REVIEW ARTICLE
Quo Vadi,s?
Samuel Johnson
in the New Millennium
ANTHONY W. LEE
Kentuchy
Wesley
an College
In the preface to O N{ Brack's outstanding edition of SamuelJohnson's
translation and annotation of Jean Pierre de Crousaz's A Commentary
on Mr. Pope's Principles of Moralitl, the editor retails a lively anecdote
featuring preeminerrtJohnson scholarJ. D. Fleeman, author of the rvork
that caps t\\ro centuries of Johnsonian scholarship, the tlvo-volume,
nearly two thousand-page A Bibliography of the Works of Samuel Johnson:
'A story goes that when [Fleeman] arrived in Oxford for post-graduate
study, he had to decide which author he should pick. Onlv Williarn
Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson were truly major English literan'
figures, he thought, and since Shakespeare had numerous advocates,
he choseJohnson" (xii). Perhaps fetv readers would hazard to equate
This essav revierrs thc fbilowirrq bcioks: PaulJ. Kor-shir.r anclJack Lvnch. eds.. Izr
.\ge oj'.fohnson:
-\
\cltalarh -\rinutl.
r'ol lo r\er'\-ork: -\\IS Press. 2005). pp.
xiv-373:
Jack Lvnch and -\nne \lcDerrnott. ed:.. lllir rriarr Et-rari r-)n Johnsali's Dictte,rtart.
(\err Yolk ancl Can-rbridee: Cambridse Lnrrersitr Pres.. ltt(.)5r. pp. ri-2-15: Horrard D.
\\-einbrot. -1,spects oj SuntuelJohrison;E,iia,rl r;r: Hir -1rl-i. -\Iini. .\fterllJt. atid Polittcs (\err'ark:
Universitr of Delarrarc Press.2i)t-t5r. pp.-1 17: O \1 BrackJr.. ec1.. .\ Contrnentarl on
)Ir. Pope's Prtnciples o1 -\Ioralit:. rrr Essa_l ort ]lon. io1. 17 ol The lalt Edttion oJ'the ll-orhs
o.f Samuel Johnsorr, ed. John H. \Iiddendorf (\ers Halen. CT: \'a1e Lnirersin Press,
200a), pp. x+441;David Hankins andJarnesJ. Caudle. eds., 7.te General Correspondence
of James Bosuell, 1757-1753, t'ol.9 of The Yale Edition of the Prit'ate Papers of James
Bosuell: Research Edition, Correspondence, ed. Gordon Turnbull (Netr, Haven, CT, and
London: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. ix+486; GwinJ. Kolb and Robert DeNlariaJr.,
eds.,.lohnson on the English Language, r,ol. 18 of The Yale Edition of the llorhs of Samuel
Johnson (Nelv Havcn, C'I: Yale Universitv Press, 2005), pp. x+506; Roger Lonsdale, ecl.,
The Liues of the Poets,4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. vi+440, r,iii+425,
vii+462 viii+6.19; Helen Deutsch, Loaing Dr. Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005), pp. ix+322; Allen Reddick, ed., Samuel .Johnson's Unl1ublished Reaision.s to
the "Dictionary of the English Language": A FacsimiLe Edition (New York and Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. v+425. These works are cited bv page numbcr
in parentheses in the text.
O 2007 bv Tlre University of Chicago.
All rights reserved. 0026-823212007 /1.0404-0003$ 10.00
529
530
NIODL,RN PHILOI-OGY
Shakespeare's opulent irnaginative universe to Johnson's oeuvre, lr'hich,
at least according to conventional r'visdorn, is rather stolidl,v comlron-
sensical and suspicious of a dangerous prevalence of imagination.
Johnson himself perhaps ma,v be laken to irnplicitl,v endorse this eval-
uation n'hen he prefers, in his 1747 "Drurv-Lane Prologue," Shakespeare's art, rvhich from "Each Change of manl'colour'd Life . .
drew, / Exhausted Worlds, and then imagin'd nerv," to that of BenJonson-rnore amenabie, perhaps, to Johnson's o\rl1 artistic practicervhich advocated a "studious Patience, and laborious Art" that "B,v
regular Approach essal-'d the Heart."I Yet, the r-olurninous and substantial impact of Johnson's influence upon British ctlltttre and the
irnmense secondarv literature devoted to Johnson in the -\ngloAmerican scholarlv cornnrunity (to say nothing of Johnson's appeal
to the global comnrunitr- of scholars and common readers) certail-rly
testify toJohnson's errduring irnportance. Perhaps Fleeman u'as right.
Yet even if not, Johnson is otre of a handful of aspirants who might
mount a credible cirallenge to such a loft-v claim. The rvealth of recent
publications onJol-rnsor-r. ir-rcluciing both textual editions and critical
elucidations, several of rvi-rich this revieu' article offers to surYe\', corroboratesJohnson's continr-ling itltcrcit atld relevance to our time.
Dominated bv u'orks der-oted to the Dzclzorzatt-coittciding rr-ith rhe
250th anniversarv of the publication of the first edition ln 175:1-the
collection of books at hand invites the questiorl. '\\-hat is the current
condition of Johnsonian studies?" Fortuuateh'. tl.re books sun'everl in
this essay uniformlv rise to the highest scholariv and critical standardsthere are no lemons here and much brilliance' A prelirlinarv ans\{er
to the question, then, rvould be that the field of Sanrr-relJohnson (and
James Bosrvell) studies at the beginning of the nerr-millennirrm is
robust indeed, rendering null C. B. Tinker's blitheiv misguided earl,v
twentieth-century assessment that little is left to sav about Johnson:
"So much has been rvritten of Samuel Johnson that it u'ould now be
unwise, if it r,vere possible, to avoid the commonplaces of criticisrn."2
But what is the nature of this critical vigor? Tiiis article will interrogate
current and pending trends in Johnsonian and Bosu'ellian studies and
will speculate on the future of the field.
An initial response r,rpon first picking up Hol-ard Weinbrot's Aspects
oJ SamuelJohnson: Essals on His Arts, Mind, AJierlife, and Politics-the title
.
1. SamuelJohnson, "f)rurl'Lane Prologue," lines 3-'1, 11-12, in The Poems rtJ San'uel
cd. (Oxford: clarcndon,
Johnson, ecl. David Nichol Smith ancl Edrvard L. \,IcAdams, 2nc1
1974),107.
2. Chauncey Brervster Tinker. ed., Dr..lohnson and I'annr Bu.rney: Being tlrc.fohtt.rottirtn
1911; repr., \\'cstport,
Jrom the \|orhs oJ Mme. D'Arbl,q (Nerv York: Ir'Ioffat, Yhrcl,
CT Creenrro,,rl, 19701. rrri-rrr ii.
Passages
Anthonl
\4r.
Lee o
Johnson
in the Nezu Nlillennium
53i
perhaps glances incidentalh. at his 1972 lieu Aspects oJ'Lexicographtmay be one of reservation. Most of these essavs have appeared elsewhere; onll'tu-o, 'Johnson and Genre" and "Obstinate Contests of
Disagreeing \''irtues," are u,holly nelr,. This raises the specter of an
ad hoc miscellany reflecting the publication and rhetorical occasions
of the author's life, and this suspicion is heightened by the division
of the book into four thematic sections of unequal length. Such reservations should be left at the door, horvever, for the strengths of this
rich collection by one of the erninent scholars in eighteenth-century
studies today amply outrveigh anv presumptive neaknesses.
Weinbrot's two recent books, -\spects and Menippean Satire Reconsiclered: From Anticyrity to the Eighteenth Century (2005), signai that, in
the midst of his fifth decade of reading and teaching, thinking and
rvriting aboutJohnson and the eighteenth century, Weinbrot's critical
energies remairr vigorous and unabated. A.spects, as its title suggests,
co\-ers marn' points in tl-ie Johnsonian literarv corpus-the Dictionarl,
the periodical essavs,rlourneN to the Western 1sles, the
Liues, and so on-but the most persistent focus is LlponJohnson's
poetr,v, underscoring the rel'rabilitatiorr of Johnson as a major poetic
voice by tlentieth-centurv scholars. -\ sood third of the essays focus
onJohnson's poems, arrd four tl'eat a single one, The Vanity of Hutnan
Wishes, the book ciimacticalh' concluding rvith a two-part meditation
on Johnson's greatest poetic achievement.
Weinbrot organizes his material into four general categories:
'Arts," "Nlind," 'Afterlife," and "Politics." In 'Arts" he treats primaril-v
aesthetic issues:Johnson as poet,.fohnson's prose st14e, ancl his narrative strategies. The section on "N{ind" is concerned rvithJohnson's inteliectual life, examining such issues as .fohnsor-r's use of conceptual
categories like universal versr,rs particular. genre. ar-rcl Jol-rnson's relation to skepticism. The thircl categolr.. "-\fterlife." contains two
essa\.s stuclr.ing. rcspectivel\.. John-son's reception bv a single indi
vidual-the onetinle acimirer tulned bittel enenn'. Percir-al Stockdaleand by an entire culture. eigl-rteenth- and nineteenth-centLrrv France.
The final categor\', "Politics." offers \\:einbrot's rejoinder to the claims
of recent critics thatJohnson \\'as a covertJacobite and non juror.3
\Veinbrot's forte has alu'ays been historicallv contextualized readings, and this volume exemplifies his approach. Examination of one
Rasselas, Sarage,
3. This Torl rer,isionism finds its strongest articul;rtion inJ. C. D. Clark, Enplish Socictl,
1688- 1832: Ideolog, Socinl Structure and PolitircL Practie tluring the Ancien Regitne (Cam'
bridge Ur-riversitl Press, 1985); ancl .1.C.D.Clark and Honard Erskine-Hill, Samrel
Johrt-tott in Historital Contaxl (Neiv York: Palsrayc Nlacrnillan, 2002); scc also thc spccial
section on "SamuelJohnson andJacobitisnr" in l/za Age of .lohn.son: A St:hoktrly -\nnual,
lo1. S. ed. PanlJ. Korshin (Nov \brk:
199ti).
'\1,{S,
532
MODERN PHILOLOGY
representative essay will suggest rvhat the others offer. Chapter 10,
"'Obstinate Contests of Disagreeing Virtues': Johnson, Skepticism, the
But Clause, and the Dialectical Imperative," queries a controversial
point: Johnson's relationship rvith his great intellectual nemesis, David
Hume.4 It then moves to affirm Weinbrot's orvn position on the controvers,v, followed by an expansive marshaling of e"'idence in support
of this position drarvn from his wide reading in the texts of the period.
\,\'einbrot observes that some critics (specifically Ernest Ntlossner, Adam
Potkay, and Stephen Miller, though he later eniarges the category to
include the r.enerable W.J. Bate andJames Clifford) have contended
thatJohnson's consert,atir,e religious temperament is undermined by
his possession of a radical skepticism. This aligns him u'ith his purported ideological ellem\', Hume, so thatJohnson's virulent resPonse
to Hume's freethinking operates to disguise the disquiet of Johnson's
own suppressed skeptical tendencies. \!'einbrot strongly disagrees u'ith
this diagnosis, finding in it the substitution of "a new myth for an old
reality," the realin'being thatJohnson remains a traditional Christian
who opposed Humean skepticism rr'ith great vigor because skepticism
"remove[s] the chief source of happiness in this rvorld and the next"
(217,21e).
Weinbrot slipports his position br. accumulating el'idence drau'n
from a nide range of Johnsonian texts-the pravers and meditations,
sermons, the Dictionary, the Vision of Thectdore. The \anitt of Htrman
Wishes, Rasselos. the Rambler, Aduentttrer. and 1d1ar essavs, Life of
Sctuage, Lit-tes of the Poets, and Bosr,vell's LiJe and Tour of the Hebrides-as
rvell as frorn such contemporary authors asJohn Dn'den, Shaftesburv,
.fohn Brortn,Joseph Glanvill, andJames Beattie. It is difficult to resist
the massir,e mobilization of Weinbrot's references. Yet this impressire
array of er,idence fails to respond to a key issue. Weinbrot bases his
case entirely on Johnson's conscious intentions, perhaps too quicklv
dismissing as "mock-Freudian theorl"' (216) the unconscious rnotivations that Mossner and others posit.'Nevertheless, even if one rvere
inclined to drar,v different conclusions than Weinbrot proposes, his
arguments, always delivered rr,ithin the texture of a lucid, forceful, and
often engagingly witty prose stvle, operate as an exciting inteliectual
4. In Bosr{ell's Lit'e ol lohnsan, although thev are never brought together face-to-face,
ChrisJohnson is frequentlv corlpared to Hume, the former representing tr-zrditional
tianitr', thc latter athcistic freethinking.
5. Ernest Carnpbell N'Iossncr, The Forgotten Hu,me: I-e bon Dauid (New York: Columbia
Universit,v Prcss, 19'{3); Adam Potkav, The Passion Jor Happiness: Samuel Johnsn'n onr}
Daaitl Hume (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); Stephen Miller, Three Dcnths
anrl Enli.ghtenment ThotLght: Humc, Jobnson, Marat (Lervisburg, PA: Bucknell Unirersift'
Press,2001).
Anthonl W. I-ee
o
Johnson
in
the Neu N[illennium
533
experience. Few eighteenth-century scholars practicing their craft today
can claim to have read as widely and deeply as he, and his essays always
genuinely educate. For example, apart from one's acceptance or rejection of the r,alidity of \&'einbrot's thesis, this essay re.wards us with
one of those flashes that illuminate the prose of a scholar who has
lived thoughtfully with Johnson for a lifetime. In addressing the dialectical nature of Johnson's thought and writing, \A'einbrot offers this
compeliing picture of Johnson's intellectual procedures: 'Johnson acts
promptly if deliberately in deciding the positive and negative aspects
of a human activity like cardplaving or almsgiving as based on a specific
human context. His conversation is often like his Ramblers in . . . their
thinking to the mornent under the pressures of time and circumstance.
We find these processes plaved out before us, though I think those
pressures enhance rather than determineJohnson's favored mode of
proceeding" (226).
"Obstiriate Contexts" also confirrns Weinbrot's position as a mili
tantlv traditionai scholar! one u,ho vigorouslv combats the encroachments of post-1968 theoretical incursions intoJohnsonian studies. His
opposition to those u'ho u'ould find Johnson and Hume congenial
bedmates extends to a larger project, to the critical "blend of the old
New Criticism and its cousin deconsrruction," nhich finds plurality,
indeterminacy, and relativism even'u'here in Johnson's thought and
writing (223-24). Readers rrho approach-|ohnson from a moie theoretically inflected understanding mar'find this r-olume unpalatable in
its basic presuppositions, especiallv- in its resisrance to the deployment
of recent theoretical approaches, in which \A,'einbrot sees "the danger
of positing a literary or cultural theory that the author or rexr is then
assumed to reflect" (22). Weinbrot aspires to produce a version of
Johnson free of any taint of an agenda, and hence as objectively true
as possible. \et'ertheless, as acquaintance with the secondary literature
der-oted to Johnson reveals, there is no one johnson. The process of
interpretative dispute began shortlv afterJohnson's death, as SirJohn
Harr'kins. Hester Thrale Ptozzi. Arthur N{urph1', and Boswell struggled to defirre and retail their various appraisals of him. The tnentieth
centurv has rritnessed several important versions of Johnson: among
others, Donald Greene's intpassioned progressi".e; Bate's heroically
tragic melancholic: Robert Dellaria's Renaissance humanist.tl Aspects
of Satnnel Joh.nson confrdentlv advances \\:einbrot's humanistic traditionalist t'ersion.
6. Donald Greene, The Politics ol Samuel Johnson, 2nd ed. (Athens: University of
Ceorgia Press, 1990); WalterJackson Bare, Sarn ucl.lohnson (Neru York: Harcourt Br.ace
.]ovarrovich. 1977); Robert Dc\IariaJr., The Life oJ SarnuelJohnson: A Critical Biographl
{Carlrbridge. MA: Rlackrvell, 1993).
\IODERN PFIILOI,OGY
5-l+
installment of this annual
Founded nearlY two
scel]e.
his
conternporary
devoted toJohnson and
as an important
has
sen'ed
series
this
decades ago bv Paul Korshin,
its
essays-usuallv
through
studies
vehicle for prornotine Johnsonian
seasoned
and
critics
rvith
scholars
including both le1r'I1' emerging
The Age of .loltnson 16 is the mosr recent
iqu s. t evit'tr essa) s. and sllecial issues enlarging
upon particular critical issues. Sadl,v, this vcllume marks the loss of its
r
ctclans-hor1
1€'f
founder, lr,ho died on Nlarch 2, 2005. Survivins editor Jack Lvnch
dedicates this volume to Korshin-only the second tirne such an honor
has been bestowed-and reflects poignantly uporr Korshin's devotion
toJohnson studies: ",A. dedicated scholar to the errd, he had ti're page
proof for this volume beside his hospital bed. In mr'last discussion
rvith hirn, the dav before his death, he was energeticall-v rnaking plans
for Voiume 17 and bevond" (x).
Of the thirteen orig-inal essa\-s in Aga ctf Johnson 16, seven directly
addressJohnson and/or Boslell. In "-Rasselas and thc Riddle of the
Cales." N'Iichael Karounos argues cogelltiv for the existence of tu''o
dialecticallv controlling temporal tlolles in Rrzsselns, the "choice of
life" r,ersus the "choice for eternin'"-that is to sar'. the urge to live
fullv and experientiallr. in the rr'orid at haI-rd versus the desire to rise
above time into transcendence. Part of Karounos's argumellt depends
upon the intrieuing conjecture that the r,ariable italicization of the tu'o
phrases "happ," r'alley" and "choice of life" (variations unfortunateiv
elided by the editorial practice of the Yale Edition) typographicallv encodes sernantic information, Ieading Karounos to cousider Rasselas a
sarire upon the mode of thought that futilel-v seeks to fill the r-oid of
spilitual discontent rvith the ceaseless spin of temporal zrctir-in'. Tl-ris
and much else in this condensed :rnd thotlgl-rt-pr-or oking essay are
orth-v of serious consideratiot-l.
N{ichaei Btrndock's "}ohnson ancl \\-omeu in Bosu e11's LiJe ofJoh,nson"
offers a ne\\- perspectite on a vexecl topic that has garnered consider-
'n
able interest of late-Johnson's relationship u.ith rtotnen. Specifically,
Bundock considers the valiclin' of a critical toPos that has recently
attained critical consensLts: that.Johnson's still-lirrgering reputation as
a misogvnist (dancing dogs, etc.) is a coin of Rosv,'ell's rninting and
thatJohnson's purported chauvinism der-il'es principallv from Bosr'r'ell's
febrile projection of his ow1 views into his portrait of Johnson in the
I-tfe.7 Exantining three particular points-Johnson's sexually explicit
7. See, e.g., .|ames G. Basket', "Dirncing Dogs, \\klnen Prcachers and the II1'th of
Korshiu
]ohnson's Nlisogynv." ir The :\ge of .lohnson: -\ *:httlat'l\ Annual, vol. 3. ed. PaulJ'
(Neu York: ANIS, 1990), 63-90, :rnd his "N'Ivth upon NIYth:Johnson. Ccnder, ancl tl-re
Anthonl \\'.
Lee o
Johnson
in the New l[illennium
55:)
in the Ltft
of Johnson's intellectual relationships with \\romen such as Frances
Burney and Piozzi-Bundock challenges this consensus, convincinglv
arguine that Bosrvell cannot be held accountable forJohnson's chauvinistic viervs upon matters such as the double standard and the inequalitv of the sexes. An important implication of this conclusion is
that u,e cannot necessarih' trust the progressive version of Johnson
emphatically urged by the recent literature, leaving us rvith the uncomfortable conclusion that [ohnson lvas "perhaps more a man of his
time than rve might u,ish" (,'Lge of Johnson 16, 10'1).
Thomas E. Kinsella's "The Pride of Literature: Arthur N{urphy's
Essa\ on Johnson" offers a scholarly exposition of an important, if
neglected, contribution to our knowledge of Johnson. Arthur Murphl',
a talentcd nrirrt,r'aulltor. \^as an intimate metnber of theJohns,rnian
sanctunl sanctorlim and contributed decisiveiy to Johnson's personai
life and literary career.8 In 1792, Nlurphy replaced Han'kins as the
editor of Johnson's lilorks, therebv producing a biography of JohnsonAn Esscty on the Life and Genius of Samuel Jcthnson, LL.D.-that heads
c:omments, Johnson's misogynist remarks, and the omission
Nlurphy's edition. Kinsella argues that this Essay has been unjustlv ol'ershadowed by the more r'r,el1-kno\{n accounts of Hawkins, Bosr'r'ell, and
Piozzi, and he arglres persuasir-eh' for a serious reconsideration of it.
Kinsella's detailed :rnah'sis cif \l-rrphr-'s text nnds that. apart frorn the
occasionallv episodic gems that appear nou'here else, the principal
rnerit of N{urphv's Essa_1 issues fron-r its intertertual exchanges
"r'ith
the rival contemporary biographies-Harr-kins's. Piozzi's, and Bosrvell's.
N{y or,vn contribution to this r,olume, 'Johnson's Svrnbolic \'Ientors:
Addison, Dryden, and Rambler 86," uses The Rcr.mbler, no. 86, the Dic-
tionar\, the "Life of l)ryden," the "Life of Addison," and the letter to
Chesterfield to analyze the syrnbolic rnentoring relationships Johnson
establisheci rr-ith Joseph Addison and Drlden-relationships that en:rbied Johnson to identif-r, and realize his authorial ambitions as rvell
as to define and articulzrte his version of the literarv mentoring experience. The essav seeks to denronstrate and exploreJohnson's agonistic
vierr of mentoring ar-rd to trace er.idence attd exarnples of conflicts rvith
his ou,r-r mentors ir-rJohnson's u"ritings.
\Iisogr-u-Qucstion," in Korshin, -\ge of Johnson 8, 17ir-ll7t and thc essavs contzrincd in
Clrarlcs H. Hinnant, ecl., 'Johnsol and Gender," special issue, SotLth Centrul Retieiu, vci.9,
no. -1 i\\-rnter 1992).
8. For example, he introduced Johnson to the Thrales, a maior turning point in
.Johnson's life, and negotiatecl the bestorval of Johnson's pcnsion, uirich significantl,v
affected the mcasure and natule of his later literar-v procluction.
5.ro
MODERN PHILOLOGY
Finally, trvo essays fiom Age of Johnson 16 deal rvith the Dictionary. In
"The Compilation Methods of Johnson's Dictionary," Anne McDerrnott
meticulously sifts through contemporary accounts of dictionary compilation, as rvell as archival evidence, to shed light on the nature of
Johnson's compositional methods. McDermott speculates that the four
contradictorv surviving eighteenth-century descriptions of howJohnson
went about compiling the Dictionarl (Hawkins, Bosrvell, Percy, and the
anonvlnous W N.) perhaps account for the different methodological
stases that evolved out of Johnson's hands-on editing experience. She
furthermore offers a speculative account of the m-\.'sterious series of
cross-out strokes fbund in both the Sneyd-Gimbel materials and the
papers deposited at the British lluseum.!l NlcDermott here-as elservhere-has greatly revised and enlarged our knor,vledge of the details
attendant upon the creation of Johnson's Dictionary even as her efforts
remind us that much in this area i-emains shrouded in mysterv. While
McDermott scrutinizes the prelife of the Dictionary, Catherine Dille's
'Johnscrn's Dictiona'rl in the Nineteenth Centun-" looks to its culturally
expansive afterlif'e. Dille explores the cultural prestige and influence
wielded bv the Dictionart in Victorian literature-examining such
rvriters as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Caskell, and, of course! \\rilliarn
Makepeace Thackerar,-as'rvell as examining the numerous posthumous
editions and popular abridgments. Dille finds thatJohnson's Dictionarl
emblematized an English cultural authority at once revered and resisted b-v those within its compass-a dialectic that extends to the
deplol'ment of English national hegemony in the voice of Johnson's
Dictionary rvithin the British Ernpire, particularly India.
McDermott's and Dille's pieces offer a convenient segue into the
next three books, each of which focuses entirely upon what many view
as Johnson's greatest acconrplishment, and each of which was timed
to coincide rvith the 250th annir:ersarv in 2005 of the publication of
the first edition ( 1755) of Johnsor-r's Dictionar\ of the English Language.
Both NlcDermott and Di1le appear in the first book u-e shall consider,
Anniuer.sary Essals on Johnsort's "Dictionart," of rvhich \IcDermott is
coeditor, rvith Jack Lvnch. In addition to commemorating Johnson's
first edition, Lynch and N{cDermott's volume recalls the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Gu'in Kolb and James Siedd's groundbreaking Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: Essays in the Biography of a Book (1955).
Both books were sponsored bt' a team of collaborative scholars, and
both attempt a revisionarf interrention into contemporarl' critical
9. For a
fuller discussion of these papers, see m1' discussion of Reddick,
.fohruon'.s Llnpiltli.slted fi eliliorz.s, belorv.
Samuel
Anthon\
14'.
Lee o
Johnson
in the New Millennium
5.1
I
apprehension of Johnson's great lexicographic achievement. The Anni'
uersar\ editors proclaim their goal at the outset: "\{'e hope to bring to
bear on Johnson's Dictionarl the most recent research carried out in
the distinct fields of literary scholarship, bibliography, textual criticism,
corpus linguistics, and historical lexicography. In the process we hope
to disturb some received ideas about the Dictionary and to suggest
new avenues for research that have so far been neglected" (1). Lynch
and McDermott have assembled an outstanding list of contributors for
realizing this intention, including rnost of the leading scholars studying the Dictionar\ todav. A survev of the results confirms that, almost
without exception, the goal 1.ras been realized.
Paul Korshin launches the collection with "The N'I,vthology of
Johnson's Dictir,tnary"-an effort that is perhaps the 'rveakest of the
group. While infused u'ith the suave urbanitv and seasoned assurance
of an elder scholar. the essav fails to displa,v the coherence and illumination found in mr-rch of Korshin's other u'ork. Nevertheless the essav
y,ields some vaiuable and entertaininglr.'ferocious insights as it dernolishes some of t}-re persistent cliches and n-rt'ths that continue to obscure
a more accurate r.ieu- of Johnsor-r.
A trio of essavs tl'rat f ollort consicler the political context of the Dlctionary'. Ian Lancashire's "Dictionaries and Power from Palsgrave to
Johnson," \{einbrot's "\\-hatJohnson's Illustratil'e Quotations Illustrate:
Language and Vielvpoint in the Dictionary," and Nicholas Hudson's
"Reassessing the Political Context of the Dictionary: Johnson and the
'Broad-bottom' Opposition." Lancashire examine s the Dictionarl from
the perspective of patronage, contextualizing it within the histor,v of
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dictionarv patronage in England.
Situating the famous Chesterfield letter \\-ithin this narrative, Lancashire finds that traclitionallr- tl-re lexicographer"s actllal patron $Ias
t}-re printer. rvho rr'as in tnrn patronized br' "the great." Johnson's
emphatic ptrblic rejection of C.}'resterfield's patr-onage thLls constituted
a reconfiguration of the uenrork of porter relations defining lexicographical patronage. \\'einbrot Lrses the evidence of the illustrative
quotations to address tr-hether tlte Dictionart is-as it has sometimes
been asserted-a document of high religious and political Toryism.l0
Specificall,v examining Johnson's use of such English divines as the
high-flving Robert South, the Whig Richard Bentley, and the LatitudinarianJohn Tillotson, \Veinbrot arrives at the conclusion thatJohnson's
10. See. e
g,-l
C. D. Clark, SamtLelJohnson: Literatttre, Relieion, and English Cul,htrnl
Universitv Pless, 1994), 74-75,12'c,
Politics Jiom the Rtstoration to RomanLicisnt (Cambridge
130-:11, p:rssim.
538
MODERN PHILOLOGY
quotations reflect an urge toward consensus and cornmon ground on
thc fundamental tenets of the Christian faith rather than occupving
a strongly partisan position. Hudson's essal'-r.vhich should ideally be
consulted in conjunction with chapter 3 of his recent monograph
Samuel Jc.hnson and the Making o;f fuIodern England (2003)-also explores
the putatir.e Toryism of the Diction.arl. In locating theJohnson of the
1740s and 1750s within the parameters of the so-called Broad-bottom
party (a coalition of disaffected opposition politicians and others rvho
ostensiblv promoted national over party interests), Hudson arrives at
a conclusion strikingl-v similar to \Veinbrot's: that the Dictionarl reflects
Johnson's deliberate abjr-rration of partisanship in fzrr-or of a political
ambiguity congruent rvith the Broad-bottom stance of neutralitv.
Geoff Barnbrook ancl NlcDermott collide in debating the controversial question of rr.hetherJohnson intended to "fix the language," as
he seemingl,v zlnnolrnced in his 17 47 Plan o.f the Dictionar), ot whether
he adopted an empirical, descriptive approach, as his "Preface" to the
final vield of his labors nould seern to suggest.1l Barnbrook, using
a cornplex statistical methodolog)', finds that more than 10 percent of
tlre lreadrvc-rrds in both the first and foulth versions of the Dictionarl
contain usage notes. He also cornparesJohnson's usage notes to the
Helsinki Corpus. an alchir,e of Early Modern English texts, tentativelv
conciuding that Johnson's prescriptive rnethodology in fact corresponds to the contemporary norms of English usage . N{cDermott's
essar', taking the opposite tack, argues rather for a descriptir,e ,"'iew of
the Dictionarr. -\ppealing to Johnson's expansion of the differential
shades of meaning iri the clefinitions. at the expense of en'nrological
information, to Johnson's multiplication of iliustratir-e quotations indicating subtie usage distir-ictiolrs. as rre11 as to er.iclence clrarvn from
some of the Rambler.essavsJol-rr-r,se1 \\'r'ote concllrrenti\. u'ith the Dlctionary, N'{cDennott enlorces the traditional r.ieu' that Johnson came
to the a\'vareness that, like Xerxes lirshing the nar.es and chaining the
r'vind, prescribing rules lor English usage \\'as a futile gesture. Clearly
both sides possess substantial u,eight. This pair of essays offers the
best case for both positions, though Barnbrook's impressive statistical
analvsis perhaps lends greater u,eight ro his arsument.
In 'Johnson's Encyclopedia,"Jack Lvnch pursues the track initiated
most memorably by Robert DeN'IariaJr.'sJohnson's "Dictionary" and the
11.l'he phrasc "fix thc lar.rguage" derives immediatel-v Iiorn Elizabeth Hedrick's
cxcellent discussion, "Fixing the Larrguage: Johnson, Chesterfielcl, and the Plan of a
Diction:rrr"' (ELH 55 [19881: 421-42), ancl u]tirnatelv traces to Su'ift's ,'1 Profiosal .fbr
C)orreding, Inprottittg, and .\scertaittittg the Engli.sh Tongue (1772).
Anthony W.
Lee o
Johnson
in the Neru llilLennium
539
Language of Learning (1980), considering the Dictionar) as no[ merely
a book of lexicography-of definitions, etymologies, and usage direc-
tions-but as an encvclopedic compendium of hurnanistic knowledge.
Lynch adr-ances this discussion by comparing the Dictiona,"f to contemporarv encyclopedias in addition to other dictionaries, finding that
"in practice fJohnson's] work lr'as more encyclopedic than any earlier
general dictionar,v" (134). Lyncl-r focuses especiallv upon entries that
are infbrmational rather than purel-v linguistic ("airpurnp," "astronomY,"
"epilepsy," etc.), most of i,r,hich dran heavilY upon earlier reference
works such as Ephraim Chambers's Clclopaedia (1728)" L,vnch concludes that "these encvciopedic entries reveal the encvclopedic scope
of Johnson's mind-the extent of his learning, curiosity, and industr,v"
(1a2). John Stone's "The Lalv, the Alphabet, and Samuel Johnson"
continues Lvnch's encvclopedic endeavor but narron's it co the larv-a
subiect that exerted considerable attraction for Johnson throughout
his lif'e. Exarrrining especiallr'John Cou'ell's 1607 lhe Interltreler. Stone
initiates the effort of geneaiogizingJohnson's extensive debt to and
appropriation of Englisir legal literature in the Dictionory.
Noting the curious lact that l-ivpherrated compound rvords (i.e.,
"bltre-e-ved") frequent the first half or so of the Dir:tionarl, svhlle
du.indling to extreme rarit-v ir-r the secoud half (typicall,v being replaced by single-u,ord compounds, such as "rvalleyed"), Noel Osselton's
"Hyphenated Compounds inJohnson's Dictionary" sets out to account
for this discrepancy. 12 Osselton ascribes this phenomenon to a shift
in methodological practice, concluding that "the vanishlng hvphens
of Johnson's \'rord list may be taken as one small instance of hort his
desire to regulate the language gave \r-ay in the light of cxpet-ience to
the rnore modest aim of recording it" (173). Paul Luna's "The T\'pograpiric Design of Johnson's Dir:tionart'" is concernecl rvith horr' the
Dictianorr"s "r.isual presentati()lt reflects the stt'ttcture ol t}-re text, its
r-rsabilitr'. ar.rd per}raps evcr-t its cotrrpiler's intentiorr" (175). Examining
various printings of the Dictiortart in its folio. octavo, and quarto
r.ersions, Luna conclr-rcles that sor-ne of the n'pographical practices
emploved br. tirese versions becarne standard protocol for iater dictionaries. In "The Dictionary in .\bsrract:Johnson's Abridgments of the
Dictionar) of the English Langtage for the Common Reader," Catherine
Diile also extends our perspective beyond the folio editions, looking
particularl,v at the octavo abridgment that continued to be printed and
12. The stlrdies nored in this paraglaph colncidc rvith a l:rrger critical intcrest in the
phlsic:rl properties of books; sce Seth Lerer and I-ea Price, eds., "Thc Histor-v of the
Book ancl tire Idca ol I-iterature," special issue, PrVlA, vol. 12l, no. 1 (Januarv 2006).
Anthonl I\'.
Lee
o
Johnson
in
the New
L[i,llenniurn
541
reviews the evidence fbr the collaborative composition of this work,
noting in particular the possibilitv that the great book lvas the product
of a sort of factory, a consortium of
booksellers and amanuenses,
from Johnson's brain;
Minerva-like
springing
rather tiran an artifact
effort bY precursir,'e
of
centuries
result
of
or that it is the intertextual
for his quotations
mined
authors
lexicographers and the
Johnson
despite the evithat,
concludes
Reddick
from English authorities.
emphasis is
this
ultimately
at
lvork,
ernphasis
dence of a collectir,e
both
atrthor
as
authority
overarching
o$'n
"subservient to fJohnson's]
and compiler" Q2a).
Our second Dictionary book, Reddick's orvn Samuel .lohnson's [inpublished Reuisions to the "Dictionary of the English Languctge": A I'acsimile
Ectition, is a sr-rmptuous volurne. Reddick and his collaborators (Dille,
Regula Bisarrg. Antoinina Ber-an Zlatar, and Scott Gordon) are fo be
applauded for executing it rr-ith ski11 and accuracy. Perhaps even more,
in these dar.s of rtaist tightening atnong acadernic presses, Cambridge
Universin-Press shor-rlcl receir-e kudos fbr venturing to publish it. Unfortunatelr., at S185. this coffee table-sized book (approxirnating, but
just falling short of the folio dimensions of its eighteenth-centurv predecessor) rr-ill elude the reach of all but the rnost ardent or affluent
Johnsonians. Nevertheiess, for students of the Dictionary, it is an inrportant and necessar,v supplernent to its first and fourth editions.
\,t'hy? Because rn Samuel Johnson's Llnpuhlish.ed Reuisions. Redclick
makes available a hitherto obscure bod,v of materials thatJohnson intended for inclusion in his fburth edition. but u'hich \\ ere mvsteriouslv
excluded. We knor, that whenJohnson begurn initial rr'ork on the ri.tionar| in 1716-17, he r-rtilized a process of markirrg passages for illustrative qlrotatiolls that he er-entr-t:rllv callle to i'ecc,gnize as unu'ieldv,
efHcient s\stetr.r rr'itl-rirt t\\'o to three years.13 Hou'
mor.inglo
",-,-to."
the ttotebooks accumulated from his first system
ret:rinecl
eter'.Johr-rson
to utilize them rvhen he came to revise the
inter-rc1ed
ar-ic1 apparer-rtlr'
in 171*1.-73. For reasons that remain
edition
for
the
fourth
Dictionarr
not
make their way into this-or anv
did
revisions
unknou-n, these
death,
these notebooks, including what
Upon
other-edition.
Johnson's
materials, \\ere sold in
as
the
Sneyd-Gimbel
be
knorvn
laier came to
After passing through
in
1785.
librar,v
sale
of
the seneral
Johnson's
materials r'vere
the
Snel'd-Gimbel
collectors,
various
tl're hands of
which
notebooks,
the
other
in
1973,
and
Yale
University
donated to
Reuisionsounpttblished
Samuel
for
Reddick's
basis
serve as tlre
lohnson's
made their \\.a' t() the British Librarl', rvhere thel' 113-uirl toda-v.
13. See -\11en Rcdclick.
introcluction to
ScunuelJohnson.'s Linltu.bli.shed Retision.s,
ir.
542
MODERN PHILOLOGY
McDermott succinctly appraises the content of these materials: "The
Sneyd-Gimbel copy . . . comprises printed sheets of letters A-P (with
some gaps) of the first edition of Johnson's Dictionary (1755), interleaved with hundreds of manuscript slips in the hands of Johnson's
amanuenses. The British Library copy consists of interleaved printed
sheets of Johnson's Dictiono,ry from A toJAILOR, the last page of A and
the whole of the letter B being from the first edition, and the remainder
being from the third edition (1765)." t4
What is the value of these materials and of those elen'rents Reddick
includes u,ithin his edition? Reddick's introduction sets forth the
rationale behind the edition, describes its content, and encapsulates
its potential:
The airns of this volume are as follou's:
(1) to reproduce in photogrzrphic facsirnile 122 pages from the first
edition of the Dictionarl (rvith accompirnvinq interlea\,es), covered in
handu.ritten additions and corrections prepared br-Johnson and an
amanuensis as printer's copy for the revised fourth eclition, but never
published;
(2) to provicle thc readerr.vith a transcription that represents the
changes eraphicailv in an attempt to elucidateJohnson's intentions for'
the printer's copv:
(3) to recor-rstnrct the historv of Johnson's revision of tlne Dittionary and
proricle erar-nples fi-om the working papers (including illustr:rtions and
discussior-r of evidence from the Sneyd-Gimbel cop,v at Yale) rvhich
enable this historl to be told:
(4) to provicle an analrsis of and commentary on some of .Johnson's
proposecl change s that cnablc an under-\tanding of his process of
revision and intentiorrs:
(5) to discussJohnson s changes in the contest of his colrrlnents on
language r ntl lit t r.rt
ur
r. , ir
,
Close reading of the pages of Recldick s editiorr vields the conclusion
that it delivers on all of these points. as rr'ell as others. For example, it
contributes to the ongoing project of tracing the source and prove-
nance of Johnson's illustrative quotatiolts, a project McDermott has
been pursuing intently in recent vears.
Another interesting insight no\!'apparent is that Steevens, who has
traditionally been linked with Johnson because of his assistance in the
1773 edition of Johnson's Shakespeare, also contributed considerably,
14. Anne NlcDerrnott, "The Compilation Nlethods of Johnsorr's Dictionart," in Korshin
and Lynch, Age of Joltrtsort 16:16, n. 8.
Antltony W.
Lee
o
.fohnson
in the Neu X'Iillennitnn
513
of the fourth edition of
Diclionart,-the revisions of both scholarly works taking place concurrently in the earlY 1770s. Reddick's volume confirms the importance
of Sreevens's contributions to the 1773 Dictionary-decisively, in fact.
For example, the notebook containingJohnson's original work on the
letter b, ciating from 1746-42 was lost, leadingJohnson to authorize
Steevens's personal revisions from the third edition to stand in for
his or'vn labors. This is extrernelv important for a number of reasons.
First of all, it alerts us that the revisions to the letter & in the fourth
edition, while authorized bvJohnson, are not his own and, thus, must
be handled cautioush' bv analvsts of the Dictionnrl. Reddick's edition
nolr. allows us to supplant Steevens's insertions rl'ithJohnson's original
editorial intentions. This storv can also serve as a cautionary lesson in
the ironies arrd elusir.e and potentiallr' illusorv vagaries of literary historv and textual prodnctiot-t.
Tlre third and last Dictionart book to be considered here-and in
manv respects the most irnportant-is Grt-in Kolb and Robert DeMaria
Yale Edition of
Jr.'sJohn.son on the English Lattguage, volume 18 of The
the lYorks of SantuelJcth rzsoiz. This edition joins the forces of two of the
most erninent Dictionar\ scholars of our day. Sadly, this edition also
marks the final contribution of Kolb (1919-2006), for many vears
an editcrr of Motlern Philolog, who passed at the age of eightr'-six
on April 3, 2006. Like Korshin, Kolb was an immense influence upon
Johnson studies. As his erstwtrile colleague Bruce Redford observes,
Kolb sacrificed much of his scholarlv interesrs to melltorirlg r.ounger
Jol-rnsop scholirrs: "He rvas the aclyisor and soltetimes rlid'rt-ife to man\r
scholarlr.plojects. and tto scholar of 1-ris generation rtas Irore generous.
That canre at great co,st to his orrtt scl-rolarship. He couldhavervritten
and edited much more hacl he rtot helpecl others to realize their gifts."15
Those rvho kneu' him cat-r take solace in the fact that, although his last
vears \\.ere clouded br-iilness, he lir-ed to ulitness the publication of
this book, the cror.r,ning achievement of a life devoted to the study of
as Hailey also argues, to Johnson's revision
tl:re
Johnson.
The Kolb-DeMariar edition
of the lexical materials of the Johnson
of the major eYents in the ongoing
saga of the Yale Johrz.sorz. As the editors note, "In Johnson's life of
rlriting no rvork is more important than his Dictionary" (ix). It estabcarlon claims recognition as one
lished Johnson's British and international reputation, and perhaps
no other text has been more frequentlv perused b,v a rvider varietv
15, Bruce Redtbr-cl. quoted
in obituarv of GrtinJ. Kolb,,Vrzr lbrk
Times,
April
1'1, 2006.
541
MODERN PHILOLOGY
of readers-today, primarily by students and scholars, but fbr over a
hundred years after its 1755 appearance, bv most literate users of the
u,ritten English language. Due to the immense size of Johnson's great
book, the Yale volume excludes most of the Dictionary but does provide
the most important discursive prose compositions associated with it.
These include The Plan of a Dictionarl of the English Langua,ge (I717),
the famous 1755 "Preface," the 1755 "Historv of the English Language"
and "Crammar of the English Tongue," as rvell asJohnson's "Preface"
to the 1756 abridged edition and the 'Advertisement to this Edition" to
the 1773 revision. What distinguishes this volume is its range-it offers
some of Johnson's most canonical offerings, such as the "Preface,"
alongside some of his rnost obscure productions, the "Crarnmar" and
"History." The editors observe: "The texts presented here . . . provide
all the preliminaries to Johnson's extraordinarv book and thus his
longest continlrous philolouical statements. Thev contain Johnson's
thinking about the massil,e task of recording English, about its structure and histon', its importance in the development of English culture,
its difEculties. and its lamentable instability" (ix).
Alons n ith the authoritatively prepared texts, the scholarly apparatus
of this edition contributes immensely to its value. Each itern included
receives an extensive headnote elaborating information about its composition, publication, reception (when appropriate), and a concluding
textuai note. A general introduction describes the nature and importance of eirch text, situating each rr'ithin the contemporar\- and pre-
ceding Iexicographical tradition. The annotation throughout-and
particularh'upon the "Preface"-is full and helpful. The only disappointrnerrt is the index, which could be fuller.
Whiie the "Preface" is easil,v available in most Johnson and
eighteentli-centLlrv anthologies, T'he Plan is a rarer bird. This piece
possesses considerable intrinsic interest and is also a useful document
in the evolutionan' historr of tire Diction.ary and in the histor,v of the
Johnson-Chesterfield relationship, something that has magnetized
Johnson admirers ever since the Chesterfield letter began to receive
public circulation in the mid-eighteenth centlrr-v. AIso notervorthy is
the inclusion, in t\\,o appendices, of nr-o facsimile reproductions. The
first, 'A Short Scheme for compiling a new Dictionary of the English
Language" (accompanied by a facing editorial transcription), is the first
document to outiine Johnson's preliminary thoughts upon the project
that lr,ould occupy the next nine years of his lif'e. The second, the fair
copy of The Plan of a Dictionarl of the English Language, contains eight
editorial comments b,v Chesterfield, as well as those of an anonymous
reader. These documents are useful in untangling the complexities
underlyins the composition of 'fhe Plan, which, according to the
Anthonl l\'. Lee
o
Jnhnson
in the Neu ]Iillennittn
5,15
editors, "ranks among the most complicated processes of rvriting and
revising thatJohnson ever undertook" (3).
The centerpiece of this volume, however, is the 1755 "Preface," a
work that Bate has described as "one of the lnonulnents of English
prose."16 This edition brings new insights to this text through shorving
that sorne of its more memorable passages bear intertextual predecessors. Consider, for example, this oft-quoted moment:
The chief glory of every people arises fi-om its authours: r'hether I shall
add anv thing b,v mv own r,r'riting to the rePutation of English literature,
must be ieft to time : nuch of rnl life has been lost under the pressures
of clisease; much has becn trifled arva,v; and mucir has been spent in
provision for the dar- t1-rat rvas passing over lne; but I shall not think mv
emplovrnent useless or ignoble, if bv m,v assistance forcign nations, and
distant ages. gain access to the ProPagators of knouledge, and
understancl the teachels of truth; if my labours afford lisht to the
rcpositories of science, :rnd add celebritv to Bacon, to Hooker, to i\[ilton,
and to Borlr. (109-10)
The diligent preparator\- reading of the editors reveals that Edr'vard
Philtips, in his 1658 The Neut \\'orld of English Words' \\'rote: "In this
work, which, for the ger-reralitv of it, must stand tl-re brunt of manv a
curious inquisition; both for the present and for future ages, I regard
not my own fame eqt-ral to the renown and glory of the Nation" (110,
n. 6). (The famous peroration of the "Preface" is similaril marked bl'
an intertext-see page xxv.) The annotation of this.|ohnsonian passage
illustrates the thoroughness of the edition. This one periodic sentence
receives fi\,e annotations, ranging from Bosrtell's Life to Johnson's
letters to definitions from the Dictionar.t itself: the editors tnark congl'ueltt pilsr:t95,t and prcctrrsire passaget.:rttd rhcr oflct obserralions
r-rpon relevant bioeraphical details. Kolb s earlier contribution to the
Irtle Johnson, Rasselos and Other ftu 1es 119!10). illaugurated an extensive
annotative proceciLtre that this r.olLltlte sttstains-a weicome departure
frorn some of the earlier volrttttes in the Yale series, lvhich one rer-iewer
clescribed as eclitoriallr' "emaciated." 1;
Tlrrning frorn Kolb and De\Iaria on Johnson on English, rve need
to take rrote of another contribution to The Yale Edition of the \'\'orks oJ
SamtLel Johnsorz, O NI BrackJr.'s A Cornmentary on Mr. Pope's Principles
of )Ioralifi, or Esscty on Man.In 1733, Pope anonl'rnouslv published the
first three epistles of his poetic theodio', An Essr4 on ]Lan (publication
of the fourth epistle follou,ed the next Year), to widespread acclaim.
I6. Batc.
Sctmucl
17. Clirrence
JolLnson.259.
Tlaccr. reviel of The Rambler, bl Samuel .|ohnsolL, cd. \\'.J. Bate :rnd
Albrecl-rt Strauss. Eighteenlh'Ctntun .\tudies + (1970-71): 232.
MODERN PHILOLOGY
546
in 7737 the Swiss theologian Crousaz published Exa'men d.e
l'Essay de Monsieur Pope sur l'homme and a year later added his Commentaire sur la traduction en uers de Mr. l'abbd Du Resnel de l'Essai de
fuL Pope sur l'homme, both of which mounted an attack on Pope's poem,
Horvever,
charging it with impietv and theological determinism. A Iiterary controversy quickly ensued, and Edward Cave, editor of Gentleman's
to produce quick translations to capitalize upon the affair: Elizabeth Carter, r,r.ho translated
the Examen, and Johnson, r,r''ho handled the Commentaire. Carter's
effort appeared in late 1738, but, rvhiieJohnson was doing his translation, rival publisher Edmund Curll announced in the Daily Aduertiser the imminent appearance of his orvn edition of the Commentarl,
translated by a Mr. Forman. Although Johnson completed his translation, the work was not published as promised in 1739 but was later
Magazine, hired two frequent contributors
issued
in 1742.
Brack's edition undertakes the challenge of producing a scholarly
edition of Johnson's translation. His difficult task lacks the glamour and
indisputable importance of DeMaria and Kolb's edition of Dictionary
materials. However, despite the obscurity of its text, this r,olume
touches upon a number of important issues and invites serious critical
atterrtion. The Crousaz project conslitu(es a significant contributiorr
to our knowledge of Johnson's intellectual histon., especiallv his r-ietvs
on the philosophical issues of evil and free u-ill. Eviclence for this is
located not in the translation itself but irr a number of notes that
Johnson appended. For example: "Even. observer horrer.er superficial,
has remark'd, that in many men the love of pleasures is the ruling
passion of their youth, and the iove of monev that of their advanced
years. Holr.er,er this may be, it is not proper to du'ell too long on the
resistless po\\ier, and despotick authority of this tyrant of the soul,
lest the reader should, as it is very natural, take the present inclination
horvever destructive to society or himself, for the ruling passion, and
forbear to struggle u-hen he despairs to conquer" (1a5-46n). Such
passages invite comparison to some of Johnson's later rernarks in a
similar vein, as in The Rarnbler, no. 4, where he takes Slvift to task for
the maxim that men are "grateful in the same degree as they are resentful" because of its fatalistic implication that people "act from a
brutal impulse." l8
Furthermore, by making this obscure and neglected u,ork available
in a well-annotated text, this volume offers insight into Johnson's
18. Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, no. 4, in The Yttle Edition of the l4rorks of Samuel
Johnso'n, r,ols. 3-5, The Rambler, ed. W..|. Bate and Albrechr Strauss (Nen Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 19tr9), 3:23. The actual author
of the maxim is Pope, not Srrift.
Antltonl \\'. I-ee
o
Johnson
in the New Millenniurn
547
thought and literary activities during a crucial -vet obscure period in
his early career-for example, into his important but still largel,v mysterious relationship rvith Carter. It also potentially offers insight into
spans
Johnson's relationship rvith Pope-an intellectual association that
Me.ssi.rth
Pope's
of
translation
his
early
from
Johnson's entire career,
into Latin (1731) to his late "Life of Pope" (1781). Finally this edition
offers, b,v example, insight into Johnson's viet'r's on and practice of
rranslation-something that occupied a large portion of the first decade
or so of his career. In the "Preface" to the Dictionary he remarks,
"The great pest of speech is the frequencv of translation" (Kolb and
DeMaria,rlohnson on the English Language,108), but his viei'vs on translation are much more compler than that. as this edition invites us to
recognize.
The Crousaz eclition is a meticulouslv realized piece of scholarship.
There is much here of interest toJohnsonian scholars-for some this
volume rr-ill be indispensable. Nevertheless, manv nonspecialist readers
rna\.be cleterred bv the inherent weakness of the matcrials upon r'r'hich
Brack has invested his considerable editor-ial pol'ers. A translation of
an obscure eighteenth-centurrv polemic \\'hose topical appeal has long
since passed mav dull the palzrte of manr- a reacler. F{oltever. apart
from the main course of the often fatigr,ring Cronsaz entr6e, it is good
to have a tasty dessert. One valuable aspect of Brack's edition is his inclusion of a reliable, annotated text of or-re of .|ohnson's minor masterpieces, his "Reviel of Soame.|envus'-1 Free Inrluirt'into tlte )iaturc and
Origin oJ'Euit." The logic arguing for this pairing is thernatic: although
the nlo works are chronologicallr' separated by almost twenty vears,
thev representJohnson's ongoinu grappling rvith the problem of evil in
the rr-orld, a process that lvould climax in his discussion of the Es.ia'l
on )Ian in the "Life of Pope." The inclusion of theJenyns revierv also
o{lers a measure of balance for the volume as a u,-hole; for u'hile the
Cror-rsaz translation is derivative and unfortunatelv redolent of hackrr ork. the Jenr.ns revieu. stands as one of Johr-rsc-rn's most remarkable
prose perfbrmances. It is rvritten in the mode of ]ris mature st.r'le and
thought arrd is replete rriti-r vir.id rhetorical pr.r-otechnics, as in this paragrapl-r rr'hereJohrrson offers a brief glimpse of the ferocious, Sr'l'iftian
darkness that l-re rvas capable of but ti-picallv suppressed:
-\s rr'e clrol-t-t rrhelps :rnd kittens, thev [the gods] amuse themseh'cs
norr ancl then rvith sinking a ship. . . . As rve shoot a bird flying, they
tirke a man in the midst of his business or pleasure, and knock him
dorrn rr'ith :rn apoplexr'. Some of them, perhaps, are virtuosi, :rnd
delight in the operations of an asthlna, as a human philosopher in the
effe cts of the air pump. To su'el1 a man with a tivmPany is as good sport
as to blow a frog. Nlanl'a merrv bout have these fiolic beings at the
548
MODERN PHILOLOGY
\:icissitudes of an 21gue, and sood sport it is to see a man tumbie rvith an
epilepsl,, and revive and tumble again, and all this he knows not rvh,v. As
they are lr,iser and rnore pou.erful than we, they har.e rnore exquisite
di'"'ersions, forw,e have no l\.ay of procuring anv sport so brisk and so
lasting as the paroxvsrns of the gout:rnd stone rvhich undoubtedlv must
make high rnirth, especially as if the play be a little diversified with the
blunders and puzzles of the blind and deaf. (419-20)
There is nothing in the Crousaz translation or notes that matches the
horrible intensity of this moment. 19
Bosrvell, the rvriter to lr.hom falls the glory-or infamv-of having
most substantialiv shaped the general public's view of Johnson, is represented in the volumes under revierv by a solitary work (apart from
Michael Bundock's essav in Age ofJolmson 16, discussed above): David
Hankins and Jarnes J. Caudle's The General Conespondence of James
Boswell, 1757-1763. This volume is p:rrt of the larger project of bringing
to publication all of the Boslvell papers unearthed at Nlalahide Castle,
Ireland, and Fettercairn Castle, Scotland. betrveen 1925 and 1950.
Thus, rvhat ne have nhen opening this collection of letters is but a
local fragment of a rnuch more rnassir-e scholarlv project. This larger
endeavor has been questioned b1,some, and referred to as the "Bosu,eil
factorr.-," impivine that the project is a plodding engine of scholarlv
proliferation of interest to only a small handful of specialists, most of
r.vhom rvil1 perhaps neglect to read, and only occasionally consult, this
laborious profusion. Is Boswell, r,vho after all wrote only two, perhaps
three books of interest to the general reading public, worth all the
fuss? We might considel the present volume of Boswell's letters as a
test case for the entire endeavor.
The most irlportant Bosrr'e1l scholar of tl-re t\\'entieth century
of the \-ale Bosrlell: ''it rlas decided [by] the
[Editorial] Committee [that the project] should consist of a research
edition for scholars and a trade or reading edition of a part of the
same material fbr the general pr-rblic. The research edition'r,l'as later
defined as comprising at least three coordinated series: first, the entire
corpus of Boswell's journal in a1l its larieties . . . , secondl,v, Boswell's
entire recovered correspondence . . . and thirdly, a full critical text
of tlre manuscript of the Life of Johnsoiz."20 The entire project would
has described the scope
19. tsrack's eclition also includcs the brief 1743 "Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine
on thc controvcrsv betl,cen \{arburton and Crousaz over Popc's Essa\ on Man," rvhere
Johlrson tentativeh sides rvith Clousaz against \{arburton, perhaps because he was
hurriedlv l riting "to thc rnornent," rather than marking an ideological shift (Brack, 38 I ).
20. Frcdcrick A. Pottle, Pride and Negligence: I'he Hisktry of the Boswell Papzts (Nerv
York: NIcGlar-Hill, 1982), 203-4.
Ant.hony
I\'. Lee a Johnson in the New Millett'nittm
549
necessitate at least thirty volumes-a conservative estimate. The trade
edition of Bosrvell's journal was completed with the publication of
Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789-1795, in 1989-a total of thirteen
books.2l None of the volumes in the research edition of thejournal has
hitherto appeared. Tilo of four projected volumes of the manuscript
of the Ltfehave been published. That leaves the correspondence, the
largest part of the project, of u'hich the book at hand is the ninth to
appear.22
Noting the range of clates bracketing this collection, one might presume that the climax of these letters, and of the volume as a whole,
rvould be the momentolrs, life-changing meeting betn'een Johnson
and Boswell at Tom Davies's bookshop on Mav 16, 1763. This expectation is disappointed. hotvever. These letters pass rvithout a hint of this
momentous meeting. Indeed,Johnson's yarvning absence reinfcrrces a
larger point made bv Frederick Pottle decades ago: "Boswell's chief
passion, from his earliest years to the end of his life, nras literary
fame."23 This collection encourages us to cottsider Bosrvell apart from
Johnson, something that, in hindsight, is rather difficult to do; it is
difflcult to resist the impulse of anticipating horv Boswell's career will
ctrlrninate in the Lijb of .lohnsoiz (1791). Hou'ever, the profusion of
Bosn ell's poetry amid the (often strained, at times impressive) heightened literary self-consciousness of this correspondellce alerts us to his
aspirations for a literarv career u'l-ro11r' independent of his connection
rvith Johnson.
Setting Johnson aside, rve
find that the real heart of the book
consists in the correspondence betu'een Bos'rvell and his friend Andrert
Erskine. Erskine (who rvas the same age as Boswell and rvho shared
manv of his youthful tastes) was a lieutenant in the seventv-first re5;iment of foot, as rvell as a poetaster "with shivers of genius."2a Bosrvell
sought out his friendship in 1761, and together the trvo hatched
schemes of literan' arnbition. Their correspondence recorded in the
Yale voiurne is not jr-rst tire prir"ate record of a friendship. hou'ever; in
April 1763, Bosrleil pttblished much of it irr a poiished fbrm under
21. The total is fourteen rolumes if one includes tbe Porlraits bt SirJnshua Retnolds,
rvhich appeirred in 1!152 as part of the tradc cditiort of Bosrvelljournals.
22. Hankirrs and C,audie note that theil volurne, 'although rrinth in the Yale Research
Edition of Bosrrcll s corlespondcnce, is essentiallv the first chronologicallv in his lile
and times" (rxiii).
23. Fredelrck -\. Pottle, The Litertrt (-)aretr of.lantes Bo.utell. Esq. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1929), xxi,
2.1.
Freclerick
-\.
Pottlc. Jcrntes Bosu;ell: The Ea.rlier )ear.s, 1710- 1769 (Nerv York:
N'IcCl.r'arr'-Hil1, 1966). 6'1.
550
MODERN PHILOLOGY
the title Letters between the Honourable Andrew Erskine and James Boswell,
Esq., a boc-rk consisting of twentv-one letters in prose and verse, plus
three poems. This edition contains these published letters, copies of
the manuscripts from which they r,vere drawn (lvhen available), as well
as other unpublished ones drarvn from the Yale collection.
In addition to documenting Boswell's intense literary arnbitions, the
Yale edition also provides a portrait of Boswell at a crucial time of his
life. as he entered the world of early adulthood, from ages sixteen to
t\,venty-two. During this time, he experimented with difl'erent roles of
self-soldier, poet and n'it, lover', lawyer, and so forth-and came into
increasingly sharp friction rvith his father over his vocation and purpose
in life. The editors note the contribution their effort makes to our
biographical assessment of Bosu,eil: "The present volume therefore
provides . . an essential sourcebook for the study of the largely unkno'n-n Bosrvell, the Bosrvell that existed before his first fullv-rvritten
journals, which he wrote from autumn 1762 to aLlturnn 1763. The
period from summer 1757 to summer 1762 holds the distinction of
being the least r,r,ell knou,n major phases of his adult life, since no
fully-written journals recording the period before auturnn 1762 have
survived" (xxxir,-xxxr,). Caudle's detailed introduction contextualizes
this developmental period as it skillfullv surveys Bosr,r,-ell's romantic
attachments and his relationships rvith his famill', his mentors, ar-rcl his
literarl' and personal friends.
An additional value of this collection is the lav it slrpplements one
of Bosu.ell's most compelling achievements, the remarkable journal
that he kept during his seconcl r'isit to London in 1762-63. For example, a quotation fiorn one of his letters to Elskinc ()Iar, 8-9, 1762)
delineates rrhat Bosrrell expectecl (realisticalh' or fantastically) from
the commission to the Guards ti-rirt he seeks assiduously'throughout
t}re Lonclon Journal: "I am tl'rirrking of the brilliant scenes of happiness, which I shall enjov as an officer of the guards. How I shall be
acquainted lvith all the grandeur of a court, and all the elegance of
dress and diversions; become the favourite of ministers of state, and
the adoration of ladies of qualitv, beauty, and fortune! Horv many
parties of ple asure shall I have in townl Holv manv fine jaunts to
the noble seats of dukes, lords, and members of parliament in the
countrv!" (Hankins and Caudle, 217). No rvonder he held to this improbable prospect u,ith such relentless tenacity. This edition includes
manv other letters that bear directlv upon the LonrlonJournal narratir-e,
including a letter to Louisa, letters and reports of letlers to his ostensible patron seeking to secure his commission into the Guards (the
Countess of Northurnberland), as well as letters to Bonnell Thornton,
the essayist r,vho lubricated Boswell's entr6e into the rakish companv
Anthon)
14'.
Lee o
JohTLSon
in the Neu llillennitrnt
551
Charles Churchill, John Wilkes, and other au
courante bon tivants. More broadly, the annotative materials that swell
this somewhat slender collection of letters is fabulousl,v rich. For example, the letter to Boswell from William N{cQuhae dated Tuesday,
April 26, 1763, which occupies about three pages of text, is annotated
b-v ren and a half pages cramrned w-ith double-columned, small-font
commentar-v. This edition offers the interested reader a densell'particular immersion into contemporary literarY and social history; it
penerrares deeply into English and Scotfish culture at the critical
moment when the great war for empire was occurring and the political
reign of George III was beginning. Through Bosl'el1's curious eyes, and
the acule lenses of his learned editors, lve are able to see midcenturY
Georgian Britain frorn a microscopicallv detailed perspective.
The reader must decide for herself or himself rvhether Boswell's
private papers deserve the elaborate scrtitinv this edition r'l'itnesses. To
m,v mind ther, do, for the reasons sugeested abor-e. And there is a great
deal to be said for the collective nature of the enterprise. Few editors
possess the deptl-r and range of the literarv knol'ledge of a G. B. Hill
or an L. E Porvell:l:' hou'ever, b1'working together in an effort't'r'hose
collaboratir.e nature allorvs lesser mortals to producc editions as irnpressive as this one, the "Bosr,vell Factorv" offers a persttasir-e rnodel
for a nerv approach to literary scholarship. Perhaps the greatest virtue
of Yale's colossal rendering of Bos'r'r'el1's private paPers lies ahearl of
our present moment. When the project reaches con-rpletion. I envision
that somedav, in the mid- to late twentY-first centur\', a ne\r Porvell
rvill appear upon the scene and, utilizing the scholarh'plentv that u'iil
then be arailable-the venerable Hill-Polr,ell edition. the \\-aingrowRedforcl mariltscript edition, \{aingrotr's classic The Correspond,ente
ortd Otlter Popers oJ'Jontes Bosiuell Relating to the )Iakirtg of the "Lrf, of
Johnson." ar-id :rll the allnotatecl journals. letters. ancl rniscellaneous
llt:ltter rnacle available br the Private Papers eciitiott2il-rr'ill establish
the clefinitive, exhaustivelr' inclusive version of a book thatJohnson
of r'r.its that included
25. See. c.s.. the Hill-Pcxr,el1 edition (George Birkbeck Hill and Lawrcnce Fitzt'oY
Porrell. ccls.. Bosiull's 'The LiJb of SatnuelJohttson," 6 r'ols. fOxfbrd: C]arendon, 1934;
2nc,l ed.. 1!1611): and G. B. Hill, ed., The Liae.s of the En.glish Poets, bv Sarnuel-[ohnson,
(Orfbrcl: C-lalenclon. 1905).
26. \Iarslr:r11 \\aingrorr. The Correspondence and Other Paper.s of .James BostLtell Relatinll
to tht -\la|ing of thc "LtJt of .Joltnson." 2rrcl cd. (Netr Haven. CT: Yale Utrivel'sitv Press'
2001). anclrlan e; BosiL,ell's "LtJt oJJohnson": An Etlition oJ the Original Manuscript in F'ot,r
\-olunie.s (\etv Har-cn. CIT: Yale Universin l'jrcss, 199-1-). Onh two volumes to datc
have appeat'cd: \blunr 1: 17A9-1765 (ed. \{arshall \\iaingrrxv) a:nd \blume 2: 1766-1776
(ed. Bnrce Redfold ancl Eiizabeth Golclring).
3 ro1s.
552
MODERN PHILOLOGY
scholars necessarily rely upon and that readers the world over peruse
with delight and love: Boswell's Lzfe of Johnson.
Embedded in a footnote in the Hill-Powell Lrfe oJJohnsom is the folIowing anecdote: "Mr. Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson, that, in
his opinion, the Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography,
in which line of composition he infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. 'Sir,' saidJohnson, 'I believe that is true."'27 If Johnson excelled
at life writing, a genre he practiced from the earliest to the latest years
of his career, his greatest contribution in this line was The Liues of the
Poers, considered by many to be his greatest sustained creative effort,
"the richest, most beautiful, and, indeed, most perfect production of
his pen," as one contemporary described it.28 YetJohnson scholars
have long been awaiting the Yale Edition of the Liaes oJ the Poets.
Roger Lonsdale, the eminent textual editor rvhose The Poems of Gray,
Collins, and Goldsmili (London: Longmans, 1969) rernains one of the
exemplarv editions of eighteenth-centurv poetr\-, has outflanked the
Yale editors lvith the 2006 publication of his ou-n magnificent fotirvolume critical edition of the Liaes, the first to appear since I 905. It is
amazing-perhaps scandalous-that it has taken a centurv for Hill's 1905
edition to be supplanted. This is not to slight Hill, one of the great
Johnson editors. But Hill's edition is outdated by recent discoveries, is
textually unreliable. and is annotated in a way that is often subjective
and distracting.
Lonsdale's llue.r succeeds in redressing many of these inadequacies,
while going on to confer numerous additional advantages. The introduction to the edition is the size of a modest scholarir-monograph.
In it Lonsdale marshals a rr-ealth of background ir-rformation into a
succinctly full and shapelr. narrative. He begir-rs rtith a detailed discussion of the circumstances surroundir-rg the inception of the Liaes,
examining in particular the cornmercial rnotir.ations of the sponsoring
London booksellers distressed br the incursions upon their professional privilege by inexpensive Scottish editions of the English poets.
Lonsdale then moves to describe the composition process involved in
Johnson's labors. After this description, which, incidentally, includes
the printing of a hitherto unpublished letter of Johnson's (to Thomas
Cadell, October 17, 7778), Lonsdale delineates the contributions of
various assistants to Johnson, including Mrs. Thrale, John Nichols,
27. Hill and Porvell, Bosuell's "Life of John.son," 4:3'{, n. 5. The anecdotc comes from
R. Warner's Original Letlers.
28. Robert Andcrson, editol of an edition of British poets published later than
Johnson's, quoted in Lonsdale, Lixes of the Poets, 7:71,.
554
N,IODERN PHILOLOC}Y
sympathetic description of her as "much maligned" (Lonsdale, 2:zz6),
rvhile Hill's nore succeeds in perpetuating this malignancy, quoting
with seeming approval the characterization of "the iuaacity of this
woman" rvhose effort is "a tissue of falsehoods,' (Hill, 1:389, n. 6;.
Here as elsewhere, Hill's editoriar displays some misogyny.30 Lonsdale,s
cooler, more objective editorial posture is mr,rchln,.i.o-..
Man,v other compelling strengths recommend this new edition.
Lonsdale prints the short-title bibliouraphic list at the head of each of
his four volumes, thus precluding the necessity of clumsily fumbling
back and forth between different books. Among the three useful
appendices this edition offers is the especiarl,v u,elcome appendix B,
which reprints rlLlmerolrs contemporan.periodical reviervs ii the Liues
from 1779 to 1783. Lonsdale also reprints the 1i79 'Adverrisement,,
to tlre first ser of Prefaces, Biographical anr) critical, absent from Hill,s
edition. Lonsdale sensibly follorvs Hill's numbering of paragraphs in
each "Life." thus facilitating eas1. cross-referencing betweei the tr,vo
editions, as r'r.ell as assisting the reader who consuits the voluminous
secondarr. criticisrn onJohnson that relies upon Hill's rlues. Furthermore, contrary to Hill and rhe yale Edition of the \Llorks of samuel
Johnson. Lonsdale ushers all textual and annotative comment to the
end of each'olume, thus presenting a clear and clean text of
Johnson,s
rvords, free of the often distracting thickets of annotatir-e nurnbers
and letters that cloud the yale editions.
The corlmentarv section cons[itutes the g1orr. of this rvork. These
sections, in addition to offering elaborate texrual annotation, give a
headnote retailing the pertinent information on the composition,
sources, and publication for each "Life," as rvell as a bibliography of
modern eclitioris a.cl secondary literature der,oted to the polt u.rd to
Johnson's redacrion of the poet's life. Hill's annotation of the Liues
was quite exrensi'e. but Lonsdale's boldly expands Hill's. For example,
Lonsdale's comlrenran' on the "Life of pope,, extends to 125 pages.
Lonsdale recognizes this effort as the cro*.ning moment of
Johnson,s
literarl, career: he began his Grub Street labors rvithin a milieu dominated b,v the pervasi'e influence of pope, and he ended his career,
looking retrospectiveiy-ar"rd often criticailr'-at the defining influence
30. See, e.e., Hill's footnotes to piozzl's "preface" ro her Aneulotes of the Late samttel
inhis Joltn.sonian Miscellanies,2 r,ols. (oxforcl, 1gg7), where he directlv charges
./ohttson,
Piozzi rvith absurdit-v and assesses her thr:s: "\{rs. piozzi herself is the archer rvho
letires behind his comrade's shield, because fencing in the school is so different from
fighting ln the fielcl" (1:145, nn. 2-3). No*,here does Hill treat Boswell with such unsr
mpatlrt,tic :rnd unrrecer.ar r rslr.ingencr.
Anthott) \I'.
l,ee o
Johnson
in the Nezu Millennium
555
of Pope not just uponJohnson himself but upon the age that crucially
helped form Johnson's literary sensibility.
There are a few lveaknesses here' The "Commentary" head pages
that end each "Life" are confusinglv paginated. Instead of following
the text page by page, Lonsdale's commentary lumps all the pages
together per "Life," such that we see, in the "Life of Cowley," the
same head titte "191-234" repeated for some fifty pages, an organizationai strategy not particularlv helpful. Also, the index, which upon
a first g;lance seems superb, has a few failings. For example, when
lve run across the reference to the "Rothschild copy of the Prefaces,
vol. iii" (2:336), it should be mirde clear which Rothschild is meantthere is no entry fbr Rothschild in the index or the bibliogruphy.3r
Yet these complaints are microscopic when set $'ithin the scale of
Lonsdale's achier-enent. The editor of Johnson's Liues of the Poets must
be not onlv an expert onJohnson but well-versed in the entire field
of literature from 1660 on thatJohnson's work surve,vs. The profuse
and intlicate labor and knou'ledge showcased in this edition demonstrates that Lonsdale is more than up to its demands. In my estimarion Lonsdale's Liues of the Poets immediateh'joins the Hili-Porvell
r,ersion of Boslell's Life of Johnson (1931) and Dai-id Fleeman's A Bib
liograph," of the Works of SamuelJohnson (2000) as the most important
contributions to Johnsonian scholarship to appear u'ithin the past
hundred vears.
To sum up, u.hat are the anslrers to the questions posed at the
beginning of this essa-v? \\-hat does the state of Johnson-Boswell
sruclics covering the ye:rrs 2004-6 rer"eal about current and pending
trencls? One obvious conclusion can onlv be that this field remains
finnlv in the hands of those rr'ho practice traditional literary scholarship. Br' "traclitional literarv scholarship" I mean scholarly activity that
fbcr-rses plirnarih,upon textual and bibliographic endeavors and critical
inqr.rin' that is sl-raped largely, if not exclusively, by historical considerations ancl that places primary weight upon the relationship betrveen
texts ancl their contemporary context. (A bibliographic list of other
books pr-rblished in the past two )'/ears on Johnson and Boswell hut
not irlcluclecl in this essav corroborates this point.)32
31. The reterence is ro Tht [?.otltscltild Libran; -\ (.atalogLe of the Collettion of Eighteenth"
Centttrt Prtntrrl Bortk.s und -\lrnttr.scri?ts..forned ht Lord Rothsth.ild.2 r'ols. (Cambridge
Unilcrsitr Pre-is. 191
1).
32. Sorne t'ecent books on.]ohnson ancl Bosrrell not included in this reviet-essav:
Henrv Hitchrn,rs. DeJlning the \\-orld: T'lte Extraordirnr-r Slor-1' of Dr..Johnsrttt's Dictionary
(Nerr.\'crrk: F:urar'. Str:rus & Giroux,2005); FrevaJohr-rston, SantttelJohnson and the Art
556
N,IODERN PHILOLOGY
Personally I find this a discomfiting situation. This is not because
I disapprove of traditional scholarship; qr.rite the contrary I admire the
achier,ements of scholar-critics such as Weinbrot and those of textual
scholars like Lonsdale, Kolb, DeMaria, and Brack. Horvever, textual,
bibliographical, and historical studies can constitute only part of the
storv. Thcre is also aJohnson (and a Bosn,ell) to be apprehended
through more theoreticallv based perspectives, a Johnson who has
been rvell-served in recent years bv such volumes as \Villiam Dowling's
Langttage and Logo.s in Baswell's "Ltfe of Johnson " (1981), Steven Lynn's
SamuelJohnson nfter Deconstntction: Rhetoric ctnd "The Rantbler" (1992),
and Thomas Reinert's Regtlating ConJusion: Samttel .Johnson and the
Crowd (1996). Within the arena of Johnsonian studies, hor,vever, the
quantitv of such books is smal1 in comparison to traditional treatments.
Despite the unscientific nature of the sarnpling surveyed here, ferv
conversant r,r,ith the field ir,ould, I think, dispute the conclusion that
Johnson zrnd Bosrvell studies have a tendencr- to attract and feature
contributions from scholars con-rmitted to traditional methods. Indeed,
Johnsonians ha\,e, or,er time, accr-rmulatecl a reputation for occupving
an exclusir,e, Iargely male, enclave. \{hv is this so? It may derive in part
frorn Johnson and Boswell themselves, r.vho can be seen to represent
a traditional authority attractive to scholars personally fascinated bt'
such a tradition. Yet there is por'l,erful and ample evidence that can be
of Sir&ing.
1709-1791(OrfordUniversityPress,2005); JohnF.ThorntonandSusanB.
Varenrre, eds.. Ize Supplicatittg \bice: S1:iritual \|'ritirtgs oJ .Sanuel Johnson (Nerr York:
Vintage, 2005): Liz Bell:rmr. .Sanuel.loh.nsrtn (Tar-istock: \orthcote House. 2005); -\nthony
!V. Lee, Ilentoring Relatitinshilts ttt ltt Lifu dnd \\-ritirtss of StnuelJohnson; ,\ Stttdl in the
Dynamic.s o;f Eightecnth-C.ettturt I-ilerart )lt,nlor trig rLer,iston. \Y: \Ielien, 2005); David
Crlstal, ed.,Johnson -; Ditttonart; -1ti lntli,tlo{t 1\er' \-ork: Pcngrrin, 2005); E. L. N{cAdam
arrcl (ieolge NIilne, ecls.../oltrtsott s Dtclit,ntrrr. -j.,\Iodail .\eltttion (1963; repr., Mineola,
NY: Dovcr, 2005); SamLrel Johrison, Tltt \-is ion c,J' Th eodort,. the Hermit oJ knertffe: Found
in His Cell, ed. Robert De\IarraJr'. (\err \-ork: Trpophiles. 2005); Richard Holmcs, ed.,
John.son on Sctuage: An Accottttt of the Life ol )Ir. Rithail .Sarage, Son rtf the Earl Riuer:i (New
f
York: Harper Perennial, 2005);Jack Lynch, cd., SarnuelJohnson's lrtsults: A Cornpendium
of His FinesL Snttbs, Slights and ElJitnterie.s (2004; repr., London: Atlantic, 2005); Niall
Rrrdd, ed. and trans., SamuelJohnson: T'he Lutin Poerzs (Ciranbury, NJ: Associated Unir,ersitv Presses, 2005); Norma (',larke , Dr. Joh,nson's Women (2000; repr., f.ondon: Pimlico,
2005)l Ronald Black, 7o the Hebrides: Samuel .lohnson's./ournq to the \\'estern Isla'nds and
Jame.s Bosutell's Journal of a Tb'ur (Edinburgl'r: Birlinn, 2006); Eric R:rsmussen and Aaron
Sarrtesso, Cornprtratiue Excellence: rVzzl Essals on Shahespeare and ./oltnson (Ncrv York:
AMS, 2006);.farnes Bostell , An Acrount oJ Cor.sica, theJournal o;f a Tbur to That Island;
and Menroit.s of Pasca,l Paoli, ecl. James T. lloulton and T. O. \'Icl,oughlin (New Yolk:
Oxford Universitv Press, 2006); Frederick Pottle and S. K. Til1r''ald, eds., Bo.suell'.s
LonrlonJetutnal 1762-63 (1985; repr.. London: Folio Society,2006); Adam Sisrnan.
Bosuell's Pre.\umlttuous Th.sk: l4'ritittg the LL.t'e of Dr. Johnson (2000; repr., I-ondon: Harper
Pcrcnnial, 2006).
,\ntltonl \\'. Lee
o
Johnson
in the Neu Millennittm
557
drarvn from both the biographical details and the writings of Johnson
that directir. militate against a presumptivelv traditional emphasis.
Furthermore, if Johnson's marmoreal, masterful prose stYIe activates
a logical, linear response supportive of traditional scholarship-a
response that can be configured within a largel,v rnasculine and positivistic intellectual domain-this is certainly not the whole story'
Johnson's best prose passages, marked by massively rolling periodic
surfaces, also possess a depth of local complexities, of hidden recesses
of often dark psychologicai rnodalities, and of a rich intertextual imbrication that heralds explosir-elr. destabilizing moments. The coiled
power of the passage quoted abor,e from the SoameJenvns reliert'
alone should itsell confute anr attempt to harnessJohnson within the
toils of a purelr' linear. rationalistic constriction. Yet this is the r.ielv
of .fohnson that man\-Johusonians pref'er.
The final b<;ok to be considered here, Helen Deutsch's Louing
DoctorJohnsorz, directlv addresses some of these concerns. Deutsch
notes that 'Johnsoniatl authority uncannily rePeats itself in the
sen'ice of both indivichralit-v and communitv, givine rise to a secular
religion that has lastecl, hotvever nostalgicallr', horvet'er ernbattled,
hou'ever diminished, for over two hundred vears" (27)' She undertakes
an interrogation from a theoreticallv sophisticated perspective of the
host of clubs, societies, museums, scholarl',' organizations, and critical
editions that proliferate around Johnson's figure. Deutsch mounts a
critique of this popular and scholarlv monumentalization-a monumentalization discernible, for example, in the scholarlv editions consiclerecl in this essat'. However, she does so complexly, and ambiguouslv.
She does llot set out to demolish the monumentalization of Johnson
but. rather. to situate and understand it. As the title of the book
bivalentlr. annoLrnces. she does not nterelv critique the culture of
'Johnson-lore" but .ii\u e,\rmiltcs it es sunlething tl-lat she herself participates in.
Lai,ing Dr. Johnson. in its fascit-rariorr rr'ith .f ohnson's corporality
ar-rd autopsr'-rvhich becomes a metaphor fbr the ongoing effort by
Johnsonians to preserve the Johnsonian presence, through the corpus
of his lork and the material relics he left behind-extends her earlier
str-rdies. Resetnblance and. Disgrace: Alexand,er Pope and the Deformation of
Ctrlture (1996) and (coedited rvith Felicity Nussbaum) De.fects: Engendering the )[odern Bodl (2000). In her Johnson book, Deutsch intetrtiorralh deplor.s a nonlinear, personal, anecdotal st1'le, tvhich contrasts
rrith the rigorouslv iogical, Iinear, and evidential thrrst of traditional
critical commentarr.. Her approach is deeplv inforrned by theoretical
models of recent vintage, aithough she u'ears her theorl'lightlv and
graccfulir, not on her sleer-e but qr-rieth'assimilated into the fzrbric of
558
MODERN PHILOLOGY
her style and thought processes. For example, on page 8 Deutsch
announces that one of her major critical premises rests upon Derrida's
method of the "exorbitant." But she does not mention Derrida again
throughout the rest of the book. Rather, she assirnilates Derrida
through her critical appropriation of his thought. Nonetheless, the
Derridean reference is crucial.
The meditation upon the exorbitant to which Deutsch refers falls
almost at the center of Of Grammcttology." By "exorbitant" Derrida
urges a means of critiquing logocentrism by "exceeding" the metaphysical "orb" of presence, through diverging from a harnessed
"orbit." In Deutsch's case, this translates into the attempt to escape
fromJohnson's gravitational authority, and all the venerating societies,
homages, and books devoted to accumulating and perpetuating his
"presence." She does so, follou'ing Jane Gallop's Anecdotal Thenry
(2002), through the analvtical deplovment of the anecdote-a fragmented form of narratite that resists the totalizing hegemonv of systemic enclosure. This makes Der-rtsch's a headr', exhilarating book to
read. It strikes out nulnerous lurninous and compelling intellectual
sparks. It is also a disturbing and disruptir-e book, albeit one rvritten
in a limpid, direct, and accessible sn-le and with an abiding affection
for its subject. But, brar,rrra critical perfornrance that it is, it raises more
questions than it answers. The brilliant style of Deutsch's personal
engagement threatens to become as irnportant, if not more so, than
what it semantically delivers. And herein lies the dilemma, the irnpasse, that separates traditionalists frorn the "Nell' Eighteenth Centurv." Deutsch's mode of analysis r,vill leave unhappy the traditionalist
whose orientation demands more objective substance and less stl,listic
exuberance than Deutsch allows herself. Deutsch's study is unlikelv to
convert manr traditionalists. Nonetheless, Johnsonians of all critical
persuasions should read it-not primarily to agree or disagree rrith it
but to allou' it to stimulate a profitable self-reflection llpon the often
compulsive nature of our engagemel-lt rr'ith Johnson ancl his great
disciple, Bosrr,ell. If this book does not offer a l-realing negotiation
between traditional Johrrsonians and the \erl Eighteenth Century,
it does gesture toward a potentiallr' frr-ritful liminal meeting place.
Personally, I fear that if rr'e do not realize a rapprochement between
theory and tradition in Johnsorrian studies, then we Johnsonians
33. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatologl, trans. Gavatri Chakravortv Spii'ak (Baltiurorc:
.|ohns Hopkins Universitv Press, 1997), 157-64.In "The Domcstication of Derrida" (in
The l'ale Critics: Deconsttuction i'n America, ed.Jonathan Arac, Wlad Godzich, and \{allacc
Martin [Minneapolis: Llniver-sitv of Minnesota Press, 1983], 20-40), \\'lad Godzich er-
plicates this difficult portion of the text.
:\n.thnnJ \\'.
Lee o
Joh,rtson.
in the lieztt l'Iillenttiun
559
potentialh, lace tlo equallv unhappy prospects: aJohnsonian scholarlv
cornnrrrnilr' schizophrenicaih, and :rt times rancoroltsll' (t]rough less
so in recent \-cars) clivicled into tlr-o mutualil' exclusi\:e calnps: and/or
the rcdr-rction cif Johnsonians it-rto a cr:rrnpecl critical encliu,c rendel-ecl
incrcasir-rglv irrcler,anl bi- the larger, lnore progressir-e field tlf general
eighteerrth-ccnturv studics. .Jol'rnson desen'es better" and perhalls his
firture erpositors r,r,ill accept t1-re chargc of negotiating a largcr, lnore
cliticallr, ilclusive treatmcrlt of one of the most compler and elusive
figures of British iiter:rn' l-ristorr-.