Dr Johnson

192 Pages·1987·16.95 MB·English

by  Norman Page (eds.)

Dr Johnson
Interviews and Recollections
In the same series
Philip Collins (editor)
DICKENS: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
THACKERAY: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
J. R. Hammond (editor)
H. G. WELLS: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
David McLellan (editor)
KARL MARX: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
E. H. Mikhail (editor)
BRENDAN BEHAN: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
W. B. YEATS: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
LADY GREGORY: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
OSCAR WILDE: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
Harold Ore! (editor)
KIPLING: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
Norman Page (editor)
BYRON: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
D. H. LAWRENCE: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS (2 volumes)
TENNYSON: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
HENRY JAMES: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
R. C. Terry (editor)
TROLLOP£: INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
Series Standina Order
If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they
are published, you can make use of our standing order
facility. To place a standing order please contact your
bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address
below with your name and address and the name of the
series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your
standing order. (If you live outside the UK we may not have
the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your
order to the publisher concerned.)
Standing Order Service, Macmillan Distribution Ltd,
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG212XS, England.
DR JOHNSON
Interviews and Recollections
Edited by
Norman Page
Professor of Modern English Literature
University of Nottingham
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
Selection and editorial matter© Norman Page 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1987
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Dr Johnson: interviews and recollections.
I. Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784-
Biography 2. Authors, English-
18th century-Biography
I. Page, Norman
828' .609 PR3533
ISBN 978-1-349-08288-9 ISBN 978-1-349-08286-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-08286-5
To E. E. Kirby
johnsonian and mentor
Contents
Acknowledgement IX
Introduction XI
A Johnson Chronology XXI
INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS
PART I THE YEARS OF OBSCURITY
Early Days William Shaw 3
First Lessons Hester Lynch Piozzi 7
Schooldays Edmund Hector 9
Oxford Various Sources 10
Marriage Hester Lynch Piozzi 12
The Dictionary William Shaw 14
Johnson Receives the News of his Pension Arthur Murphy 17
PART II APPEARANCE AND HABITS
'Born a logician' Arthur Murphy 21
'An Irish chairman' William Temple 23
'Continual agitation' Fanny Burney 24
'Well, thou art an ugly fellow .. .' William Cooke 26
'So extremely short-sighted' Thomas Percy 28
'At length he began .. .' Ozias Humphry 30
'A bountiful disposition' Thomas Tyers 31
Eating and Tea-drinking Sir John Hawkins 34
'Rather a disgraceful visitor' Letitia Hawkins 35
'This extraordinary man' Sir Joshua Reynolds 36
Johnson and Reynolds James Northcote 41
Johnson and Dr Burney Madame d'Arblay 50
Cradock is 'landed' Joseph Cradock 55
A Visit to Johnson Sarah More 59
'His intellectual storehouse' Richard Cumberland 60
Anecdotes ofJ ohnson Various Sources 61
Dr Johnson at the Chelsea China Manufactory Thomas Faulkner 64
Perambulating with Johnson Mr Wickins 65
Vll
Vlll CONTENTS
PART III THE STREATHAM YEARS
Life at Streatham I Hester Lynch Thrale 69
Life at Streatham II Thomas Campbell 84
Life at Streatham III Fanny Burney 88
Life at Streatham IV Hester Lynch Pio;:;;:;i 101
Life at Streatham V Frances Reynolds 107
PART IV TRAVELLING WITH JOHNSON
Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen Thomas Tyers 115
Cambridge(l765) B.N.Turner 116
Scotland ( 1773) James Boswell 123
Shrewsbury and Birmingham ( 1774) Hester Lynch Thrale 130
France I (1775) Hester Lynch Thrale 131
France II ( 1775) Hester Lynch Pio;:;;:;i 133
Oxford ( l 782) Hannah More 134
PART V LAST DAYS
'A very melancholy spectacle' Anna Seward 139
'Extremely far from well' Fanny Burney 140
'This great and good man' Madame d'Arblay 143
'A prey to melancholy' Hannah More 152
The Final Weeks I John Hoole 154
The Final Weeks II Sir John Hawkins 163
Last Requests to Reynolds William Shaw 17 2
'Genius, learning and piety' Charles Burney 17 2
Index 174
Acknowledgement
The editor and publishers wish to thank Oxford University Press for
permission to reprint the extracts from Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs
Hester Lynch Thrale 1776-1809, edited by Katharine C. Balderston (2nd
edn, 1951) vol. l.
IX
Introduction
'He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth
while to place them.' Thus Macaulay on Boswell; and, pursuing the
metaphor on the back of a famous eighteenth-century racehorse, he
added, 'Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.' Macaulay's aphorism is
calculated to save the student ofJ ohnson a good deal of trouble, but it is
very far from the truth. To be sure, Boswell is by far the greatest of
Johnson's biographers, and his portrait is unrivalled in its amplitude
and its richness of detail; not only did he prepare himself more doggedly
than did anyone else for the massive task, but he devised a superbly
effective interviewing and notetaking technique, often in defiance of
social decorum: 'Boswell's conversation consists entirely in asking
questions, & it is extremely offensive', wrote Thomas Campbell, 1 and
others were disconcerted or displeased when he sat aside from the
company to make a written record of what was taking place. It is,
however, grossly misleading to suggest that attention to Johnson's
numerous other biographers and memoirists is 'not worth while'. This
volume brings together some of their evidence, and in more ways than
one it supplements the picture given by Boswell.
There are, for instance, episodes in Johnson's life, even in his later
years, that Boswell leaves unmentioned or narrates in only the sketchiest
terms, usually because he was not directly involved. Perhaps more
importantly, his hero-worship of Johnson, touching and admirable
though it is, makes it refreshing to turn to the more astringent records in
which, with greater frankness or even downright hostility, others have
shown different sides ofJ ohnson's nature and behaviour. When all due
allowances have been made for the conscious and unconscious
distortions of envy and wounded egotism, not all of these unBoswellian
accounts can be dismissed: to cite another example from Campbell, it
seems at least as likely as not that Johnson actually delivered his views on
the respective attractions of two of life's sensual delights (see p. 86),
even though Boswell never presents him as speaking in this vein. It also
remains true, of course, that at certain times some of Johnson's other
friends-Fanny Burney, for instance-rivalled Boswell in their love and
admiration.
'No literary character ever excited so much attention,' said Arthur
Murphy. The Romantic cult of authorial personality was just round the
corner, yet not even Byron is shown to us through the eyes of others as
intimately as is Johnson. Unlike some later literary celebrities, it was
XI