The Johnson Society (Lichfield)

In celebration of the centenary of the opening of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, the Director of Lichfield's International Arts Festival thought it appropriate to mark the occasion by including some form of artistic expression as part of the celebrations. Thus I was approached and the idea of daily readings took root. It was decided to give performances in the early evening to allow audiences to attend concerts and other events at later times.

I felt that it was essential that the readings should be both informative and entertaining in order that they may appeal to audiences familiar with the Johnson's life and works, and also to those who knew little about the great man. Not an easy task! Each session was of approximately thirty five to forty minutes, and to include them in their entirety would probably demand a separate publication; they are therefore reproduced in précis form below.

Eight readings were presented: Written and

Performed by

Johnson's World of Women, Part 1 - Stephen Brunton

Johnson's World of Women, Part 2 - Stephen Brunton

Three Admirers  - Elle Knight

An Anecdotal Miscellany - Elle Knight

At Home with Doctor Johnson  - Adrienne Swallow

Johnson on religion  - Adrienne Swallow

Johnson -Murphy's View  -  David Titley

Johnson on Procrastination  -  David Titley

To judge from Johnson's famous comment that, 'A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs - it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all'; you might think that Johnson didn't have a very high opinion of women - maybe he was even a bit of a misogynist. Not so. Johnson was a man who loved women and greatly enjoyed their company.

We begin, however, with the most important woman in his life - the lady who became his wife, Mrs Elizabeth Jervis Porter. She was the widow of a prosperous merchant, Henry Porter. After Porter's death Johnson and Elizabeth, or 'Tetty' as he always called her, became closer, and in 1735 they were married. She was twenty years older than Johnson but it seems genuinely to have been a love match on both sides. David Garrick said of Tetty that she was 'a silly affected woman; fat, over-painted, full of girlish airs and graces and overfond of cordials'; but then the schoolboy Garrick naturally found a middle-aged bride, in love with a husband twenty years her junior, an absurd object. A little-known portrait, which depicts her in her early thirties, proves that, as a younger woman, she was lovely to look at. She had a taste for good reading and a pretty wit! But after fifteen years of marriage, sadly, Tetty's health deteriorated - she rarely left her bed. In 1752 she died, still only in her early sixties, and Johnson's grief was overwhelming.

Most of the women whom Johnson courted and admired - but cannot in the more obvious sense, be said to have pursued - were unquestionably 'modest women' whose virtue was an essential part of their charm. Yet all his life he had a sympathetic regard for women who laid no claims to virtue; and, now and then, he would amuse the virtuous with picturesque anecdotes about the vicious. Fanny Burney reports an occasion in Streatham in 1778 when he suddenly began to describe an old friend. He had known every wit, Johnson declared, from Mrs Montagu to Bet Flint - 'habitually a slut and a drunkard and occasionally a thief and a harlot.' Bet Flint had written her own life in verse, and brought Johnson her verses to correct; but he had given her half-a-crown instead, 'and she liked it as well!' A notorious personage whom Johnson never met, but whose acquaintance he would not have refused, was Kitty Fisher. Bet Flint had apparently once taken Kitty to see him, but to his disappointment he was not at home. The most fashionable courtesan of her day, Catherine Maria Fisher, a former milliner's apprentice, had reached the height of her profession during the seventeen fifties.

We have already mentioned Mrs Elizabeth Montagu. She was born into the Yorkshire squirearchy in 1720 and grew up with all the privileges of her class. She rose to prominence in London society partly because of her extraordinary beauty and her accomplishments as a hostess, and also as a result of the salon which she established at her house in Mayfair - she told Garrick that she 'never invited idiots to her house!' She became a leading member of the Bluestockings and held regular assemblies at her house for intellectual and literary conversation. After her husband's death in 1775 Mrs Montagu continued to be a hostess and built herself a splendid mansion in Portman Square; however, much of the glory had departed and the parties she held there lacked the intellectual excitement of those at her old home in Hill Street. She died in London in 1800, just short of her eightieth birthday.

One cannot speak of the women in Johnson's life without mentioning Hester Thrale. Born to John and Hester Salusbury (both known to Johnson) in North Wales she developed at an early age into an expert charmer and diplomatist: she also adopted the habits of fashionable life though she had no personal fortune. She read eagerly, and before she was fifteen had begun to scribble verse and prose, contributing a number of amusing pieces to the St James Chronicle. As an adolescent she was shrewd beyond her years. She first encountered Henry Thrale in 1761. He was a rich young brewery owner, then thirty-two, personable, accomplished and self-assured. They were married on 11^th October 1763 and Thrale immediately carried her off to the pleasant rural surroundings of Streatham.

It was Arthur Murphy (actor, dramatist, journalist, author and professional diner-out), one of Thrale's oldest friends, who first spoke to the Thrales about Doctor Samuel Johnson and urged them invite him to Streatham. And, since it was never his way to decline an invitation that promised both a delicious dinner and a flow of good talk, Johnson duly appeared on a momentous Thursday in January 1765. Such were the chance beginnings of a friendship that was to last for more than twenty years.

Many of the young women who entered Johnson's circle were protégés and pupils to be advised, teased and reprimanded. Others though, aroused a much more poignant emotion that made them romantic legends in his memory.

Molly Aston, for example, was a beauty he could never quite forget. Mrs Thrale recalled that Johnson, as they talked about Fanny Burney's new novel had said that, 'Miss Burney's new book concludes by leaving her heroine in measureless delight', and wondered 'when anybody ever experiences measureless delight; I never did, I'm sure, except the first evening I spent tête-à-tête with Molly Aston…' And when Mr Thrale asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his life, he replied that it was that year in which he had spent one whole evening with Molly Aston. 'That indeed,' said he, 'was not happiness, it was rapture…. Molly was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit, and a Whig; she talked all in praise of liberty; she was the loveliest creature I ever saw!'

A celebrated woman whom Johnson never in fact met but would certainly have liked to was the somewhat infamous Mrs Rudd. Margaret Caroline Rudd had been born in Ireland and had previously lived under a series of impressive noms de guerre. She later became the favourite of John Wilkes and the Westminster Gazette at one time published an account of a liaison which Henry Thrale was alleged to have had with her. Boswell paid her a visit and was obviously taken with the "wonderful ease and delicacy" with which she spoke, not to mention admiring her ankles, and Johnson, on being told of this visit, reportedly said, 'I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting everything into the newspapers.' Nothing changes does it?

Johnson could be merciless in the judgement he passed on women described as 'modest' but who, despite the advantages of a respectable upbringing, wilfully deviated from the paths of virtue. Lady Diana Beauclerk, for example, had deliberately broken up her marriage. She had been married to the second Viscount Bolingbroke: he was a rake and a drunkard, and the marriage was desperately unhappy. In order to obtain a parliamentary divorce and marry her lover, Topham Beauclerk, she made a public confession of adultery. Boswell's attempt to defend Lady Diana to Johnson resulted in one of Johnson's most devastating put-downs: 'My dear sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and there's an end to't.'

Once safely domesticated at Streatham Place Johnson seems to have lost his affection for bohemian company. Virtuous women afforded all the entertainment he required, and in early August 1778, Miss Fanny Burney first appeared among the Thrales under the protective wing of her father. She was already celebrated: earlier that same year her first novel, Evelina, or A Young Lady's Entrance Into The World, had been published anonymously, but, after a good deal of public controversy and, on Miss Burney's own part. 'embarrassment and trepidation', she had eventually given way and told her secret.

Johnson's admiration for the young novelist, who had not reached her 26^th birthday at the time she published Evelina, grew rapidly more and more effusive. One evening when they happened to meet in the house just after his return from a fleeting visit to London, he suddenly grasped her hands, 'then drawing me very unexpectedly towards him he actually kissed me!' He had already placed her on the same level of esteem as Mrs Thrale. Having asserted that women, as a rule, were exclusively concerned with current fashions and, 'take them in general, have no idea of grace,' he hastened to add, 'I don't mean Mrs Thrale and Miss Burney - they are goddesses!'

Johnson could be severe on his female admirers when he felt the occasion required it. Fanny Burney tells us how Hannah More, a dramatist, began 'singing his praises in the warmest manner'. Johnson heard her calmly enough; but then, as her flattery grew more and more fulsome, he turned sternly to her and said, 'Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth having.'

On of the last young women to enter Johnson's circle was Mary Wollstonecraft, then aged twenty-five. In 1784, shortly before his final collapse, she called on him and he had a long conversation with her, desiring her to 'visit often'. Mary agreed, and would have done so, but for the news that he had fallen seriously ill.

It would be possible to occupy whole volumes discussing women whose company Johnson enjoyed in the course of a long life, their effect on him and his on them. In these two sessions we have merely touched the surface and referred to a mere handful of women from very different parts of the social scale and with varying talents and occupations, who together, have given us just a brief glimpse and the beginnings of an insight into Johnson's World of Women.

When compiling these readings, I chose to concentrate upon 'Three Great Admirers' in Doctor Johnson's life. The first lady we shall consider is Lucy porter, the daughter of Johnson's beloved wife Elizabeth (Tetty as he called her). In 1785, a year after Johnson's death, Anna Seward wrote:

Lucy Porter is a woman of the strictest veracity [and] she had a certain shrewdness of understanding, and piquant humour, with the most perfect truth and integrity. By these good traits in her character, were the most respectable inhabitants of this place induced to bear, with kind smiles, her mulish obstinacy, and perverse contradictions.

With Anna's characteristic use of language (and more of her later) we can gather that in spite of personal criticism, she both admired and loved Lucy. Of her, Johnson says, 'Miss Lucy has raised my esteem by many excellencies, very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity.' Nonetheless, Lucy was Johnson's first love but refused his offer of marriage. Though only a schoolboy in his teens, some three or four years older than his beloved, he wrote verses to her, full of tenderness, admiration and a quiet dignity. She was one of those beings who made society glad to receive her. From the age of twenty she boarded with Johnson's mother at the bookseller's shop (here) by which Johnson's father had supplied his family's scanty means of existence. Though she kept the best company in Lichfield, Lucy would make no engagement on market days, lest 'Granny', as she called Mrs Johnson, should catch cold by serving in the shop. There Lucy Porter took her place, standing behind the counter (we can imagine her standing below diligently attending to the customers). Johnson himself extended to Lucy an indulgence which he showed not to any other person. If time permitted much more could be related about Lucy Porter but there is no doubt that her influence in Doctor Johnson's life was indelibly marked; whom he admired, and of whom she was a great admirer.

Then to our second admirer - Hester Thrale, of whom Doctor Johnson wrote -'to hear her was wisdom; to see her was to see virtue.' Johnson loved her for her wit, her beauty, her luxurious table and her coach! She loved him for the literary consequence of his residing at her Streatham home, where gathered the rich, the proud and the titled literati, who flocked to meet him. They would not have sought Doctor Johnson in his garret, nor would she have entertained people without the actual presence - in her salon - of a man known to be inspired.

Volumes could, and have been, devoted to the life, talents and achievements of this amazing lady, and I therefore had to make a decision on what to include this evening. Of her admiration for Samuel Johnson there can be no doubt, and that he admired and loved her, is equally in no doubt. Their relationship however, took a turn for the worse when, after the death of her husband, the wealthy brewer Henry Thrale, Hester was courted by and married Signor Piozzi. Doctor Johnson was very distressed and bitter correspondence took place between them. Johnson's ill-timed advice to Hester was not appreciated, and many believe that he would have wished to marry her on her widowhood. He bitterly resented her liaison with Piozzi and was, in that respect, a very disappointed man.

Our third admirer is Anna Seward who lived in the Close for most of her life and is popularly referred to as 'The Swan of Lichfield', a title which I endorse. Whilst it cannot be said that Anna liked Doctor Johnson, she certainly respected him and admired his writing. However, she disliked his disposition and did her best to convince Boswell that his hero was envious by nature. Boswell told Anna that Johnson '…. wished and expected to marry Mrs Thrale.'

Anna was alternately impressed and irritated by Johnson and noted his limitations with warmth, for example on music,'….to Sam Johnson, the sweetest airs and most superb harmonies were but unmeaning noise.' And, 'Doctor Johnson was a very indifferent reader of verse. One eternal monotone …frustrated the intent of the poet…'. But she noted his good points with appreciation. She records how Lucy Porter asked Johnson whether she might trust the reviewers of new publications, 'Infallibly, my dear,' he replied, 'provided you buy what they abuse and never anything they praise!'

Anna visited Johnson in the last year of his life and viewed, with compassion, his declining health. She wrote several letters upon these visits noting that 'the great Johnson is labouring under a disease which must speedily be fatal.' She commented that his memory was considerably impaired but that his eloquence rolled on in its customary majesty. Upon his death Anna wrote, '…at last extinct is that mighty spirit… that enlightened the whole literary world.'

Let me conclude with Doctor Johnson's own words on his deathbed: 'I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.'

The following is a selection some of the anecdotes and witticisms which were included.

There is the story of Henry Thrale who, on one occasion when Hester Thrale was heavily pregnant, asked his wife to sit in a draught so that Sophia could warm her hostess's seat. Mrs Thrale left the room in tears and later reproached Doctor Johnson for not speaking up on her behalf.

Lucy Porter venerated her stepfather and thought him almost next to the deity. The Doctor, in turn, was in awe of his sharp-tongued stepdaughter, who scolded him like a schoolboy for tracking mud over her clean floor. One of the matters on which he and his wife had had words was about her passionate love of cleanliness and he reported that '…she had a peculiar reverence for cleanliness. "A clean house is so comfortable," she would say, until at I told her that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we should now have a touch at the ceiling!'

Near the end of Johnson's life, two young ladies called upon him at Bolt Court. One of them repeated a previously prepared speech of some length. It was an enthusiastic effusion, an outpouring of admiration, after which she panted for her idol's reply. She was mortified when all he said was, 'Fiddle-de-dee, my dear!'

Talking of admirers, a Mr Crawford was to dine where Doctor Johnson was to be and resolved to pay court to him. Having heard that he preferred Donne's Satires to Pope's version, said, 'Do you know Doctor Johnson, that I like Dr Donne's Satires better than Pope's.' Johnson said, 'Well, sir, I can't help that!'

A certain young man used to visit Doctor Johnson, who said it vexed him to be in his company, his ignorance was so hopeless. 'Sir,' said Mr Langton, 'his coming about you shows he wished to help his ignorance.' 'Sir,' replied the Doctor, 'his ignorance is so great I am afraid to show him the bottom of it!'

A Mr Wickens showed Johnson round his much-prized garden and estate not knowing that the doctor detested 'prospects', 'views' and 'terraces'. Mr Wickens extolled the vista which promised a larger extent of grounds than there was, remarking, '…you might conceive that you are entering a labyrinth but that would prove a deception.' 'Sir,' replied the Doctor, 'don't tell me of deception; a lie sir, is a lie.' Abashed, the host turned to an urn erected to a deceased friend, informing Johnson that '……it is of the true Truscan order.' 'Sir,' returned the guest, 'I hate urns; they are nothing, they mean nothing, and convey no ideas but those of horror - would they were beaten to pieces to pave our streets!'

Then followed other anecdotes of a general nature concerning the ladies of Lichfield - Mrs Gastrell, Mrs Aston, Mary Cobb, Mary Adey and, of course, Anna Seward.

Finally Anna Seward, for whom my admiration is unbounded, wrote in 1786, after Johnson's death:

'those who are not interested in Johnson's anecdotes can have little intellectual curiosity and no imagination. Often have nobles, prices, perhaps kings, stood awed in the presence of the son of a Lichfield bookseller.'

In choosing this subject, I bore in mind Johnson's statement in The Rambler, No 60 that

The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies and display the minute details of daily life.

I also hoped it would provide scope for consideration of a number of lighter aspects of Johnson's life and be accessible for both the Johnson student and for those with a limited knowledge of his life. Boswell's Life and Mrs Thrales Anecdotes were my chief sources, with excerpts from Fanny Burney, William Shaw and others.

In an account of someone's home life, a marriage of nearly twenty years is bound to have considerable significance: in Johnson's case, this period saw him taking up the career of a writer, moving to London and beginning work on the dictionary for which, today, he is best known. I devoted some space to consideration of the happiness of Johnson's marriage to Tetty, his praise of her and his habitual marking of the anniversary of her death. This was contrasted with Mrs Desmoulins's report of his 'heavy petting' with her at times during Tetty's later illness and Johnson's own reference to a projected second marriage only a year after Tetty's death.

Johnson's inattention to order in his dress and in his home was not matched by a lack of interest in food as was clear in accounts by both Boswell and Mrs Thrale - 'a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal-pye with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of salt buttock of beef' were all listed by her as amongst his favourites.

This contrasted with his own home where the group of dependants he supported there argued bitterly. Mrs Thrale's view was that, 'he really was oftentimes afraid of going home because he was sure to be met at the door with numberless complaints…'

The support of this group was one aspect of Johnson's strong charitable impulse. However, it was also a reflection of his tendency to depression, to insomnia and fear of loneliness, which led him to keep very late hours both in sleeping and rising.

One of the ways he avoided this 'black dog' of depression was by sitting up late drinking tea with Mrs Thrale or Mrs Williams (he was extremely fond of tea and drank it in huge quantities, especially after he gave up alcohol for his health's sake). His other enthusiasms included reading and chemistry. Mrs Thrale records that, 'Mr Thrale insisted that we should do no more towards finding the philosopher's stone.' His habit of reading in bed was a similar danger, causing scorching of his wig to such an extent that, 'Mr Thrale's valet-de-chambre, for that reason kept one always on his own hand, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell called him down to dinner,' and followed him to remove it when Johnson went upstairs to sleep in the afternoon.

This anecdote was followed by a concluding section on Johnson's untidy habits of dress, contrasted with Bennet Langton's assertion that, 'his conversation was so rich, animated and so forcible,' that his appearance was soon forgotten.

This came towards the end of the series but was the first topic I chose; I have a strong interest in ecclesiastical history. I began by re-reading Fiona MacMath's book, The Faith of Samuel Johnson alongside contemporary biographies, particularly Boswell and Thrale, volumes of Annals, Letters and Sermons from the Harvard Edition of Johnson's Collected Works and various secondary sources, in particular Pierce's The Religious Life of Samuel Johnson.

Johnson's enjoyment of argument sometimes makes it difficult to establish exactly what his ideas were - Boswell concludes a long discussion on the merits of Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism, 'What he said is here accurately recorded. But it is not improbable that, if one had taken the other side, he might have reasoned differently.' However, his attachment was to the Church of England, and in the Dictionary and elsewhere he identifies religion with political principle; 'The first Whig was the Devil.'

Johnson believed it was important to belong to a church: he wrote in his life of Milton that, 'To be of no church is dangerous.' His first religious teaching came from his mother, a woman of 'distinguished understanding' and piety, who taught him as a little child that Heaven was '- a place to which good people went.' As an adult, Johnson retained a strong fear of death and judgement - perhaps the more so because his health was always so poor. Lichfield has a reminder of how seriously Johnson took his sins, in the statue, which shows the penance he set himself in later life, to stand at the Uttoxeter market on the spot where his father had his stall. This was to expiate his disobedience of years before in refusing to help his father there.

He often wrote prayers for his own use and also regularly wrote in his journal his reflections on his behaviour and resolutions for improvement. He developed the habit of making these assessments on certain regular occasions - New Year, the anniversary of his wife's death and his own birthday. On Good Friday 1775 he wrote'…I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try in humble hope of the help of God…'

This conviction of his inadequacy may well be related to his mother's early teaching and fear of being unworthy of heaven: 'As I cannot be sure that I have fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid that I may be one of those who shall be damned.' This contributed to his recurrent depression and need of company: 'Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue.' It was only in the last few months of his life that he seemed to overcome these fears.

Johnson's attitudes to women were certainly not 'politically correct' but in some other respects, however, his views seem surprisingly modern. At his first dinner with Boswell at the Mitre he told him that, 'For my part, Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.' This was unusual tolerance when, only a generation before his birth, King James had been driven from his throne because of fears of Catholicism.

Despite his own high standards he asked less of others: 'Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature, as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?' And despite harshness to himself, a passage in The Idler, written at the time of his mother's death offers the assurance that, 'Real alleviation of the loss of friends and rational tranquillity in the prospect of our own dissolution, can be received only from the promises of Him in whose hands are life and death, and from the assurance of another and better state, in which all tears shall be wiped from the eyes, and the whole soul shall be filled with joy. Philosophy may infuse stubbornness, but Religion can only give Patience.'

Arthur Murphy was born in Ireland in 1727, educated in France and spent most of his life in London working as a barrister. He died in 1805. His contemporaries knew him as a writer of plays, some twenty in all, mainly based on French comedies. He was 'very much loved' by Johnson, who said of him,' I don't know that Arthur can be classed with the very first dramatic writers, yet at present I doubt that whether we have anything superior to Arthur.'

They met when Johnson was forty-five, as the result of a minor misunderstanding over Johnson's Rambler No 45, which Murphy had published in translation from the French, not realising its true origin. They became close friends, and it is thought that Murphy introduced Johnson to the household of Mr and Mrs Thrale.

In 1792 Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson LLD was published as a preface to a collected edition of Johnson's works. In his introduction we read, 'The present writer enjoyed the conversation and friendship of that excellent man for more thirty years and to this hour he reflects on his loss with regret.'

He is frank about his lack of original material, '(the writer)…has no discoveries, no secret anecdotes, no occasional controversy, no sudden flashed of wit and humour, no private conversation, and no new facts to embellish his work. Everything has been gleaned.'

This was, after all, the year following the publication of Boswell's Life. Murphy's tone is protective towards his friend, and he gently chides previous writers, '(Johnson's)…fame has given importance even to trifles, and the zeal of his friends has brought everything to light. What should be related and what should not, has been published without distinction.'

Throughout this essay his warm admiration for Johnson is clear. As a friend, he is blunt about his manners, his physical eccentricities, his failings and his chaotic lifestyle, but over and over again he affirms, '(Johnson's) duty to his neighbour consisted in universal benevolence…, who was more sincere and steady in his friendships?…his humanity and generosity were, in proportion to his slender income, unbounded….'

Even in his criticism of Irene where he found little to commend, he points out the excellences of the piece, 'The diction is nervous, rich and elegant: but splendid language and melodious numbers will make a fine poem, not a tragedy.'

Murphy's view gives us Johnson as though through the eyes of a friend, warts and all; a friend who saw in, 'His piety, his kind affectations, and the goodness of his heart…..an example worthy of imitation.'

The essay perhaps adds little to our factual knowledge about Doctor Johnson, but merits attention as the product of a long-standing friendship written with affection and not a little modesty: 'In the progress of the work, feeble as it may be (the writer) thought himself performing the last human office to the memory of a friend, whom he loved, esteemed and honoured.'

Mrs Piozzi in her Anecdotes cites as one of her favourite Rambler essays, No 134 'On Procrastination'. For this reason it was taken as the centrepiece of a set of readings which illustrate two pairs of contrasts in Johnson's approach to his work. The first, that between indolence and industry, was neatly summed up in Boswell's words '….it was strange to think that the most indolent man in Britain had written the most laborious work: The English Dictionary.' The second, between Johnson's idealism and the workaday attitude to his craft which he so grimly expressed in the famous line - 'A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.'

Johnson's fecundity and felicity so astonished Boswell that he was at pains to emphasize the Doctor's, 'peculiar promptitude of mind.' He records Sir Joshua Reynolds enquiring, 'by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow', and Johnson replied that 'he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion and in every company to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in and that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him….it became habitual to him.'

Yet the man who could evince such rigour of mind was the man who looked at himself and observed, 'I have spent fifty five years in resolving having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short.' This is a typically severe self-assessment and this despite his awareness (in matters of literary endeavour at any rate) that, 'to pursue perfection was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the sun which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them'.

The essay on procrastination, if we are to credit its gently humorous opening, was written in haste at the last minute, though not in the parlour of Joshua Reynolds' London Home, as Mrs Piozzi thought. Clear evidence here of Johnson's tendency to put things off! From its opening drollery to its final reminder of death's inevitable intervention, we see the unrelenting vivacity of Johnson's reason beating against the forces of indolence. This insight into a personal battle still has the power to stir our conscience. That such an essay, written so long ago in haste, should still move us is a tribute to the aims and ideals which Johnson strove for in his writing, but which he seldom expressed save with reference to other writers. These lines about Pope, for instance, from, The Lives of the Poets, published when Johnson was seventy-two, speak just as well of his own aspirations and abilities. '…Pope had likewise genius; a mind active, ambitious and adventurous, always investigating, always aspiring; in its widest searches still longing to go forward, in its highest flights still wishing to be higher: always imagining something greater than it knows, always endeavouring more than it can do.'

We played to full houses, and extend grateful thanks to our audiences for their appreciative comments and encouraging applause. We, the readers, greatly enjoyed the experience of what Ted Hughes calls "words and cadences gently clasping each other" which was found to be rewarding and immensely satisfying.

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This paper arrived too late for inclusion in the 2002 Transactions but has much to recommend it. Elle Knight reflects on the process of selecting suitable material for the theme of Town and Country. Her colleague from Intimate Theatre –Davis Titley, undertook much of the work. We are particularly lucky in Lichfield to have a company of actors who undertake these dramatised readings which bring out particular aspects of Johnsoniana and general aspects of eighteenth century life.

I was delighted again to be invited to participate in the Birthday celebrations on September 21 2002 by providing readings in the Birthplace.

Since a deal of research inevitably takes place, I had it in mind to repeat a performance of previously used material. However, I was fired with enthusiasm when the title, ‘In Town and Country’ was suggested. It immediately conjured up images of people and places which figured abundantly in Doctor Johnson’s life.

In spite of Swift’s graphic description of the ‘kennels’ carrying, ‘dung, guts and blood’, Johnson loved London and deplored country life - ‘those who live in the country are fit for the country’ – and expressed one of his most famous pro-urban sentiments in, ‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.’ Nonetheless, he avowed that, ‘Men and women are my subjects of enquiry’ thus revealing that he considered people to be far more important than places.

David Titley who has taken part in the annual readings since their inception undertook the task of compiling the material on the chosen theme.

I was told that the topic was to be Town and Country. ‘Plenty of scope there,’ I thought. As a title though it has all the pulling power of the Council Planning Committee! I carried on regardless, plunging into the Birthplace reading room with reckless enthusiasm. I needed material suitable for an hour’s light entertainment; something to hold the attention of the chance visitor. The shelves, packed with serried ranks of venerable tomes, did not augur well. But I knew enough of Doctor Johnson to know that material would not be lacking. But where to find it? The letters perhaps?

The idea of a correspondence between town and country was a seductive one; I eschewed it early on, for letters invariably carry extraneous information which needs explanation. And explanations can be tedious. In addition, Johnson did not write his letters as entertainment and the idea that they might be published was distasteful to him:

It has become too much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it; I put as little into mine as I can.

However, the essays are a different kettle of fish. They were written to entertain, since if they did not entertain then no one would buy them; and if no one bought them then the Doctor would make no money.

Ignoring previous encounters with seriously intellectual examples, I waded into both Rambler and Idler and made the happy discovery of Johnson the agony aunt, writing letters to himself from fictitious troubled characters in need of advice!

I discovered Euphalia (Rambler 42) – a sophisticated girl-about-town cruelly deceived by her high hopes of the country life; and Dick Shifter (Idler 71) who found village rustics somewhat less innocent than he’d imagined. In contrast, Deborah Ginger’s plight (Idler47) revealed the threat posed by playhouses to married life in the town; whilst Molly Quick (Idler46), a country in the service of a great town lady, had her own peculiarly intractable problem.

These vivid and attractive creations of the Doctor, coupled with the jaunts of Johnson himself and the tales related by Hesther Thrale provided plenty of human diversion.

The background of ideas and perceptions about town and country came by way of the poetry of Thomas Grey, James Thompson and others.

The whole was rounded off with an extract from a poem by one of Johnson’s close acquaintances; a poem still able to charm the ear and stir the emotions, Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village.

A balance of prose and verse was used to illustrate the titles of the readings. The influence of Johnson’s friends and acquaintances (and possible some of the imaginary characters) was not ignored. One of the first poets within Johnson’s lifetime to use blank verse was James Thompson. Johnson heartily disliked blank verse as a ‘standing temptation to verbosity and slackness’. To prove his point Johnson once read a long passage aloud to one of Thompson’s great admirers. His reading was reportedly in a deep emphatic voice with an excellent sense of rhythm. The listener was full of admiration and greatly moved by this reading. He gave an enthusiastic response to Johnson’s enquiry as to his enjoyment of the passage. ‘Well, Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘I have omitted every other line!’ Thus he made his point against blank verse. In spite of his aversion however, two of Thompson’s poems were used. Subsequently I tried Johnson’s theory out on the poem Winter, and it works!

Johnson belonged whole-heartedly to that period of English civilisation which valued the correct, the balanced, the conscious. John Wain suggests that in his Lives of the Poets we can find his mature thoughts on literature, history, and politics and on man and affairs. There is obviously no shortage of subject matter!

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