Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson

by Hesther Lynch. Piozzi

Subjects: Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1786

Reviews

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Samuel Johnson. Hester Thrale (later Piozzi) was Johnson's friend, confidant, and something of a caregiver for much of the last twenty years of his life. Piozzi was certainly not the writer that Johnson was, though, and this is a rambling, somewhat disorganized narrative. Many of the stories require a knowledge of then-current events (and Latin!) that I don't have. But there is much to enjoy here; Piozzi is the source for some of our most well-known bits of Johnsonia.

I've always loved the conservative Johnson's response to someone who objected to giving money to beggars, because "they only lay it out in gin or tobacco."

And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths.

And I'm glad Mrs. Piozzi recorded his comment on a recently deceased, irreligious gentleman from Jamaica: "He will not, whither he is now gone, find much difference, I believe, either in the climate or the company."

There are hints of Johnson's darker side here. Piozzi says, "No one had however higher notions of the hard task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose daily terror lest he had not done enough, originated in piety, but ended in little less than disease." And she briefly refers to promises of secrecy on "so strange a subject" that her husband, Henry Thrale, was horrified. Mrs. Piozzi does not reveal what this subject is, but we now know that Johnson apparently asked her to restrain him with chains and locks, although we don't know whether that was for purposes of sexual gratification or to keep him from harming himself.

In any case, after the death of Henry Thrale, his widow found Johnson more and more difficult and hard to bear, and eventually the friendship was broken off. Johnson didn't live much longer after the estrangement. Piozzi's portrait of a difficult, rude, brilliant, and ultimately troubled man is painted with equal parts affection and exasperation. I'm glad we have it.

[Avis Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that ought to be read alongside Boswell, but rarely seems to be. Hester Thrale was a family friend of Dr. Johnson, and her account makes it plain she was a lot less enamored of the Great Man than Boswell was. Johnson may have had an impressive mind, but he was often unbearable to deal with as a person, according to Thrale.

Boswell is generally given credit for writing the first great modern biography. But Thrale published her book about Johnson 4 years before Boswell published his, and yet Thrale is not given much credit for producing a remarkable and innovative character study not influenced by Boswell, but which in turn appears to have influenced the viewpoint and approach of her rival biographer.