Afternoon:
10°c
Literary London was out in force last night to mark the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. But while the winner basks in national publicity, the prize's namesake is little known these days — a crying shame because Dr Johnson was one of the greatest characters in London's literary history.
Although Johnson's first major work was London: A Poem, he was actually born in the Midlands market town of Lichfield in 1709. Young Samuel grew up in relative poverty and was taught by a retired shoemaker but his natural talent soon became obvious and he won a place at Oxford in 1728.
At Oxford, Johnson was considered a "frolicksome fellow" but in private he struggled with poverty and a long battle against depression. "I was mad and violent," he admitted later. "It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority." Johnson was so short of cash that he trudged around barefoot because he lacked the money for new shoes.
Eventually he gave up and went home without a degree. Long years of boredom followed as he pursued the life of a Midlands schoolteacher. But at last, in 1737, he gambled all on moving to London and establishing himself as a man of letters.
In the booming world of the Georgian capital, Johnson found his niche. His essays for The Gentleman's Magazine, The Rambler and The Idler attracted widespread acclaim; his books on Shakespeare turned the playwright into a national icon; above all, his famous Dictionary, stuffed with jokes — "Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" — won him a royal pension and lasting fame.
But what really distinguished Johnson was his sheer humanity. A staunch Tory who called George III the "finest gentleman I have ever seen", he hated slavery and named his black manservant as his heir. He loved cats but thought the Scots hilarious. "I am willing to love all mankind," he remarked, "except an American." When the artist Hogarth first met him he was astonished to find "an ideot — shaking his head and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner." In fact, Johnson probably suffered from Tourette's syndrome, as well as chronic depression. And yet, said Hogarth, Johnson had "a power of eloquence" that none could match.
Even today thousands of admirers flock to Johnson's old house on Gough Square, near Fleet Street. And unlike many of his contemporaries, he would probably fit quite well into the hurly-burly of our modern city.
As he famously put it: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford."
