension" in return for him agreeing to move to Wales. Savage ended up in Bristol however, and once again fell into debt by reliving his former London lifestyle. He was soon in debtor's prison and died in 1743.^[94] A year later, Johnson wrote Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744), a "moving" work that, according to Walter Jackson Bate, "remains one of the innovative works in the history of biography".^[95]

A Dictionary of the English Language

See also: A Dictionary of the English Language, The Rambler, The Vanity of Human Wishes, and Irene (play)

Johnson's Dictionary Vol. 1 (1755) title page

In 1746, a group of publishers approached Johnson about creating a dictionary.^[85] On the morning of 18 June 1746, over breakfast at the Golden Anchor tavern in London, Johnson signed a contract with William Strahan and associates to produce an authoritative dictionary of the English language. The contract stated that Johnson was to be paid 1,500 guineas (£1,575),^[96] the equivalent of about £135,000 in modern terms,^[97] in instalments based on delivery of manuscript pages; all expenses relating to the project—ink, paper, assistants, etc.—were to be paid for by Johnson.^[96] Johnson claimed that he could finish the project in three years. In comparison, the Académie Française had forty scholars spending forty years to complete their dictionary, which prompted Johnson to claim, "This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman".^[85] Although he did not succeed in completing the work in three years, he did manage to finish it in nine, justifying his boast.^[85]

Although it is commonly thought that Johnson's was the English dictionary, his was not the first, nor was it particularly unique. Other dictionaries, like Nathan Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum, were much larger,^[98] and in the preceding 150 years about twenty "English" dictionaries had been produced. The first, published in 1538, was a small Latin–English dictionary by Sir Thomas Elyot.^[99] Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, published in 1604, was the first monolingual English dictionary.^[100] In the 18th century dictionaries became expensive, and abbreviated versions like John Kersey's A New English Dictionary (1702) became available.^[101] The dictionaries that stood out against this trend were Nathan Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721) and Dictionarium Britannicum (1730), which attempted to explain the origins of various English words.^[102]

However, there was open dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period. In 1741 David Hume claimed: "The Elegance and Propriety of Stile have been very much neglected among us. We have no Dictionary of our Language, and scarce a tolerable Grammar".^[103] What Johnson's dictionary offers are insights into the 18th century and "a faithful record of the language people used".^[98] Johnson's Dictionary is more than a reference book; it serves as a work of literature unto itself.^[99]

Johnson's Dictionary Vol. 2 (1755) title page

Throughout the decade, he constantly worked on the Dictionary, which caused his and Tetty's living conditions to suffer; Johnson had to employ multiple assistants for copying and mechanical work, which filled the house with incessant noise and clutter. He was always busy with his work, and kept hundreds of books around at any given time.^[104] John Hawkins described the scene as: "The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning".^[105] Johnson was also distracted by Tetty's health, as she started to show signs of a terminal illness.^[104] To accommodate both his wife and his work, he moved to Gough Square near his printer, William Strahan.^[106]

To prepare for the work, Johnson wrote a Plan for the Dictionary. This Plan was patronised by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield but not to Johnson's pleasure.^[107] Chesterfield did not care about praise, but was instead interested by Johnson's abilities. Seven years after first meeting Johnson to go over the work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in The World that recommended the Dictionary.^[108] He complained that the English language was lacking structure and argued in support of the dictionary. Johnson did not appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield did not fulfill his obligations as the work's patron.^[109] Johnson wrote a letter expressing this view and harshly criticised Chesterfield, but Chesterfield accepted it without any ill will and, impressed by the language, he kept the letter displayed on a table for anyone to read.^[110]

Besides working on the Dictionary, Johnson also wrote various essays, sermons, and poems during these nine years.^[111] He decided to produce a series of essays under the title The Rambler that would run every Tuesday and Saturday for twopence each. Explaining the title years later, he told his friend, the painter Joshua Reynolds: "I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it".^[112] These essays, often on moral and religious topics, tended to be more grave than the title of the series would suggest; his first comments in The Rambler were to ask "that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others".^[112] The popularity of The Rambler took off once the issues were collected as a volume; they were reprinted nine times during Johnson's life. Writer and printer Samuel Richardson, enjoying the essays greatly, questioned the publisher as to who wrote the works; only he and a few of Johnson's friends were told of Johnson's authorship.^[113] One friend, the female novelist Charlotte Lennox, includes a defense of The Rambler in her novel The Female Quixote (1752). In particular, the character Mr. Glanville says, "you may sit in Judgment upon the Productions of a Young, a Richardson, or a Johnson. Rail with premeditated Malice at the Rambler; and for the want of Faults, turn even its inimitable Beauties into Ridicule" (Book VI, Chapter XI). Later, she claims Johnson as "the greatest Genius in the present Age".^[114]

However, not all of his work was confined to The Rambler. One such work, The Vanity of Human Wishes, was written with such "extraordinary speed" that Boswell claimed Johnson "might have been perpetually a poet".^[116] The poem is an imitation of Juvenal's Satire X and seeks to be "the antidote to vain human wishes is non-vain spiritual wishes".^[117] In particular, Johnson emphasises "the helpless vulnerability of the individual before the social context" and the "inevitable self-deception by which human beings are led astray".^[118] The poem was critically celebrated but it failed to become popular, selling less than London.^[119] In 1749, Garrick made good on his promise that he would produce Irene, but its title was altered to Mahomet and Irene, to make it "fit for the stage".^[120] The show ran for nine nights.^[121] Although the production's run had a rough start, Johnson received nearly £300 in total for the manuscript and the performances.^[120]

Johnson's wife died shortly after the final issue appeared. During his work on the dictionary, Johnson made many appeals for financial help in the form of subscriptions: patrons would get a copy of the first edition as soon as it was printed in compensation for their support during its compilation. The appeals ran until 1752. The Dictionary was finally published in September 1755, with the title page acknowledging that Oxford had awarded Johnson a Master of Arts degree in anticipation of the work.^[122] The published dictionary was a huge book. With pages nearly 1½ feet (46 cm) tall and 20 inches (51 cm) wide, it contained 42,773 entries, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions. It sold for the huge price of £4 10s, the equivalent of about £350 today.^[97] An important innovation of Johnson's was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden.^[123] It was years before "Johnson's Dictionary", as it came to be known, turned a profit. Author's royalties were unknown at that time, and Johnson, once his contract to deliver the book was fulfilled, received no further monies from its sale. Years later, many of its quotations would be repeated by various editions of the Webster's Dictionary and the New English Dictionary.^[124]

Later career

See also: The Plays of William Shakespeare, The Idler (1758–1760), and The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

On 16 March 1756, Johnson was arrested for an outstanding debt of £5 18s. Unable to contact anyone else, he wrote to the writer and publisher Samuel Richardson. Richardson, who previously lent Johnson money, sent him six guineas to show his good will, and the two became friends.^[125] Soon after, Johnson met and befriended the painter Joshua Reynolds, who impressed Johnson sufficiently to declare Reynolds to be "almost the only man whom I call a friend".^[126] Reynolds' younger sister—Frances—observed during their time together "that men, women and children gathered around him [Johnson], laughing" at his gestures and gesticulations.^[127] Johnson's only other friend who was present at the time, Bennet Langton, just returned home and later set off to school in 1757.^[128]

A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1781, depicting Johnson and members of "The Club" – use cursor to identify.

To occupy himself, Johnson began working on The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review, the first issue of which was printed on 19 March 1756. Philosophical disagreements erupted over the purpose of the publication when the Seven Years' War began and Johnson started writing political essays about his dislike of the fighting. After the war began, the Magazine included many reviews, at least thirty-four of which were written by Johnson.^[129] While not working on the Magazine, Johnson wrote a series of prefaces for other writers, such as Giuseppe Baretti, William Payne and Charlotte Lennox.^[130] Johnson's relationship with Lennox and her works was particularly close during these years, and she relied so heavily upon Johnson that he was "the most important single fact in Mrs Lennox's literary life".^[131] He would later attempt to produce a new edition of her works, but even with his support, they were unable to find enough interest to follow through with its publication.^[132]

However, these efforts only amounted to a small portion of his time as his Edition of Shakespeare took up the rest. On 8 June 1756 Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Dramatick Works of William Shakespeare, which explained his claim that editions of Shakespeare were edited incorrectly and needed to be correct.^[133] However, Johnson slowed on the work as the months passed, and he told music historian Charles Burney in December 1757 that it would take him until the following March to complete it. Before that could happen, he was arrested again, for a debt of £40, in February 1758. The debt was soon repaid by Jacob Tonson, who had contracted Johnson to publish Shakespeare, and Johnson was soon motivated to finish his edition to repay the favour. Although it took him another seven years to finish, Johnson completed a few volumes of his Shakespeare to prove his commitment to the project.^[134]

In 1758, Johnson began to write a weekly series, The Idler, which ran from 15 April 1758 to 5 April 1760, as a way to avoid having to finish his Shakespeare. This series was shorter and lacked many features of The Rambler. Unlike his independent publication of The Rambler, The Idler was published in a weekly news journal The Universal Chronicle, a publication supported by John Payne, John Newbery, Robert Stevens and William Faden.^[135] The Idler did not take up all of Johnson's time, and he was able to publish his philosophical novella Rasselas on 19 April 1759. The "little story book", as Johnson described it, describes the life of Prince Rasselas and Nekayah, his sister, who are kept in a place called the Happy Valley. The Happy Valley in the land Abyssinia was a place in which there were no problems and any desire was quickly satisfied. However, the constant pleasure does not lead to satisfaction, and Rasselas escapes, with the help of a philosopher named Imlac, explores the world to witness how all aspects of society and life in the outside world are filled with suffering. They return to Abyssinia, but do not wish to return to state of constantly fulfilled pleasures found in the Happy Valley.^[136] Rasselas was written in one week to pay for his mother's funeral, and to settle her debts; it became so popular that there was a new English edition of the work almost every year. It appeared in many works of fiction through characters reading the book, such as Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Its fame was not limited to English-speaking nations, and Rasselas was immediately translated into five different languages (French, Dutch, German, Russian and Italian), and later into another nine.^[137]

James Boswell at 25

By 1762, however, Johnson had gained a notoriety for dilatory writing; contemporary poet Charles Churchill teased Johnson for the delay in producing his long-promised edition of Shakespeare: "He for subscribers baits his hook / and takes your cash, but where's the book?"^[138] The comments soon motivated Johnson to begin finishing his Shakespeare, and, after receiving the first payment on a government pension on 20 July 1762, he was able to dedicate most of his time towards this goal.^[138] Earlier that July, the 24-year-old King George III granted Johnson an annual pension of £300 in appreciation for the Dictionary.^[50] While not making Johnson rich, it allowed him a modest yet comfortable independence for the remaining 22 years of his life.^[139] The award came largely through the efforts of Thomas Sheridan and the Earl of Bute. When Johnson questioned if the pension would force him to promote a political agenda or support various officials, he was told by Bute that the pension "is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done".^[140]

On 16 May 1763, Johnson met 22-year-old James Boswell, a man who would later become Johnson's first major biographer, for the first time in the book shop of Johnson's friend, Tom Davies. They quickly became friends, although Boswell would return to his home in Scotland or travel abroad for months at a time.^[141] Around the spring of 1763, Johnson formed "The Club", a social group that included his friends Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Topham Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, Christopher Nugent, Burke's father-in-law, John Hawkins, and Anthony Chamier (although the membership would vary over the next few decades, expanding to allow individuals such as Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon to join). They decided to meet every Monday at 7:00 pm at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, and these meetings would continue until long after the deaths of the original members.^[142]

During the summer of 1754, Johnson met Arthur Murphy after Murphy came to Johnson about the accidental republishing of the Rambler No. 190 and the two became friends.^[144] On 9 January 1765, Murphy introduced Johnson to Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and Member of Parliament, and his wife, Hester. They instantly bonded; Johnson was treated as a member of the family, and was motivated to work on his Shakespeare again.^[145] Afterwards, Johnson stayed with the Thrales for 17 years until Henry's death in 1781, sometimes staying in rooms at Thrale's Anchor Brewery in Southwark.^[146] Hester Thrale's documentation of Johnson's life during this time, in her Thraliana and correspondence, became an important source of biographical information on Johnson after his death.^[147]

Johnson's edition of Shakespeare was finally published on 10 October 1765 as The Plays of William Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes ... To which are added Notes by Sam. Johnson in a printing of 1,000 copies. The edition sold quickly and a second edition was soon printed.^[148] The plays themselves were of a version that Johnson felt was most true to the original as he could determine from the manuscript editions of Shakespeare's plays. However, Johnson's strength, and what made his edition revolutionary, was to create a set of corresponding notes that allow readers to identify the meaning behind many of Shakespeare's more complicated passages or ones that may have been transcribed incorrectly over time.^[149] Including within the notes are occasional attacks upon the rival editors of Shakespeare's works and their editions.^[150] Years later, Edmond Malone, an important Shakespearean scholar and friend of Johnson's, would say that Johnson's "vigorous and comprehensive understanding threw more light on his authour than all his predecessors had done".^[151]

Also in 1765, Johnson received an honourary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, followed by one from Oxford 10 years later.^[50] These were not the only special events during this time; in February 1767 he was granted a special meeting with King George III. This took place at the library of the Queen's house, and it was organised by the king's librarian, Frederick Augusta Barnard.^[152] The king himself, after hearing that Johnson would visit the library, commanded Barnard to introduce him to Johnson.^[153] They mutually impressed each other, and Johnson later told Boswell that the king "is the finest gentleman I have ever seen".^[143]

Final works

See also: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets

Johnson (1775) showing his intense concentration and the weakness of his eyes; he did not want to be depicted as "Blinking Sam"^[154]

On 6 August 1773, eleven years after first meeting Boswell, Johnson set out to visit his friend in Scotland, to begin "a journey to the western islands of Scotland", as Johnson's 1775 account of their travels would put it.^[155] The work was intended to discuss the social problems and struggles that affected the Scottish people, but it also praised many of the unique facets of Scottish society, such as a school in Edinburgh for the deaf and dumb.^[156] Also, Johnson used the work to enter into the dispute over the authenticy of James Macpherson's Ossian poems, claiming they could not have been translations of ancient Scottish literature on the grounds that "in those times nothing had been written in the Earse [i.e. Gaelic] language".^[157] There were heated exchanges between the two, and according to one of Johnson's letters, MacPherson threatened physical violence.^[158] Boswell's account, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1786), was a preliminary attempt at a biography before his Life of Johnson. Included were various quotes and descriptions of events, including anecdotes such as Johnson swinging around a broadsword while wearing Scottish garb, or dancing a Highland jig.^[159]

In the 1770s, Johnson, who had tended to be an opponent of the government early in life, published a series of pamphlets in favour of various government policies. In 1770 he produced The False Alarm, a political pamphlet attacking John Wilkes. In 1771, his Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands cautioned against war with Spain.^[160] In 1774 he printed The Patriot, a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."^[161] This line was not, as widely believed, about patriotism in general, but the false use of the term "patriotism" by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (the patriot-minister) and his supporters. Johnson opposed "self-professed Patriots" in general, but valued what he considered "true" patriotism.^[162]

The last of these pamphlets, Taxation No Tyranny (1775), was a defence of the Coercive Acts and a response to the Declaration of Rights of the First Continental Congress of America, which protested against taxation without representation.^[161] Johnson argued that in emigrating to America, colonists had "voluntarily resigned the power of voting", but they still had "virtual representation" in Parliament. In a parody of the Declaration of Rights, Johnson suggested that the Americans had no more right to govern themselves than the Cornish people. If the Americans wanted to participate in Parliament, said Johnson, they could move to England and purchase an estate.^[163] Johnson denounced English supporters of America as "traitors to this country", and hoped that the matter would be settled without bloodshed, but that it would end with "English superiority and American obedience".^[164] Years before, Johnson had advocated that the English and the French were just "two robbers" who were stealing land from the natives, and that neither deserved to live there.^[129] After the signing of the 1783 Peace of Paris treaties, marking the colonists' defeat of the English, Johnson was "deeply disturbed" with the "state of this kingdom".^[165]

On 3 May 1777, while Johnson was trying to save Reverend William Dodd from execution, he wrote to Boswell that he was busy preparing a "little Lives" and "little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets".^[167] Tom Davies, William Strahan and Thomas Cadell had asked Johnson to create this final major work, the Lives of the English Poets, for which he asked 200 guineas, an amount significantly less than the price he could have demanded.^[168] The Lives, which were critical as well as biographical studies, appeared as prefaces to selections of each poet's work, and they were quite larger than originally expected.^[169] The work was finished in March 1781 and the whole collection was published in six volumes. As Johnson justified in the advertisement for the work, "my purpose was only to have allotted to every Poet an Advertisement, like those which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates and a general character."^[170]

Johnson was unable to enjoy this success because Henry Thrale, the dear friend with whom he lived, died on 4 April 1781.^[171] Life changed quickly for Johnson, and Hester Thrale became interested in the Italian singing teacher Gabriel Mario Piozzi, which forced Johnson to move on from his previous lifestyle.^[172] After returning home and then travelling for a short period, Johnson received word that his dear friend, Robert Levet, had died on 17 January 1782.^[173] Johnson was shocked by Levet's death. Shortly afterwards he caught a cold which turned into bronchitis, lasting for several months.^[174]

Final moments

Hester Thrale and her daughter Queeny

Although he had recovered his health by August, he experienced emotional trauma when he was given word that Hester Thrale would sell the residence that Johnson shared with the family. What hurt Johnson the most was the possibility that he would be left without her constant company.^[175] Months later, on 6 October 1782, Johnson attended church for the final time in his life, to say goodbye to his former residence and life. The walk to the church strained him, but he managed the journey unaccompanied.^[176] While there, he wrote a prayer for the Thrale family:

To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.^[177]

Hester Thrale did not completely abandon Johnson, and asked him to accompany the family on a trip to Brighton.^[176] He agreed, and was with them from 7 October until 20 November 1782.^[178] On his return, his health began to fail him, and he was left alone following Boswell's visit on 29 May 1783 until he travelled to Scotland.^[179]

On 17 June 1783, Johnson had a stroke resulting from poor circulation^[180] and he wrote to his neighbour, Edmund Allen, that he had lost the ability to speak.^[181] Two doctors were brought in to aid Johnson; he regained his ability to speak two days later.^[182] Johnson feared that he was dying, and wrote:

The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me. The neighbourhood is impoverished. I had once Richardson and Lawrence in my reach. Mrs. Allen is dead. My house has lost Levet, a man who took interest in everything, and therefore ready at conversation. Mrs. Williams is so weak that she can be a companion no longer. When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking, except that Dr. Brocklesby for a little keeps him at a distance. Dinner with a sick woman you may venture to suppose not much better than solitary. After dinner, what remains but to count the clock, and hope for that sleep which I can scarce expect. Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from an habitation like this?^[183]

By this time he was sick and gout-ridden. Surgery was performed to relieve Johnson's gout, and his remaining friends, including Fanny Burney (the daughter of Charles Burney), came to keep him company.^[184] He was confined to his room from 14 December 1783 to 21 April 1784.^[185]

His health had begun to improve by May 1784, and he travelled to Oxford with Boswell on 5 May 1784.^[185] By July, many of Johnson's friends were either dead or gone; Boswell had left for Scotland and Hester Thrale had become engaged to Piozzi. With nobody to visit, Johnson expressed a desire to die in London and arrived there on 16 November 1784. On 25 November 1784, he allowed Burney to visit him and expressed an interest to her that he should leave London; he soon left for Islington to George Strahan's home.^[186] His final moments were filled with mental anguish and delusions; when his physician, Thomas Warren, visited and asked him if he were feeling better, Johnson burst out with: "No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I advance towards death."^[187]

Many visitors came to see Johnson as he lay sick in bed, but he preferred only Langton's company.^[187] Burney waited for word of Johnson's condition, along with Windham, Strahan, Hoole, Cruikshank, Des Moulins and Frank Barber.^[189] On 13 December 1784, Johnson met with two others: a young woman, Miss Morris, whom Johnson blessed, and Francesco Sastres, an Italian teacher, who was given some of Johnson's final words: "Iam Moriturus" ("I who am about to die").^[190] Shortly afterwards he fell into a coma, and died at 7:00 pm.^[189]

Langton waited until 11:00 pm to tell the others, which led to John Hawkins becoming pale and overcome with "an agony of mind", along with Seward and Hoole describing Johnson's death as "the most awful sight".^[191] Boswell remarked, "My feeling was just one large expanse of Stupor ... I could not believe it. My imagination was not convinced."^[190] William Gerard Hamilton joined in and stated, "He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. -Johnson is dead.- Let us go to the next best: There is nobody; -no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson."^[189]

He was buried on 20 December 1784 at Westminster Abbey with an inscription that reads:

Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Obiit XIII die Decembris,

Anno Domini

M.DCC.LXXXIV.

Ætatis suœ LXXV.^[192]

Character sketch

His tall and robust figure combined with his odd gestures were confusing to some; when William Hogarth first saw Johnson standing near a window in Samuel Richardson's house, "shaking his head and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner", Hogarth thought Johnson an "ideot, whom his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson".^[194] Hogarth was quite surprised when "this figure stalked forwards to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting and all at once took up the argument ... [with] such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that this ideot had been at the moment inspired".^[194] Not everyone was misled by Johnson's appearance; Adam Smith claimed that "Johnson knew more books than any man alive",^[195] while Edmund Burke thought that if Johnson were to join Parliament, he "certainly would have been the greatest speaker that ever was there".^[196] Johnson relied on a unique form of rhetoric, and he is well known for his "refutation" of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialism and his claim that matter did not actually exist but only seemed to exist:^[197] during a conversation with Boswell, Johnson powerfully stomped a nearby stone and proclaimed of Berkeley's theory, "I refute it thus!"^[193]

Johnson was a devout, conservative Anglican and a compassionate man who supported a number of poor friends under his own roof even when unable to fully provide for himself.^[50] Johnson's Christian morality permeated his works, and he would write on moral topics with such authority and in such a trusting manner that, Walter Jackson Bate claims, "no other moralist in history excels or even begins to rival him".^[198] He was an opponent of slavery, and once proposed a toast to the "next rebellion of the negroes in the West Indies". He had a black manservant, Francis Barber (Frank), whom Johnson made his heir.^[199] Although Johnson respected John Milton's poetry, he could not tolerate Milton's Puritan and Republican beliefs.^[200] Beside his beliefs concerning humanity, Johnson is also known for his love of cats,^[201] especially his own two cats, Hodge and Lily.^[201] Boswell wrote, "I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat."^[202]

Although Johnson was also known as a staunch Tory, he admitted to sympathies for the Jacobite cause during his younger years but, by the reign of George III, he came to accept the Hanoverian Succession.^[203] It was Boswell who gave people the impression that Johnson was an "arch-conversative", and it was Boswell, more than anyone else, who determined how Johnson would be seen by people years later. In his Life of Samuel Johnson Boswell referred to Johnson as Dr Johnson so often that Johnson would always be known as Dr Johnson, even though Johnson hated being called such. In addition to this, Boswell's emphasis on Johnson's later years depicted Johnson as only an old man who would involve himself in taverns, although this depiction is appealing.^[204] Although Boswell, a Scotsman, was a close companion and friend to Johnson during many important times of his life, Johnson, like many of his fellow Englishmen, had a reputation for depising Scotland and its people. Even during their journey together through Scotland, Johnson "exhibited prejudice and a narrow nationalism".^[205] Hester Thrale, in summarising Johnson's nationalistic views and his anti-Scottish prejudice, said, "We all know how well he loved to abuse the Scotch, & indeed to be abused by them in return".^[206]

Health

Main article: Samuel Johnson's health

Johnson displayed signs of Tourette syndrome (TS),^[2] a condition unknown during Johnson's lifetime. Boswell described a number of tics and other involuntary movements, suggestive of Tourette syndrome.^[207][208] According to Boswell he would hold "his head to one side", rock his body "backwards and forwards", rub his "left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand", make "various sounds" like "a half wistle" or "as if chucking like a hen", and "All this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale".^[209] There are many similar accounts of his performing these actions; in particular, Johnson was said to "perform his gesticulations" at the threshold of house or in doorways.^[210] When asked by poet Christopher Smart's niece, a young child at the time, why he made such noises and acted in that way, Johnson responded: "From bad habit."^[209]

A 1967 report^[211] was the first to diagnosis Johnson with the syndrome;^[212] the posthumous diagnosis is based on various accounts of Johnson displaying physical tics, "involuntary vocalisations" and "compulsive behaviour".^[213] TS researcher Arthur K. Shapiro declared, "Samuel Johnson ... is the most notable example of a successful adaptation to life despite the liability of Tourette syndrome".^[214]

Details provided by the writings of Boswell, Hester Thrale, and others reinforce the diagnosis, with one paper concluding:

... [the] case of Dr Johnson accords well with current criteria for the Tourette syndrome; he also displayed many of the obsessional-compulsive traits and rituals which are associated with this syndrome. ... It may be thought that without this illness Dr Johnson's remarkable literary achievements, the great dictionary, his philosophical deliberations and his conversations may never have happened; and Boswell, the author of the greatest of biographies would have been unknown.^[215]

There are many accounts of Johnson suffering from possible bouts of depression or what he himself thought might be "madness". As Walter Jackson Bate puts it, "one of the ironies of literary history is that its most compelling and authoritative symbol of common sense—of the strong, imaginative grasp of concrete reality—should have begun his adult life, at the age of twenty, in a state of such intense anxiety and bewildered despair that, at least from his own point of view, it seemed the onset of actual insanity".^[216] To overcome these feelings, Johnson tried to constantly involve himself with various activities, but this did not seem to help. Taylor, in reflecting on Johnson's states, said that Johnson "at one time strongly entertained thoughts of Suicide".^[217][218] Because of these feelings, Johnson feared becoming insane.^[217] Boswell claimed that Johnson "felt himself overwhelmed wi