I have missed July, so here is a very short update from Volume 1, around Dr Johnson's youth. We have already read about his remarkable talents, and how he studied at Oxford but left after one year. To begin I am quoting Dr Johnson's later comments on youth from The Rambler, before including a brief quote about his next step in life from Boswell - he was not having a very happy time at this point, but is that unusual in youth? The highs and lows are much more marked at this stage of our lives?


Youth (by Dr Johnson, from The Rambler)


In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.



These early sections of Life of Johnson are more a chronology than a dialogue, unlike the later volumes.



In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be
employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire,
to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that
he went on foot, on the 16th of July.--'_Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes
petii_[255].' But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he
was assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has been
honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd[256], who was his scholar; for
Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730[257], more than a year before
Johnson left the University[258].

This employment was very irksome to him in every respect, and he
complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend Mr. Hector, who
was now settled as a surgeon at Birmingham.

Pembroke College, Oxford




Chapter 1- Childhood and adolescence

The first chapter of Boswell's Life of Johnson takes some sound reading. The witty dialogue and descriptions of Dr Johnson and his colourful life in London come later.





We learn that Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in Lichfield. The town has a strong history of producing literary types, as the website Enjoy England describes:


Lichfield lies just north of Birmingham and is surrounded by Staffordshire countryside with a long and rich history. Famous for its three-spired, magnificent cathedral, it has been home to some of Britain's much loved and respected dignitaries such as the writer and wit, Samuel Johnson, actor and playwright David Garrick and Erasmus Darwin, inventor, scientist and grandfather of Charles Darwin.

http://www.enjoyengland.com/destinations/find/heart-of-england/staffordshire/lichfield.aspx

From the beginning, Boswell wishes to describe the nature of Samuel Johnson’s depression, which he links to Johnson's fathers predisposition to the illness: an admirable description of the nature of the malady:

“there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness.”

Dr Johnson's father, Michael, was a bookseller, his mother, Sarah Ford, was "a woman of distinguished understanding". She was also devoutly religious. Boswell cites early examples of Johnson's powerful intellect:

When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?' said she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice

Boswell does not dwell too long on Johnson's early childhood, but soon moves onto boyhood and education: Dame Oliver, who kept a school for young children at Lichfield, and then Latin with Mr Hawkins, and then the harsher Mr Hunter, who sounds like the stereo-type of a flogging-teacher, ruling by fear, but Johnson later expressed respect for the man, explaining that there was a consistency in the way he treated the students that did not lead to resentment. From a distance of 250 years, this seems improbable, but we can only rely on Dr Johnson's own view.



Only the very wealthy or the very intelligent attended a university in the 18th century, and the latter only if fortune favoured them. For Samuel Johnson, his opportunity came about through the assistance of friends:

That a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of sending his son to the expensive University of Oxford, at his own charge, seems very improbable. The subject was too delicate to question Johnson upon. But I have been assured by Dr. Taylor that the scheme
never would have taken place had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one of his schoolfellows, spontaneously undertaken to support him at Oxford, in the character of his companion; though, in fact, he never received any assistance whatever from that gentleman[170]





Johnson attended Pembroke College at Oxford in 1728 and 1729, but suffered from poverty and an acute episode of depression.



Nonetheless, Johnson read voraciously:



From his earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end; that he read Shakespeare at a period so early, that the speech of the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone[211]; that Horace's Odes were the compositions in which he took most delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles and Satires. He told me what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer[212] and Euripides, and now and then a little Epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphysicks, but he had not read much, even in that way.



Boswell here shows some of the insight which later graces other parts of his book. He observes that Dr Adams told him "that Johnson, while he was at Pembroke College, "was caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicsome fellow, and passed the happiest part of his life". But this is a striking proof of the fallacy of appearances, and how little any of us know of the real internal state even of those whom we see frequently."

Dr Johnson did not take a degree, and left Oxford in 1729.

Launched upon the world - the first advertisement

Pictured: James Boswell (1740 to 1795)

James Boswell's Life of Johnson was published in 1791. The first covering advertisement can be found at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8jhn110.txt

The advertisement begins with the bold words “I at last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and of which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised.”

James Boswell, as forthright as ever, reminds his readers of the work involved in this labour of love. He speaks of the "labour and anxious attention" undertaken with the work; and having "spared no pains" in his attention to detail. I can't argue with Boswell's assertions, although others at the time were critical of his recording of conversations. But there can be no doubt as to Boswell's huge commitment and talent in assembling this huge creative work.

Dr Johnson had died in 1784, and even as Boswell released his biography, the world had changed and was changing dramatically. The French Revolution had taken begun in 1788. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man had been published (theoretically banned in Britain but widely circulated): both these events sent shock waves through English society. The industrial revolution was gathering pace, with its increased social change and upheaval.

This was the "world" into which Boswell published his account of Dr Johnson, already a man from a past age, a towering figure, a man of words and thoughts and ideas. London was the centre of England culture, and England was slowly expanding its empire. It is interesting to note however that in 1801, the population of greater London was estimated at 1.1 million (the population of England was about 8 million). English literature towers head and shoulders over the western world, but England's population at the time of many of its greats (Johnson, Jane Austen, Lord Byron) was relatively small by 21st century standards.

At the same time, the penal settlement at Sydney Cove was a mere three years old, and English literature was a long way from the minds from the vast majority of convicts, soldiers and settlers there. Notheless, there were those who valued books, especially when they had travelled through storm and tempest, thousands of miles by ship. One example of this value is seen in a Sydney Gazette ad just a few yers later:
BORROWED from the Gazette Office, an Octavo Volume, FERGUSON'S ASTRONOMY.-It
'is now much wanted, and there fore requested to be Returned"
We do not know if copies of Boswell's Life of Johnson made it in these early days to Australian shores!

In the meantime, Life of Johnson was an instant success. We move next into the nitty gritty of Boswell's work.

An old fashioned dedication

These days, dedications tend to be short and sweet. "To Amanda, my inspiration" or something along those lines. So when we read Boswell's Dedication, it is tempting to ignore it as being overly-verbose, or in the Australian manner, pure bull_ _ _ _.

Dedications, however, were a big part of the tradition in English literature. Boswell's tribute is to Sir Joshua Reynolds, a celebrated English painter and friend of Dr Johnson - his portrait of Johnson features in the first blog. Reynolds provided support and assistance to Boswell as he compiled his Life of Johnson, and Boswell's gratitude was genuine.

Having said that, I did have to read the following sentence three times before I got a handle on it:

If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those feelings?

I think what James Boswell is saying here (correct me if I’m wrong) is that if you’re going to do a dedication, there’s no one better to do a dedication to, than Sir Joshua Reynolds?

But I digress. After this initial flurry of praise, Boswell gets down to business. He introduces a theme that permeates the book; that of Mr Johnson, a great man, but a man with flaws: "Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand
composition; all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus."

We read on.

Introducing Dr Johnson

Introducing Dr Johnson

James Boswell's Life of Johnson, published in 1791, is a classic of English Literature. It is the most celebrated biography in the English language. Boswell, through prolonged research and reference to the transcripts of his many conversations with Johnson, created a masterpiece.

I inherted a copy of Life of Johnson - in three volumes - from my grandfather. So I am setting out to read and comment on the entirity over a fairly long period, I suspect. I will be delighted If I am joined along the way by other Johnson-a-files (or phobes).

Why Dr Johnson?

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709 to 1784) was one of the most eminent literary figures of his day, although it is probably his English Dictionary, published in 1755, that is still best known today.

James Boswell brings Johnson to life. Through Boswell's writing we find Johnson's sparkling converstaion, his eccentricities and his outbursts of outraged opinion - these make him an engaging subject, someone who we will find ourselves arguing with often. My grandfather did this too, often writing comments in the margins of the book with exclamation marks, that still ring out 80 years after they were put down! I will add these to the blog as we go along.

Also, I want to learn more about the period - because 18th century England seemed to carry such a spirit of enquiry, which to our jaded 21st century thinking, seems amazingly optimistic. I have often admired the way that the writers, scientists, and other assorted deep-thinkers of the age tried to "nail" their subject matter. Somehow, it made their life seem more three dimensional than ours.

My method

For each chunk of text that I read, I will post a summary and try and draw out the main themes. Did I agree with Johnson on this point, or did I think it was bull _ _ _ _ ? What do I observe of Johnson's character, and what of the London which he lived in? What do we find out about James Boswell's personality also? Does the thinking of that age challenge my own attitudes?

I am going to use links to gutenberg to identify the text on line as I go. So here we go. My first chunk will be a small one: Boswell's first advertisement and dedication - stay tuned. I look forward to your comments!

Post script

What would Dr Johnson have thought of the word "blog"? (Blog is short for Web Log) Not much, no doubt, but he would not have denied its right to exist. He wrote in the introduction to his dictionary "sounds are too volatile and subtle for legal restraints, to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertaking of pride."