Samuel Johnson by Bate Walter Jackson 1918-

Author:Bate, Walter Jackson, 1918-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784, Authors, English
Publisher: New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Published: 1979-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Later Forties

when emotion becomes so overpowering that he instinctively strives to control it through formality), he stops addressing her as "My Sweet Angel" or "Dearest Dear," and begins "Honoured Madam—I beg of you to endeavour to live ... if you can write three words to me, be pleased to do it." But then he ends: "I am afraid to say much, and cannot say nothing when my dearest is in danger." 4

When she died (January 16), said Giuseppe Baretti, who saw him frequently at this time, Johnson "was almost distracted with his grief," and his friends "had much ado to calm the violence of his emotion." 5

3

Then, in the middle of March, he was suddenly put under arrest for debt (£5 18s.). The prospect of the debtors' prison in the eighteenth century—so difficult for us to imagine now—was a fearful one, especially in the winter, when scores of debtors would be thrown together in the Marshalsea Prison with only scraps to eat, a thin blanket to cover them as they lay on the floor, and of course with no heat. The arrest completely surprised Johnson, sunk in loneliness and grief and still not well. Immediately he tried to reach his friend William Strahan, who had been the printer for the Dictionary . Not finding him, and perhaps unwilling from embarrassment to approach the other booksellers connected with the Dictionary, he wrote to Samuel Richardson, whose novels had been a success, and who had loaned him money in the past and had offered to do so again whenever Johnson needed. Richardson at once sent six guineas—in other words, eight shillings more than the sum for which Johnson was being arrested. That tiny extra touch of generosity—a round sum slightly above the amount of the debt—naturally tells us something about Richardson, who, as distinct from his own fictional heroes, was being very close, and yet doubtless felt he was showing he did not count pennies too exactly. But it could also explain why Johnson, who understood him very well, applied to Richardson rather than someone else. Johnson was never to forget the favor, and, though at bottom he always regarded Richardson as something of a prig, he had an additional incentive in standing up for him against rival novelists.

Obviously something had to be done, and not only because he needed money. He also needed a project to help him get out of him-

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