HIS GREAT FAME DUE TO HIS ADMIRER'S BIOGRAPHY--BOSWELL'S
WORK MAKES THE DOCTOR THE BEST KNOWN LITERARY MAN OF
HIS AGE.
The last of the worthies of old English literature is Dr. Samuel
Johnson, whose monumental figure casts a long shadow over most of his
contemporaries. The man whom Boswell immortalized and made as real to us
today as though he actually lived and worked and browbeat his associates
in our own time, is really the last of the great eighteenth century
writers in style, in ways of thought and in feeling. Gibbon, who was his
contemporary, appears far more modern than Johnson because, in his
religious views and in his way of appraising historical characters, the
author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ was a hundred years
in advance of his time. Dr. Johnson therefore may be regarded as the
last of the worthies who have made English literature memorable in the
eighteenth century, and his work may fittingly conclude this series of
articles on the good old books.
[Illustration:
PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON
FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE BY
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS OWNED BY BOSWELL
THIS ENGRAVING FORMED THE FRONTISPIECE OF
THE FIRST EDITION
OF BOSWELL'S FAMOUS "LIFE"]
Yet in considering Dr. Johnson's work we have the curious anomaly of a
man who is not only far greater than anything he ever wrote, but who
depends for his fame upon a biographer much inferior to himself in
scholarship and in literary ability. _The Life of Samuel Johnson by
James Boswell Esquire_ is the title of the book that has preserved for
us one of the most interesting figures in all literature. Commonly it is
known as _Boswell's Johnson_. Though written over a hundred years ago,
it still stands unrivaled among the world's great biographies.
Boswell had in him the makings of a great reporter, for no detail of
Johnson's life, appearance, talk or manner escaped his keen eye, and for
years it was his custom to set down every night in notebooks all the
table talk and other conversation of the great man whom he worshiped. In
this way Boswell gathered little by little a mass of material which he
afterward recast into his great work. Jotted down when every word was
fresh in his memory, these conversations by the old doctor are full of
meat.
If Johnson was ever worsted in the wit combats that took place at his
favorite club, then Boswell fails to record it; but hundreds of
instances are given of the doughty old Englishman's rough usage of an
adversary when he found himself hard pressed. As Goldsmith aptly put it:
"If his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down with the butt end."
Samuel Johnson was the son of a book-seller of Litchfield. He was born
in 1709 and died in 1784. His early education was confined to a grammar
school of his native town. The boy was big of figure, but he early
showed traces of a scrofulous taint, which not only disfigured his face
but made him morose and inclined to depression. But his mind was very
keen and he read very widely. When nineteen years of age he went up to
Oxford and surprised his tutors by the extent of his miscellaneous
reading.
[Illustration:
PORTRAIT OF JAMES BOSWELL
AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
ENGRAVED BY E. FINDEN]
His college life was wretched because of his poverty, and the historical
incident of the youth's scornful rejection of a new pair of shoes, left
outside his chamber door, is probably true. Certain it is that he could
not have fitted into the elegant life of most of the undergraduates of
Pembroke College, although today his name stands among the most
distinguished of its scholars. In 1731 he left Oxford without a degree,
and, after an unhappy experience as a school usher, he married a widow
old enough to be his mother and established a school to prepare young
men for college. Among his pupils was David Garrick, who became the
famous actor. In 1737 Johnson, in company with Garrick, tramped to
London. In the great city which he came to love he had a very hard time
for years. He served as a publisher's hack and he knew from personal
experience the woes of Grub-street writers.
His first literary hit was made with a poem, _London_, and this was
followed by the _Life of Richard Savage_, in which he told of the
miseries of the writer without regular employment. Next followed his
finest poem, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. Then Johnson started a weekly
paper, _The Rambler_, in imitation of _The Spectator_, and ran it
regularly for about two years. For some time Johnson had been
considering the publication of a dictionary of the English language. He
issued his prospectus in 1747 and inscribed the work to Lord
Chesterfield. He did not secure any help from the noble lord, and when
Chesterfield showed some interest in the work seven years after, Johnson
wrote an open letter to the nobleman, which is one of the masterpieces
of English satire. In 1762 Johnson accepted a Government pension of L300
a year, and after that he lived in comparative comfort. The best
literary work of his later years was his _Lives of the Poets_, which
extended to ten volumes.
Johnson was not an accurate scholar, nor was he a graceful writer, like
Goldsmith; but he had a force of mind and a vigor of language that made
him the greatest talker of his day. He was one of the founders of a
literary club in 1764 which numbered among its members Gibbon, Burke,
Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and other famous men of genius. Though he
was unpolished in manners, ill dressed and uncouth, Johnson was easily
the leader in the debates of this club, and he remained its dominating
force until the day of his death.
[Illustration (with text):
THE LIFE OF
SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.