The Life of Samuel Johnson

In 1747, Johnson announces that he is planning to produce a dictionary of the English language. Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language will be the most famous achievement of his career. He begins by publishing a prospectus, a plan for the dictionary, addressed to Lord Chesterfield and explaining his intention to use his own judgment to decide questions of linguistic “purity or propriety” (133).

Some booksellers contract with Johnson, and he hires a staff of six secretaries to assist him in the “mechanical part” of producing the dictionary. Boswell emphasizes that Johnson’s decision to produce such a work on his own was noteworthy, since dictionaries in other languages are usually produced by committees and “the co-operating exertions of many” (132). When someone points out that the French Academy took forty years and as many people to produce a French dictionary, Johnson replies, with a characteristic national chauvinism: “As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman” (135).

Boswell mentions that Johnson showed “never-ceasing kindness” (135) to these secretaries throughout the rest of their lives, including giving monetary assistance to one of them when he fell into poverty. Throughout the book, Boswell presents instances of Johnson’s charitable actions toward the less fortunate, implied to be rooted in his strong Christian beliefs.

Boswell argues that working on the Dictionary was good for Johnson because, as a “steady continued course of occupation” (136), it kept his mind free from melancholy and depression. On the other hand, Johnson craves “more diversity of employment” (136); he therefore continues to write occasional pieces and forms a club that meets evenings to discuss literature—a foreshadowing of the later Literary Club.

In 1748, Johnson writes with “fervid rapidity” one of his major works of poetry, The Vanity of Human Wishes, and publishes it the following January. Like London, this is a satirical work written in imitation of Juvenal and, like much 18th-century English poetry, is cast in rhymed couplets. The poem deals moralistically with the disappointments of human life and the futility of man’s quest for greatness. However, in contrast to Juvenal’s Stoic perspective, Johnson emphasizes Christian virtue and abandonment to God’s will.

At long last, in February 1749, Irene is performed at the Drury Lane Theatre by its star and manager, David Garrick. The play is not a success and closes after nine performances; however, the short run earns Johnson a good deal of money, and the script is subsequently published. Johnson takes this failure philosophically, and Boswell considers this typical of his basic humility. While Boswell depicts Johnson stridently holding his own in debate, Johnson does not come across as a writer who is conceited about his literary efforts or devoted to self-aggrandizement or the belittlement of other writers; indeed, one can see several instances of his providing assistance to other writers.

According to Boswell, the problem with Irene is that while it has “noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language” (142), it lacks the emotional resonance that the best drama has. According to Garrick, Johnson lacks a true feeling for drama. Taking his failure as a dramatist to heart, Johnson will never again write another play.