Chapter Johnson to Johnston of J by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

they remain, as has been said, “some excellent, all worthy and genuine works;” and he will ever stand one of the greatest and most honourable figures in the history of English literature. Boswell’s marvellous Life has made Johnson’s bodily appearance, dress, and manners more familiar to posterity than those of any other man—the large, unwieldy form, the face seamed with scrofula, the purblind eyes, the spasmodic movements, the sonorous voice, even the brown suit, metal buttons, black worsted stockings, and bushy wig, the conversation so full of matter, strength, sense, wit, and prejudice, superior in force and sparkle to the sounding, but often wearisome periods of his written style. Of his works the two most important are the Dictionary, which, long superseded from a philological point of view, made an epoch in the history of the language, and the Lives of the Poets, many of them deformed by prejudice and singularly inadequate criticism, others, almost perfect in their kind, and the whole written in a style less pompous and more natural and lively than his earlier works.

Summary.—born 1709, educated Oxford, usher and hack writer, starts academy at Ediol, goes to London 1737, reports parliamentary debates, published London 1738, Life of Savage 1744, began Dictionary 1747, published Vanity of Human Wishes and Irene 1749, conducts Rambler 1750-52, published Dictionary 1755, Idler appears 1758-60, published Rasselas 1759, receives pension 1762, became acquainted with Boswell 1763, published edition of Shakespeare 1765, and Lives of Poets 1779-81, died 1784.

Recollections, etc., by Mrs. Piozzi, Reynolds, and others, also Johnsoniana (Mrs. Napier, 1884), Boswell’s Life, various ed., including that of Napier, 1884, and Birkbeck Hill, 1889.

Johnston, Arthur (circa 1587-1641).—Poet in Latin, born near Aberdeen, studied medicine at Padua, where he graduated. After living for about 20 years in France, he returned to England, became physician to Charles I., and was afterwards Rector of King’s Coll., Aberdeen. He attained a European reputation as a writer of Latin poetry. Among his works are Musæ Aulicæ (1637), and a complete translation of the Psalms, and he edited Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum, a collection of Latin poetry by Scottish authors.