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This dissertation has been 64—10,505 microfilmed exactly as received SULLIVAN, Gerald Joseph, 1932- POLITICS AND LITERATURE OF SAIVUEL JOHNSON. The University of Oklahoma, I h.D., 1964 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE POLITICS AND ■■ LITERATURE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY GERALD JOSEPH SULLIVAN Norman, Oklahoma 1964 POLITICS AMI LITEPATLTE OF SAM'ÎEL JOHNSON APPROVED EY OISSEPTATION COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS T wish to thank Dr. David French for his assistance and patience in directing this dissertation. I also want to thank Drs. Paul Ruggiers, Alfonse Fritz, Jack Kendall, and Lloyd Williams for their pleasant cooperation as members of the examining committee. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................ i ü Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ............ 1 II. THE POLITICS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON: THE STATE OF MAN, UNGOVERNED AND GOVERNED ............. 11 III. I R E N E ........................................... 48 IV. THE POLITICS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON: GOVERNMENT, ITS METHODS AND PROBLEMS ....................104 V. THE ALLEGORIES .................................. 128 .. VI. THE POLITICS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON: SOCIETY, ITS BENEFITS, DISADVANTAGES, AND WEAKNESSES . 169 VII. R A S S E L A S .........................................188 VIII. CONCLUSION . .............................. 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............... 280 XV THE POLITICS AM) LITERATURE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The interplay of Samuel Johnson*s politics and lit­ erature forms the subject of this dissertation* I will examine this alliance by constructing as coherently as possible Johnson's political theory out of the many paua- phletSy essays, sermons, prefaces,, reviews,, and- the like that he produced during his life,, as well as from impor­ tant contemporary sources, particularly Boswell's Life of Johnson. The results of this synthesis will occupy three chapters, each chapter containing a division of the politi­ cal theory. After eaw^h division, I will devote a chapter to an analysis of a major imaginative work which closely embodies this division's principles, calling upon The Vanity of Human Wishes and the other poetry whenever they are relevant. This analysis will show, I believe, that Johnson embodies in fictional form— in concrete situations, specific actions, and particular speeches rising out of actions--corollaries, analogues, or similitudes of his 2 Dolitical beliefs.. The reason for this soecial kind of identity arises from Johnson's emoirical and skeotical temoer, -his inveter­ ate habit of testing all ideas, theories, or soeculations-- exceoting a1wavs his religion— in the oractical, exoerien- tial world of realitv, Thus, Johnson's fear of anarchv and civil war, his insistence upon subordination, his demand for forbearance on the oart of subjects of a government--to men­ tion onlv three of his leading nolitical ideas--so me times seem, arbitrary or willful when stated abstractly. But when these same ideas are clothed in the human action of the imaginative works, we see their basis in his painful aoore- hension of the destructive force of a mob or an army; his - * sensitive awareness of the hapoiness that mare peace and concord afforded, in and by themselves, when achieved through obedience to lawful authority; and his clear perception of the abuses of power and authority that will inevitably oc­ cur but which must be endured for the greater blessings gov­ erning achieves. Further, Johnson's political views, if not validated, are at least made more accessible to the under­ standing than before. The abstract outline of the political theory possesses the advantage of all outlines: clarity, obviousness of relationships, and completeness of design. The imaginative work possesses equally its own peculiar advantages: depth, "solidity of specification," experiential dimension. V/hen thev are placed side by side, the abstract 3 outline of the politics takes on the color and form of life and reveals thereby its value, its possible validity^ and most certainly its foundation in life. It is only in the last decade that much scholarly work has been done on Johnson's politics. The 'Tfeunier Revolution'^ in eighteenth-century history studies has been slow in seeping into literary studies of various figures of the age. The first book length study of Johnson’s politics was published in 1960--Donald J. Greene, The Politics of Samuel Johnson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960). This work is, as Greene calls it in his "Preface,'* an "'intro­ ductory sketch— for it can claim to be little more--of the political activitiesy ideas, attitudes, and milieu of Samuel Johnson,"! and is very valuable for sweeping away ""the continued currency of the simple old legend of Johnson the 'blind reactioneury' . that is an unnecessary handi­ cap to serious studentsIt supplies important and sug­ gestive directions for creating a coherent political theory, but its historical purpose leads- Greene away from a thor­ ough elaboration of his general discussion of this issue. “Two other books published in the last decade supply much material for the elucidation of Johnson's political theory. E. L. McAdam, Jr.'s Dr. Johnson and the English Law, iDonald J. Greene, The Politics of Samuel Johnson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), p. vii. 2ibid., p. viii. 4 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1951) pro­ vides the Johnson excerpts, and very valuable they are,;^ from the series of lectures Sir Robert Chajnbers delivered as successor to Blackstone as Vinerian -Professor on the English Law at Oxford» Many of Johnson's basic ideas about society, government, and law are contained in this material» Ben­ jamin Hoover's Samuel Johnson's Parliamentary Reporting (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953) is the other important work, and while it does not contain so much important material for the student of John­ son's politics as the two previously mentioned books, it does call needed attention to the worth and value of the Debates Johnson wrote for the Gentleman's Magagine as a great seminal source for many of the political beliefs Johnson held throughout his life. As Johnson's latest biog­ rapher puts it,. "What had started merely as another journal­ istic assignment for the magazine turned out to be an impor­ tant milestone in the maturing of Johnson's ideas There are several unpublished dissertations that should be mentioned in a study of Johnson's politics. The first and what is perhaps the most important is Joseph Sidney's The Political Thought of Samuel Johnson (unpub­ lished dissertation. University of Chicago, 1957). Sidney ^See Greene, pp. 192-93 for a discussion of their importance. ^James Clifford» Young Sam Johnson (New York: McGraw. Hill, 1955), P» 260 5 attempts to arrive at Johnson’s political thought through an analysis of the political utterances against the back­ ground of the moral and ethical statements about man that Johnson made most often in his periodical essays. This approach differs from mine both in scope and jnethod, Sid- • ney is not interested in finding any concrete embodiments of the political ideas in the fictional works, or in relating his findings to any particular movements of Johnson’s age, as I will attempt to do in the last chapter of this dis­ sertation. Robert Orlovich’s unpublished dissertation from the University of Illinois (1941), Samuel. Johnson’s Political Ideas and Their Influence on His Works, is an earlier attempt like Greene’s to place Johnson politically in the context of his time. Orlovich’s conclusions are often opposed to Greene’s— on the whole, it appears to me, mis­ takenly so. Orlovich's work suffers from his inability to consult any of the many historical works published after his dissertâtionyi and the reconstruction of Johnson’s early life by Jaimes Clifford in his excellent Young Sam Johnson. Even with the new additions to Johnson scholarship, much work still needs to be done on Johnson’s political position. As the authors of A Bibliography of Johnsoniam ^See Greeney pp. 1-21, 288 for a discussion of the value of this new material and a list of the more important titles for a student of eighteenth-century history. 6 Studies : 1950-1960 ; A Supplement to Johnsonian Studies : 1887-1950 point out, Greeners "forceful claims (^bout the enduring value of Johnson's political beliefs] should arouse active opposition in those who cling to traditional inter­ pretations . and there will no doubt be many replies. For which let us rejoice» Honest controversy is the life­ blood of serious scholarship,"! The present study is not in the nature of a reply, since I agree substantially with Greene, but is an attempt at clarification, as Greene's work was, of Johnson's politics, utilizing materials and interpretations that have only just become available» Al­ though its approach is from within, it employs the light cast from without by recent scholarship. That such illumination is necessary can be illus­ trated by certain facts presented by Bertrand Bronson in an article entitled "The Double Tradition of Dr, J o h n s o n , "2 As Bronson has shown, there are two traditions which find their source in Johnson: the learned atnd the popular. The popular tradition received its archetypal Johnson, its "imago" as Bronson calls it, in the famous descriptive pas­ sage in Macaulay’s review of

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