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Samuel Johnson PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON A WEEK: The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand PEOPLE OF within it. Old Drayton thought that a man that lived here, and A WEEK would be a poet, for instance, should have in him certain “brave, translunary things,” and a “fine madness” should possess his brain. Certainly it were as well, that he might be up to the occasion. That is a superfluous wonder, which Dr. Johnson expresses at the assertion of Sir Thomas Browne that “his life has been a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not history but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable.” The wonder is, rather, that all men do not assert as much. That would be a rare praise, if it were true, which was addressed to Francis Beaumont, — “Spectators sate part in your tragedies.” Think what a mean and wretched place this world is; that half the time we have to light a lamp that we may see to live in it. This is half our life. Who would undertake the enterprise if it were all? And, pray, what more has day to offer? A lamp that burns more clear, a purer oil, say winter-strained, that so we may pursue our idleness with less obstruction. Bribed with a little sunlight and a few prismatic tints, we bless our Maker, and stave off his wrath with hymns. MICHAEL DRAYTON DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK ON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY by Thomas Carlyle: I. The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology. II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam. III. The Hero as Poet. Dante; Shakspeare. IV. The Hero as Priest. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism. V. The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns. VI. The Hero as King. Cromwell, Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism. “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Samuel Johnson HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1709 September 18, Sunday (Old Style): Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, England. He was a first child, and Michael Johnson (bookseller, age 52) and Sarah Ford Johnson (age 40) were a pair of proud primiparas. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Samuel Johnson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1712 October: Samuel Johnson was two years of age when his brother Nathaniel was born. He had been put out to a wetnurse whose breast milk had turned out to be tubercular, had contracted scrofula, and would be deaf in one ear and almost blind in his left eye, with his right eye also affected. His infant face had been scarred. It would have been at about this time that his parents arranged for him to be touched by Queen Anne while she was on one of her King’s-Evil expeditions. Dr. Johnson would retain, in later life, “a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood.” DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Samuel Johnson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1725 At age 15, Samuel Johnson was living with the Reverend Cornelius Ford, an older 1st cousin, in London. According to Pat Rogers, “the worldly Ford first opened the young man’s eyes to a world of sophistication which he had never seen as a boy in Lichfield. It is probable that he acquired his first knowledge of the London literary scene from his cousin during a prolonged stay in 1725-1726.” This was an era of “anything goes” in London, however, an era in which gin drinking, drunkenness, and crime were virtually out of control. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Samuel Johnson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1726 At age 16, Samuel Johnson returned from London to his family home in Lichfield, and began a program of reading. He encountered Petrarch and the classics. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Samuel Johnson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1728 At age 18, Samuel Johnson entered the Pembroke College of Oxford University. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1729 At age 19, Samuel Johnson experienced a deep depression, which would be described by Boswell as “overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria ... dejection, gloom, and despair.” Due to lack of funds, he was forced to leave Oxford without having obtained a degree. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Samuel Johnson HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1731 December: While Samuel Johnson was 21, his father Michael Johnson the bookseller died. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1732 At age 22, Samuel Johnson was working as an usher in a school at Market-Bosworth. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1733 At age 23, Samuel Johnson lived for some time in Birmingham. There he contributed a few essays to a local publisher and met a number of people, including the older woman with whom he would eventually marry, Elizabeth “Tetty” Porter, the wife of a Birmingham mercer. With the assistance of Edmund Hector, a schoolfellow and lifelong friend, he worked on his translation of LOBO’S VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Samuel Johnson HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1734 At age 24, Samuel Johnson returned from Birmingham to Lichfield. November: Samuel Johnson wrote to Edward Cave, the publisher of Gentleman’s Magazine in London, offering the services of someone he knows well, uh, er, now that you mention it, probably he himself, who would be eager to make sundry contributions to his publication. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1735 At age 25, Samuel Johnson’s translation of LOBO’S VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA was published. July: Samuel Johnson, age 25, got married with Elizabeth “Tetty” Porter, age 46, widow of a mercer he had met in Birmingham in 1733. He made an attempt, as it would prove unsuccessfully, to be a schoolmaster in Edial. David Garrick was one of his pupils. “From Mr. Garrick’s account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils,” says Boswell. “His oddities of manner, and uncouth gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment to them.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1736 During this year and the following one, while Samuel Johnson was 26 and 27 years of age, while employed as a schoolmaster, he worked on his play Irene. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1737 While Samuel Johnson was at the age of 27, his brother Nathaniel died, perhaps as a suicide. He went to London with David Garrick, leaving his wife in Lichfield for the time being. He made further proposals to Edward Cave, the publisher of Gentleman’s Magazine in London. Summer: Samuel Johnson returned from London to Lichfield and his wife Elizabeth “Tetty” Porter Johnson, to finish his play Irene. Later in the year they would both move to London. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:SAMUEL JOHNSON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1738 At age 28, Samuel Johnson produced an impression of Parliamentary affairs, DEBATES IN THE SENATE OF LILLIPUT. His LIFE OF SARPI also appeared. He received ten guineas from publisher Robert Dodsley for his LONDON (on reading this, Alexander Pope would be impressed). Dr Johnson became associated with Edward Cave’s The Gentleman’s Magazine, for which William Guthrie had been reporting on debates in the Parliament. Guthrie’s reportorial technique had been that of Thucydides — he would insert into the mouths of various statesmen, personages whom he was always careful never to identify, such conceits as he supposed they might have been deploying, had they had their wits about them. Guthrie had been submitting these compositions by way of Edward Cave, for whatever oratorical coloring and embellishment. Art had been improving on life up one side and down the other. From this year forward, it would be Dr Johnson who would be inserting his wit into this process, and the honorable orators of the Parliament would be waxing more and more profound. Guthrie would find ways to intimate, to the powers that be of London, that he was a wit who could do damage, or could be their first line of defense, that therefore they might seek ways to be especially nice to him. The Pelham administration grasped that here was a journalist who was ready and willing to sell his soul, and granted a “pension” of £200 per year (nearly two decades later, after the fall of Pelham, we will find Guthrie approaching the new Bute administration, seeking to lengthen this series of hush money transactions).
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