My Sam Johnson: December 31, 2019, 9:07 a.m., London, England

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I have a lot of bits and pieces, and some of them some big bits or pieces, done for the biography about Samuel Johnson that I am writing. Some sections or scenes or passages have been fully written in advanced first draft, where when I go back to look at them, there likely won’t be much to change. I have also pretty well already set down a basic chronology of the events from Johnson’s life that I want to cover. There are a good half dozen or more authoritative, scholarly biographies of Johnson out there, many of them pretty recent — as well as books about aspects of his life, such as Leo Damrosch’s The Club — so the narrative is well known among those who are interested in it.

Part of the purpose of my book is to engender interest in those who don’t happen to be all that interested or who haven’t heard of Johnson. (I’m reminded of a great line from a now-dead uncle of mine, when he heard about a line of fishing rods made with the brand name Shakespeare: “Hey, isn’t that the guy that wrote the book?”) There’s a challenge here, if I may humbly say, because I want to present the full life of Johnson without just concentrating on the gnarly or sexy or loud bits, which would skew the life of a man whose legacy and life I respect, and whom I’ve studied since the early 1980s. (I hasten to add: not studied as a scholar, but as a well-informed amateur. I’ve been a librarian for most of my life.)

This, BTW, is my last official day as University Librarian at Carleton University in Canada’s capital. What a great time I had there and what great things my team and staff and I accomplished while I was there, if I may say so. I feel that I may say so because the work accomplished in any large organization is not done by “the boss,” but often by the boss getting out of the way and letting the senior team decide or letting the qualified and enthusiastic staff get their work done. I’m proud to have worked there.

The other part of the Johnson bio that I have to handle with care is the “personal” elements. I plan to incorporate sections on how Johnson’s thought or writing or life experiences have influenced or touched me. This is dangerous, not for what it might reveal about me — at the age of 60, I don’t worry about such stuff any more — but because it might become self-serving and — damn, what’s the word! — [after 10 seconds] self-indulgent. This is not a bio of me.

I’ve been so appreciative of those scholars and others who over the past several months have agreed to be interviewed by me (mostly by phone) about topics which were also aspects of Johnson’s life. It will all be covered in the final List of Sources in the book, but they have been so far (apologies if I have missed a name):

  • Annette Rubery
  • Colleen Cotter
  • Frans de Bruyn
  • Helen Williams
  • Jonathan Hyde
  • Judith Hawley
  • Kathy Lubey
  • Katie Barclay
  • Laura Rosenthal
  • Marjorie Doyle
  • Patrick O’Flaherty
  • Rebecca Shapiro
  • Robert Saint-Louis
  • Steph Clayton
  • Tiffany Stern
  • Tony Thorne
  • William Savage

These were short and pointed interviews, often just 20 to 45 minutes, but I am so so appreciative of the knowledge that the more-informed-than-I agreed to impart.

Of course the book contains traditional research in other secondary sources as well, and a limited amount in primary sources. Also, given the intended readership, I intend on including lots of photos, and/or linking to a page where I will post lots of photos. That is part of the reason I am in London: to get photos of Johnson’s haunts. One of the first stops will be the Turk’s Head Tavern. Sounds like a good place for a pint later in the day …

9:39 a.m.

Johnson Dies in December

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Johnson was 75 years old when in died in 1784. Even apart from his failing health, it was a troubled and turbulent year for him, one of dramatic changes and actions. It’s as if everything was starting to fall apart anyway, so death near the end of the year was the logical conclusion. He seemed to sense the end coming. On July 6 he began writing in Latin what he called his “Aegri Ephemeris,” or Sick Man’s Journal. He kept at it for over four months, detailing his various illnesses, but finally stopped it on November 8.

One huge blow to him in his final months was not physical but emotional: the end of his friendship with Hester Thrale (see more here). She had married an Italian man named Gabriel Mario Piozzi whom Johnson disapproved of, and he sent her a very harsh letter expressing his feelings:

If I interpret your letter right, you are ignominiously married; if it is yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive your wickedness: if you have forfeited your fame and your country, may your folly do no further mischief.

He was frankly wrong to pass such judgment. Thrale had been his friend for almost twenty years and during many of them she let him stay with her and her first husband at their house. She in effect broke off the friendship, defending herself with dignity:

Farewell, dear Sir, and accept my best wishes. You have always commanded my esteem, and long enjoyed the fruits of a friendship never infringed by one harsh expression on my part during twenty years of familiar talk. Never did I oppose your will, or control your wish; nor can your unmerited severity itself lessen my regard; but till you have changed your opinion of Mr. Piozzi let us converse no more. God bless you.

This was July, and he wrote to her later, after the marriage had occurred, pleading with her to at least remain in England. She did not, and in September moved to Italy.

As he sensed death approaching, he remained lucid enough to think about what he wanted kept and not kept, what he wanted known about himself or not. Unfortunately for those of us who would like to know every detail we can about Johnson’s life, in his final days he began destroying biographical papers — actually burning them. As one of his biographer’s says, he had “stated several times that the contemplation of his past filled him with misery, whereas there was hope in the future.” (1)

He did make some visits to friends, even outside of London, during his last months, but ultimately of course he was on his way to death. B. L. Reid describes the last days:

When Dr. Brockelsby, in answer to Johnson’s direct question, tells him that he cannot recover without a miracle, he replies at once: “Then I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.” In this resolution he persisted. Of course. The holy sacrament is brought to him at home. On Monday, December 13, young Miss Morris comes to beg his blessing. Johnson turns himself in bed and says, “God bless you, my dear.” He did not speak again, and he died that evening without stress or struggle. (2)

And of course, 235 years and 5 days later, we will mark his death.

(1) Peter Martin, Samuel Johnson: A Biography (2010)

(2) B. L. Reid, “How to Die: The Example of Samuel Johnson,” Sewanee Review 85:4 (fall 1977).

Johnson Praying

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Johnson was notoriously hard on himself. Not in the sense that he doubted his intelligence or his ability to write or debate, for example, but more in the sense of himself as a person, his morality, his character, his traits. Often near the end of the year (but sometimes also throughout the year or on an anniversary or birthday), he would generally write about having been lazy and unproductive during the past year, asking God to forgive him, and vowing to try to do better in the year to come. This is the prayer he wrote January 1, 1757, “at 2 in the morning”:

Almighty God, who hast brought me to the beginning of another year, and by prolonging my life invitest to repentance, forgive me that I have misspent the time past; enable me, from this instant, to amend my life according to Thy holy word; grant me Thy HOLY SPIRIT, that I may so pass through things temporal, as not finally to lose the things eternal. GOD, hear my prayer for the sake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen.

There’s a feeling of harshness to himself about it, a kind of flagellation: I have been bad, forgive me, God, and I will try to be better. He was sincere and believed what he was saying, and his relationship to his God was often expressed in this way of not living up to the ideals implicit in religious belief.

On his birthday, September 18, that same year, the theme continues:

Almighty and most merciful Father, by whose providence my life has been prolonged, and who hast granted me now to begin another year of probation, vouch safe me such assistance of Thy HOLY SPIRIT, that the continuance of my life may not add to the measure of my guilt; but that I may so repent of the days and years passed in neglect of the duties which Thou hast set before me, in vain thoughts, in sloth, and in folly, that I may apply my heart to true wisdom, by diligence redeem the time lost, and by repentance obtain pardon, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen.

This is typical, thanking God for the bare fact of keeping him alive (!), and then talking about his own perceived sloth and folly and “time lost.” The idea of having wasted time recurs in the prayers. He was generally a productive man but evidentally either never saw himself that way, or concentrated more on the difference between the ideal of perfection he assigned to himself in God’s eyes, rather than on the messy practicality of being a human, which of course will entail a little laziness and slacking off in the best of us during the course of any year.

You could probably make an argument that it is his aspiring to an ideal that in fact helped him get so much done, so that in a way he has it all backwards: it’s not that he doesn’t achieve enough against some impossible ideal, but rather that the ideal is an inspiration that helps him get a lot done in spite of all the other demands and obstacles that any life offers a person. It’s too bad he couldn’t feel better about what he did manage to get done.