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SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784)
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See also:SAMUEL See also:JOHNSON (1709-1784)
, See also:English writer and lexicographer, was the son of See also:Michael See also: His See also:family could do nothing for him . His debts to See also:Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay . In the autumn of 1731 he was under the See also:necessity of quitting the university without a degree . In the following See also:winter his See also:father died . The old See also:man See also:left but a See also:pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow . The See also:property to which See also:Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds . His See also:life, during the See also:thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle with poverty . The misery of that struggle needed no See also:aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound See also:body and an unsound mind . Before the See also:young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel See also:form . He had become an incurable hypochondriac . He said See also:long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less See also:strange than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside See also:wills . His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified See also:people who did not know him . At a See also:dinner table he would, in a See also:fit of See also:absence, stoop down and twitch off a See also:lady's See also:shoe . He would amaze a See also:drawing-See also:room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the See also:Lord's See also:Prayer . He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular See also:alley, and perform a See also:great See also:circuit rather than see the hateful See also:place . He would set his See also:heart on touching every See also:post in the streets through which he walked . If by any See also:chance he missed a post, he would go back a See also:hundred yards and repair the omission . Under the See also:influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his See also:imagination morbidly active . At one time he would stand poring on the See also:town See also:clock without being able to tell the See also:hour . At another he would distinctly hear his See also:mother, who was many See also:miles off, calling him by his name . But this was not the worst . A deep See also:melancholy took See also:possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human See also:des-tiny . Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves . But he was under no temptation to commit See also:suicide .
He was sick of life; but he was afraid of See also:death; and he shuddered at every sight or See also:sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour
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In See also:religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own See also:character
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The See also:light from See also:heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a See also:direct See also:line, or with its own pure splendour
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The rays had to struggle through a disturbing See also:medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and, though they might be sufficiently clear to See also:guide him, were too dim to cheer him
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With such infirmities of body and of mind, he was left, at twoand-twenty, to fight his way through the See also:world
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He remained during about five years in the midland counties
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At Lichfield, his birthplace and his early See also:home, he had inherited some See also:friends and acquired others
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He was kindly noticed by See also:
In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the time, and long forgotten, of a Latin See also:book about See also:Abyssinia
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He then put forth proposals for See also:publishing by subscription the poems of See also:Politian, with notes containing a See also:history of See also:modern Latin verse; but subscriptions did not come in, and the See also:volume never appeared
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While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson See also:fell in love
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The See also:object of his See also:passion was Mrs See also: He took a house at Edial near Lichfield and advertised for pupils . But eighteen months passedaway,and only three pupils came to his See also:academy . The " faces " that Johnson habitually made (probably See also:nervous contortions due to his disorder) may well have alarmed parents . Good scholar though he was, these twitchings had lost him usher-See also:ships in 1735 and 1736 . See also:David See also:Garrick, who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw the best See also:company of See also:London into See also:convulsions of laughter by mimicking the See also:master and his lady . At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his See also:age, determined to seek his See also:fortune in London as a literary adventurer . He set out with a few guineas, three acts of his tragedy of See also:Irene in See also:manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley . Never since literature became a calling in See also:England had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his See also:residence in London . In the preceding See also:generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the See also:Government . The least that he could expect was a See also:pension or a See also:sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he might See also:hope to be a member of See also:parliament, a lord of the See also:treasury, an See also:ambassador, a secretary of See also:state . But literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not yet begun to flourish under the patronage of the public . One man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired by his See also:pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of state . But this was a solitary exception . Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose See also:works were popular—such an author as See also:Thomson, whose Seasons was in every library, such an author as See also:Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a greater run than any See also:drama since The See also:Beggar's See also:Opera—was sometime s glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy See also:meal, on the back of a See also:Newfoundland See also:dog . It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to See also:earn a name . One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a scornful See also:eye that athletic though uncouth See also:frame, and exclaimed, " You had better get a porter's See also:knot and carry trunks." Nor was the See also:advice See also:bad, for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet . Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connexion from which he could expect more than See also:bread for the day which was passing over him . He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this time of trial . " Harry Hervey," said Johnson many years later, " was a vicious man; but he was very See also:kind to me . If you See also:call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast . But in See also:general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny-See also:worth of See also:meat and a pennyworth of bread at an alehouse near See also:Drury See also:Lane . The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his See also:temper and his deportment . His manners had never been courtly . They now became almost See also:savage . Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven . Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a See also:habit of eating with ravenous greediness . Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of See also:food affected him as it affects See also:wild beasts and birds of See also:prey . His See also:taste in See also:cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries and d la mode See also:beef shops, was far from delicate . Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a See also:hare that had been kept too long, or a meat See also:pie made with rancid See also:butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his See also:veins swelled and the moisture See also:broke out on his forehead . The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and See also:low-minded men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit into sycophancy, but made him See also:rude even to ferocity . Unhappily the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into See also:societies where he was treated with See also:courtesy and kindness . He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him . All the sufferers, however, were See also:wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except See also:Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the huge See also:fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library . About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London he was fortunate enough to obtain See also:regular employment from See also:Edward See also:Cave (q. v.) on the Gentleman's See also:Magazine . That periodical, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only one in the See also:kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circulation . Johnson was engaged to write the speeches in the " Reports of the Debates of the See also:Senate of Lilliput " (see See also:REPORTING), under which thin disguise the proceedings of parliament were published .
He was generally furnished with notes, meagre indeed and inaccurate, of what had been said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence both for the See also:ministry and for the opposition
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He was himself a Tory, not from rational conviction—for his serious See also:opinion was that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another—but from See also:mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the See also:Roman See also:circus against the Greens
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In his See also:infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs, and the dangers of the See also: He long had an aversion to the Scots, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great Rebellion . It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose See also:judgment was so much disordered by party spirit . A show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine . But Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig See also:dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition . A few See also:weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labours, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his age . It is probable that what he had suffered during his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of the See also:satire in which See also:Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of See also:Rome . Pope's admirable imitations of See also:Horace's Satires and Epistles had recently appeared, were in every See also:hand, and were by many readers thought See also:superior to the originals . What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal . Johnson's London appeared without his name in May 1738 . He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem; but the sale was rapid and the success See also:complete . A second edition was required within a See also:week . Those small critics who are always desirous to See also:lower established reputations ran about proclaiming that the See also:anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope's own See also:peculiar See also:department of literature .
It ought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, that he joined heartily in the See also:applause with which the See also:appearance of a See also:rival genius was welcomed
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He made inquiries about the author of London
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Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed
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The name was soon discovered; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor young poet
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The See also:attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack
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It does not appear that these two men, the most eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in, ever saw each other
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They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by See also:dukes and earls, the other by starving pamphleteers and See also:index-makers
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Among Johnson's associates at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in See also:bed with his arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very respectable sacred See also:poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a See also:hackney See also:coach when he was drunk; See also:Hoole, surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his See also:measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the See also:board where he sat See also:cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, See also:George See also:Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and See also:Christian fathers, indulged himself at See also:night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the See also:City
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But the most remark-able of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted was See also:Richard Savage, an See also:earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice,
who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among See also:blue ribands in St James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds See also:weight of irons on his legs in the condemned See also: He now lived by begging . He dined on See also:venison and See also:champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to See also:borrow a See also:guinea . If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of See also:hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and See also:lay down to See also:rest under the piazza of Covent See also:Garden in warm See also:weather, and, in See also:cold weather, as near as he could get to the See also:furnace of a See also:glass house . Yet in his misery he was still an agreeable companion . He had an inexhaustible See also:store of anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he was now an outcast . He had observed the great men of both parties in See also:hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition without the See also:mask of patriotism, and had heard the See also:prime See also:minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over-decent . During some months Savage lived in the closest familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, not without tears . Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave . Savage went to the See also:west of England, lived there as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743 died, penniless and heartbroken, in See also:Bristol See also:Gaol . Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited about his extraordinary character and his not less extra-ordinary adventures, a life of him appeared widely different from t |