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The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL D

Intro

Sir John Hawkins is "the author of the first full-length biograph of Samuel Johnson, many remember him as the man Johnson once described as 'unclubable'." (vii)

Miss Frances Reynolds - "I remember we met Sir John Hawkins, whom Dr. Johnson seemed much rejoiced to see; and no wonder, for I have often heard him speak of Sir John in terms expressive of great esteem and much cordiality of friendship." (Vol II, 297-298 JM?)

"It can be said with assurance only that, in the winter of 1749, fifteen years before the founding of the Literary Club, Hawkins joined with Johnson and eight others in a club which met weekly at the King's Head in Ivy Lane. In all likelihood, however, Johnson would not have invited a stranger to contribute to the intellectual enjoyment these meetings were intended to provide him. Numerous hints in Hawkin's Life suggest that he and Johnson had become acquainted very early in the decade, perhaps even as early as 1739. Certainly they had ample opportunity to meet each other on the common ground of the Gentleman's Magazine. Johnson was the editor's chief support during much of this period, and Hawkins, besides being a contributor, was a frequent visitor at the magazine's offices in St. John's Gate. His Life is, in fact, the prime source of information about the many minor figures who were helping to fill the magazine's pages in these first years of its existence. Hawkin's knowledge of Johnson's political development suggests the intimacy of first-hand experience; a Walpole supporter himself, he seems to have stood by, fascinated, as the violence of Johnson's anti-Walpole bias abated, to be replaced in time by sincere admiration. Johnson's last known attack on Walpole was published in 1739." (ix)

Ivy Lane information (Johnson's 1st club) (ix). John Hawkesworth a member (x). Hawkins married Sidney Storer in 1753 (she inherited 20,000 pounds, with a dowry of 10,000 pounds in addition). He bought a home on the Thames at Twickenham near Horace Walpole. He published Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler in 1760. Appointed as a magistrate in 1761. In 1765 became Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Middlesex. Wrote a history of music in 1776. Literary Club was established in 1764 (x). Knighted in 1772 (x). Served as Chariman until 1781 (xi). Wrote A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (five volumes). Appointed one of Johnson's executors in 1784 (xi). Resigned from the literary club over a dispute (xi).

Within hours of Johnson's death, Thomas Cadell and William Strahan asked Hawkins to write a biography and an edition of works for Johnson (xii). On 16 December 1784, St. James's Chronicle stated Hawkins and Boswell were writing biographies. 21 December Hawkins advertises an "authentick" life (xii). Anonymous articles in St. James's Chronicle started attacking Hawkins:

"It is evident from the Conduct of the late Dr. Johnson, that he designed Mr. Boswell for the sole Writer of his Life. Why else did he furnish him with such Materials for it as were withheld from every other Friend ... Little indeed did he suppose that a PErson whom he had made one of his Executors would have instantly claimed the Office of his Biographer. Still less could he have imagined that this Self-Appointment would have been precipitately confirmed by the Booksellers." (xii)

George Steevens, who helped Johnson revise Shakespeare, wrote this piece (xii). Rumors that he slandered Johnson (xiii). Rumors that he stole some of Johnson's belongings after death (xiii). His house burned on 23 February 1785 and was barely able to preserve the notes and Johnson's diaries, which were the foundations for the Life (xiii). Published in March 1878 (xiv). St. James's Chronicle and London Chronicle published excerpts for "several weeks" (xiv). Universal Magazine and Political Magazine later did so later (xiv). A second edition was published mid-April (xiv).

Monthly Review, Critical Review, English Review, and European Magazine claimed that the work "was a malevolent and spiteful account of Johnson's life, grossly inaccurate, and rendered utterly ridiculous by its pompous legalisms and its digressions on every conceivable subject. The book, if they were to be believed, was less a biography than a polemic, less a work of art than a collection of senile gossip." (xiv)

Arthur Murphy wrote anonymously in the Monthly Review : "Sir John most probably acquired his notions of language at his master's desk: he admired the phraseology of deeds and parchments, whereof, to speak in his own manner, he read so much, that in consequence thereof, he has been chiefly conversant thereinl and by the help of the parchments aforesaid, missed the elegance abovementioned, and uses works, that in them we sometimes meet with, and being bred and attorney, he caught the language of the said trade, whereof he retains so much, that he is now rendered an incompetent critic thereby, and in consequence thereof." (xv)

"Philo Johnson" (George Steevens) wrote in the European Magazine: "the great solid principle that secures its condemnation, is the spirit of malevolence to the dead, which breathes all through it. Sir John Hawkins, with all the humanity and very little of the dexterity of a Clare-Market butcher, has raised his blunt axe to deface the image of his friend." (xv)

St Jame's Chronicle said that it was false "that Mrs. Hobart had an intention of reading Sir John Hawkins' book. The late hours at which people of rank go to bed, renders it wholly unnecessary to force a sleep in public places." (xvi)

Unidenfitied newspaper: a "gentleman, lately arrived in town, has been for several days past afflicted with a lethargy, owing to the perusal of three chapters in Hawkin's Life of Johnson." (xvi)

On willow trees planted in Lichfield by Johnson: "The branches only should be lopped off, and tied in bundles, ... and properly applied to the naked backs of his various biographers, taking care, that the largest bundle be appropriated unto the use and behoof of Sir John Hawkings, Knight." (xvi)

In May, Boswell advertised in three newspapers that his Life of Johnson was "in great forwardness" but was delayed in order to add "to the large store of materials which he had already accumulated." He asked the public against "unfavourable impressions to be made on their minds... by the light effusions of carelessness and pique, or the ponderous labours of solemn inaccuracy and dark uncharitable conjecture" a reference to Piozzi's Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, published in 1786, and to Hawkin's Life.

September, the Gentleman's Magazine published "Panegyric Epistle" owhich mocked Hawkin's Life. Written by Richard Porson and ended: "I do hereby assure his Worship [Hawkins], that when any other friends of his die, whether he be disposed to carve them as a dish fit for the gods, or hew them like a carcase for the hounds, I shall be ready to exert my utmost powers in his behalf against all his enemies open or secret." (xvi-xvii)

More Last Words of Dr. Johnson, written anonymously in November, uses obscenities to attack Hawkin's life. (xvii)

Boswell's introduction in his work deals with Hawkin's Life (xvii-xviii)

Boswell speaks with a lot of authority and casts doubts on others. Boswell calls Hawkins's digressions "farrago" - Hawkins's Life contains a sixteeth century breakfast scene in Latin, a history of taverns, columns, etc, along with excerpts from Johnson's works (xviii)

Davis claims the work as a "substantial monument to the memory of Johnson" (xix) The book is the "life and times of Johnson"

Dr Samuel Parr stated that if he would have written a life of Johnson, he would "have related not only everything important about Johnson, but many things about the men who flourished at the same time." (xix)

A dimension is found in Hawkins's that no other but Boswell achieves, and this helps and hurts him (xx)

Many mistakes in the biographies were corrected by George Birkbeck Hill and Aleyn Lyell Reade, but the work also contains a lot of new information not found in Boswell that is reliable (xx-xxi)

Hawkins was more accurate about Johnson's career as an undermaster at Market Bosworth School and more information on Ivy Lane Club and Johnson's end. However, there is, as Boswell claims, a "dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstane in the character and conduct" of Johnson (xxi)

Hawkins claimed "In the performance of the engagement I am under, I find mysellf compelled to make public, as well those particulars of Johnson that may be thought to abase as those that exalt his character." Hawkins most critical about Johnson's "table manners, his dress, his indolence, the political cant of his early years, and what Hawkins termed his 'indiscriminate bounty.'" Boswell equally critical of the first two(xxii)

Johnson on biography: if "nothing but the bright side of characters should be shown, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in any thing." (xxii)

Many of Johnson's friends were put in the defensive about the weaknesses of Johnson being made public. (xxv)

"William Cowper predicted in 1789 that perhaps in fifty years the world would consider itself obliged to Sir John Hawkins for his Life of Johnson." (xxv)

"Boswell, and Co. will torture the poor Knight, half an inch at a time, to literary death" - Sir Herbert Croft to John Nichols, March 11, 787 (xxvi)

"Modern biographers have found it impossible to construct their pictures of Johnson without quoting liberally from Boswell. It will therefore come as a surprise to many that, without the benefit of Boswell's Life, Hawkins has left us a portrait which is not only full-length but which captures the real quality of its subject." (xxvi)

Hawkins was the "first to recognize the tincture of enthusiasm in Johnson's religion", his views on "departed spirits", and Johnson's humor. (xxvii)

"no book can replace Boswell's. Boswell's thoroughness, his skill in re-creating the everyday drama of Johnson's life, and the easy, familiar style which graces his entire book, have rightly lifted his Life of Johnson to a position of supremacy among works of its kind." (xxvii)

First edition published March 1787, second with corrections in June 1787. (xxix)

Thraliana

"at the Age of Ten Years his Mind was disturbed by Scruples of Infidelity, which preyed upon his Spirits and made him very uneasy: the more so perhaps as he revealed his Uneasiness to no one being naturally of a sullen Temper & reserved Disposition: he however searched diligently but fruitlessly for Evidences of the Christian Faith, till at length recollecting a Book he had once picked up in the Shop, & again thrown by, entitled De Veritate Relig: &c. he began to think himself highly culpable for neglecting such a means of Information and took himself severely to task for this Sin. The first Opportunity he had of Course he examined the Book with avidity, but finding his Scholarship insufficient for the perusal of it he set his heart at rest it seems, and considered his Conscience as lightened of a Crime: he thought however from the pain which Guilt had given him, that the Soul's Immortality could no longer be disputed, & resolving from that Time to become a Christian, he became one of the most zealous and pious ones ever known." (160-161)

Shakespeare (161), Rambler (161-162)

"Of Pope as a Writer he had however the highest Opinion talking of his own Preface to Shakespear, of which I had then seen only the proof Sheet; as superior to Pope's: I fear not says he, the little Fellow has done Wonders." (164)

"Johnson was always unwilling to touch Pen & Ink without being paid for it" (164)

"It was comical when somebody complimented him upon his Dictionary & mentioned the Ill Success of the French in a similar Attempt. Why what would you expect says he of Fellows that eat Frogs. he was indeed willing enough at all Times to express his hatred & Contempt of our Rival Nation, & one day when a Person mentioned them as agreeable from their Gaiety - I never yet says Johnson saw a Frenchmans Gaiety as good as an Englishman's Drunkenness." (165)

"French Literature resembles French Dinners I believe; they have few Sentiments but they express them elegantly, they have little Meat too but they dress it well: he changed his opinion indeed with regard to the Eatables, after his Journey to the Continent; Every man said he there, feeds from the Earth nearly - that's immediately, or remotely, the Englishman eats the Ox which eats the Grass; the Frenchman eats the Grass himself I see, and leaves none for the Cattle: when he was serious he was however not unwilling to pay his Tribute of Respect to their Philosophers, Scholars & Wits; when talked to one day concerning a Comparison to be drawn between Shakespeare & Corneille he said - Corneilla is to Shakespeare as a clipped Hedge to a Forest." (165)

"We all know how well he loved to abuse the Scotch, & indeed to be abused by them in return. To one [Adam Smith] of them who commended the Town of Glasgow he replied - Sir I presume you have never yet seen Brentford, Mr Boswell said the Man read Lectures against him afterwards by way of revenge, and to be told so seem[ed] to flatter him." (165-166)

"He loved Mr Boswell sincerely, & well he might" (166)

"The Story of Johnson's saying how Literature in Scotland was distributed like Bread in a besieged Town; to every Man a Mouthful, & to no Man a Bellyfull; is so well known it is not worth recording: Lord Bute it seems when he heard it first said - Well! Well! the Fellow must have a Pension however - this he told me himself. When Mr Johnson returned from his Journey to the North in the year 1773. Strahan the King's Printer accosted him with Well Sir! and what think you of my Country now? That it is a very poor Country surely said Mr Johnson Well well! God made it Sir cries Strahan displeased; ""true enough Sir he did so, but he made it for Scotsmen - and Comparisons are odious Mr Strahan, but God made Hell!"" - The Scotch I think never forgave his saying they had no Trees in their Country & one of them once mentioning a beautiful Prospect to be seen there; Johnson instantly observed that he had omitted the most beautiful they possessed; which was the Prspect of the Road from Edinburgh to London." (166)

"Every body I suppose remembers his famous Repartie to Dr Blair who to prove the Authenticity of Ossians Poems asked him if any Man living could write such; Yes surely Sir replies Mr Johnson - many Men, many Women, & many Children." (166)

"The Story of his calling Lord Bolingbroke a Coward because he charged his Gun to let fly in the Face of Christianity, & then paid a hungry Scotsman [David Mallet] for drawing the Trigger after his Death has been I suppose in every Mouth & in every Jest Book, but one had now & then a coarse Joke of his partly to one's self; For example poor Miss Owens said meekly enough one Day ""I am sure my Aunt was exceedingly sorry when the Report was raised of Mr Thrale's death"" - Not sorrier I suppose replied Mr Johnson than the Horse is when the Cow miscarries." (167)

"he served Sir Joshua Reynolds saucily enough: the Conversation turned upon Painting - I am sorry says our Doctor to see so much Mind laid out on such perishable Materials - Canvass is so slight a Substance, and your Art deserves to be recorded on more durable Stuff, why do you not paint oftener upon Copper? Sir Joshua urged the Difficulty of getting a Plate large enough for Historical Subjects & was going on to raise further Objections; when Mr Johnson fretting that he had so inflamed his friend's Vanity I suppose, - suddenly and in a surly Tone replied What's here to do with such Fopper? has not Thrale here got a thousand Tun of Copper? you may paint it all round if you will, it will be no worse for him to brew in - afterwards." (167)

1

"Mrs. Thrale means simply that Johnson placed himself in her own power by confiding his conviction of his insanity... Johnson's dependence on her to help enforce the discipline of 'confinement and severity', which he resorted to when his delusions became strongest, is evidence by a letter which he wrote to her in French, at some time in 1773, in which he asks her 'm'epargner la necessite de me contrandre, en m'otant le pouvoir de sortir d'ou vou voulez que je sois. Ce que vous ne coutera que la peine de tourner le clef dans in porte, deux fois par jour.' Ry. Eng. MS' 543. To this she replied: 'What Care can I promise my dear Mr. Johnson that I have not already taken? What Tenderness that he has not already experienced? yet is it a very gloomy reflexion that so much of bad prevails in our best enjoyments, and embitters the purest friendship. You were saying but on Sunday that of all the unhappy you was the happiest, in consequence of my Attention to your Complaint; and to day I have been reproached by you for neglect, and by myself for exciting that generous Confidence which prompts you to repose all Care on me, and tempts you to neglect yourself, and brood in secret upon an Idea hateful in itself, but which your kind partiality to me has unhappily rendered pleasing. - If it be possible shake off these uneasy Weights, heavier to the Mind by far than Fetters to the body. Let not your fancy dwell thus upon Confinement and severity. - I am sorry you are obliged to be so much alone; I foresaw some ill Consequences of your being here while my Mother was dying thus; yet could not resist the temptation of having you near me, but if you find this irksome and dangerous Idea fasten upon your fancy, leave me to struggle with the loss of one Friend, and let me not put to hazard what I esteem beyond kingdoms, and value beyond the possession of them. - If we go on together your Confinement will be as strict as possible except when Company comes in, which I shall more willingly endure on your Account. Dissipation is to you a glorious Medicine, and I believe Mr . Boswell will be at last your best Physician. for the rest you really are well enough now if you will keep so; and not suffer the noblest of human minds to be tortured with fantastic notions which rob if of all its Quiet. - I will detain you no longer, so farewell and be good; and do not quarrel with your Governess for not using the Rod enough. H. L. T.' Ry. Eng. MS. 539." (384-385 note 4)

"One must conclude that Johnson actually kept these articles to enforce the strict confinement which he resorted to when his mind was seized by the delusion that he was insane. Mrs Thrale's reference to 'these uneasy weights, heavier to the mind by far than Fetters to the body', is thus explained. Johnson himself noted in his pocket diary on March 24, 1771: 'De pedicis et manicis insana cogitatio' (Insane thoughts on fetters and hand-cuffs). The strength of this delusion, whatever its nature may have been, is strongly attested by these scattered bits of evidence, and seems to illuminate an aspect of Johnson's melancholia which has escaped his biographers and editors. In this connexion, Item 649 in the sale of Mrs. Piozzi's library and personal effects, at Manchester, in September 1823, is significant. It is described in the catalogue (Ry. Eng. Ms. 613) as a padlock, with a manuscript note attacked - 'Johnson's Padlock committed to my care in the year 1768.' The purchaser is listed as 'Hoare,' possibly Sophia Thrale's husband." (415 note 4)

"I don't believe the King has ever been much worse than poor Dr Johnson was, when he fancied that eating an Apple would make him drunk." (p. 724)

"I am confident the same Method would take immediate Effect upon the King, as his Disorder is not ideal Madness, but mere impulsive Insanity from nervous Irritation... Dr Johnson's was delusive I find, the King's is merely impulsive Insanity: Arnold's definitions & arrangement are very close & fine.

The Man who raves, & shouts, & sings, & swears, and riots about like our unhappy Sovereign, when he is once cured, is cured for ever: his Inclination to violence is lost & gone. Not so the Sufferer under one strong Delusion: He who thinks like the Astronomer in Rasselas that he can regulate the Weather, and that the Seasons listen to his Voice; may be fighted or habitually diverted from saying that he thinks so; but Thoughts are free: he hugs his Idea in secret, and only resolves to mention it no more. While Kit Smart thought it his Duty to pray in Secret, no living Creature knew how mad he wasl but as soon as the Idea struck him that every Time he thought of praying, Resistance against yet divine Impulse (as he conceived it) was a Crime; he knelt down in the Strets, & Assembly rooms, and wherever he was when the Thought cross his Mind - and this indecorous Conduct obliged his Friends to place him in a Confinement whence many mad as he remain excluded, only because their Delusion is not known." (728-729)

JM

"I am not so sure that this is the proper place to mention his writing that surprising little volume in a week or ten days' time, in order to obtain money for his journey to Lichfield when his mother lay upon her last sickbed." (Vol. 2 285)

"Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances (he said); but that vile broken nose never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, which being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night." (Vol. 2 297)

On others

Johnson's life of William Collins "lands us squarely in the middle of two quagmires of critical contention: 1) the issue of Jonson's attitude toward the poets of Sensibility and the rising Romanticism of his day; and 2) the issue of Johnson's attitude toward madness, as it affeted Collins and as it affected him." (Williams p. 18)

Johnson finds "an underlying sympathy with and understanding of pre-Romantic conventions." (Williams p. 21)

Williams, Nicholas, "The Discourse of Madness: Samuel Jhnson's 'Life of Collins,'" Eighteenth-Century Life, Vol. 14 (May 1990).

Samuel Johnson in the Medical World

John Wiltshire. Samuel Johnson in the Medical World 1991. p. 11 - after death, members of his circle met to discuss a monument for St. Paul's Cathedral. Some didn't want to make a statue "to transmit to posterity a true and perfect exhibition of the entire man" (put him in a toga or other such things - Malone to joseph Banks). Reynolds told them it wouldn't be that bad: "Johnson's limbs so far from being unsightly" were "uncommonly well-formed & in the most exact & true proportion". More on physical appearance.

p. 12 claims that Johnson was very strong and athletic. Told Charles Burney on his death bed: "Tell Fanny I think I could throw the Ball to her yet". Johnson preferred to be compared to Falstaff. Later years had problems - insomnia, asthma (bronchial difficulties), melancholy, and "tics".

p. 13 Boswell described Johnson's walk as one in fetters. Origin of tracing Johnson's "medical history". "Tracing Johnson's illnesses to their 'original' reflects a desire, too, to unite them: to see his often bewilderingly diverse symptoms as branchees of one underlying pathology. If we leave aside the psychoanalytic accounts, there are two main contenders for this great originating event, Johnson's childhood scrofula and the nervous crisis or illness (Whatever it was) of his twentieth year." Possible movement and pychological problems could come from birth trama or a lack of oxygen to the brain (cerebral anoxia).

p. 14 Little evidence for a birth defect/problem during labor, however. Background on believe that wetnurse and Mrs Marklew's milk as source of scrofula or inheritance of it. McHenry and MacKeith ("Samuel Johnson's childhood illnesses p. 388, 390) on blindness and disease.

p. 16 "King's touch" ceremony.

p. 17. "shock" at the touch and effects on nervous system (according to the beliefs of the time). Mention of Johnson's scars. George Cheyne (18th century doctor) related scrofula with nervous disease: "I never saw any Person labour under severe obstinate, and strong Nervous Complaints, but I always found at last, the Stomach, Guts, Liver Spleen, Mesentary or some of the great and necessary Organs or Glands of the Lower Belly were obstructed, knotted, schirrous, or spoil'd, and perhaps all these togehter; and it may be very justly affirmed, that no habitual and grievous, or great nervous Disorders, ever happen'd to any one who laboured not under some real glandular Distemper, either scrophulous or scorbutical, original or acquired. So that in general, great Nervous Disorders may justly and properly be termed Glandular" Arthur Murphy believed that the royal touch affected his nerves and caused later problems. Hawkins wrote "it is but a surmise that it might be a latent concomitant of that disease which, in his infancy, had induced his mother to seek relief from the royal touch." Evidence to suggest scrofula ruined his eye.

p. 18 Scrofula definitely disfigured Johnson.

p. 21 "Perhaps the scrofula was the true origin of many more of Johnson's later problems, but it has to compete with a formidable rival for explanatory power. The crisis of 1729 is put at the centre of his medical history by Johnson himself. 'My health has been from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease', he told Edmund Hector, probably some time in the seventies."

p. 22 Johnson's use of "morbid melancholy" to describe his condition. Breathing difficulties and physical problems. Boswell says "While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved." Assumed that this resulted from Johnson having to leave Oxford. A. L. Read points out "Whether it was the onset of these symptoms that caused him to come home, or his coming home under the compulsion of circumstances that caused the onset of the symptoms, we do not know ... After his return from Oxford in December 1729 there is not known one single fact of his career until the autumn of 1731."

p. 23 N. D. Jewson said "remarkable feature of 18th century theories of pathology was the absence of a sharp distinction between afflictions of the mind and of the body. Emotional temperament and physical disposition were believed to be closely related, and considerable attention was paid to the patient's subjective impressions of his disease and cure."

p. 24 possible that Johns suffered from a disease or problem in winter of 1729. Something kept him from studying after the age of 20. Johnson claimed that sickness brought back his desire for religion at the age of 22. Beginning of "tics and gesticulations" after 1729. "I use the phrase reluctatnly (some term has to be used) since to name these phenomena is to risk immediately curtailing the field of explanation, and Johnson's 'tics' cannot be discussed without distinguishing at the same time the ways in which tehey were perceived, conceived and made sense of." His "strange gestures were usually held to be the result of a 'paralytic' or 'convulsive' malady, one omore manifestation of some underlying morbidity of his unique constituion or 'humours'. Alternatively - and incompatibly - Bswell on one occasion presents them as typifying the symptoms of a recognised organic disease. At the same period, these behaviours could be separated from Johnson's other illnesses and isolated as moral misdemeanours the result of habitually indulged liberties. In the nineteenth century the same gestures have all the bizarre appeal of eccentricity. In the early twentieth century they become the symptomatic manifestations of dee-seated psychological problems, having their origins in Johnson's childhood and youth."

p. 25 "Later still, in the seventies and eighties, they formed a neurological snydrome. It is diificult to make one's way through this welter of conflicting readings and explanations, but as a beginning we could note that there is always a choice between a moral or a medical stress in any given account." Henry Grewwold of Solihull Grammar School gave the earliest account of "physical peculiarities" -"He has such a way of distorting his Face (Wch though he can't help)". This "suggest a twitch or spasm". Another rejection said it was due to "an apprehension that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of ridicule among the pupils." William Shaw's Memoirs of Dr Johnson - "To his dying day, he never thought, recollected, or studied, whether in his closet, or in the street, alone, or in company, without putting his huge unwieldy body, in the same rolling, aukward posture, in which he was in use, while conning his grammar, or construing his lesson, to sit on the form at school." This is based on later observation though. His knowledge of Johnson's youth would be third hand. Most of his movements originated between 1729-1731.

p. 27 William Hogarth thought that the movements were involuntary - "While he was talking, he perceived a person standing at a window in the room" quote. Boswell's Tour says that he "shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitu's dance." Thomas Tyers wrote "He was to the last a convulsionary... His gestures, which were a degree of St Vitus's dance, in the street, attrated the notice of many. Thomas Campbell wrote "He has the aspect of an Idiot... He is forever dancing the devil's jig.

p. 28 Wiltshire denies the above as an exaggeration of Johnson's character. He then verifies that the picture is demonstrating the "tics" and are the same as those found in the accounts of Miss Hawkins, Frances Reynolds, Joshua Reynolds, Fanny Burney, William Shaw, and Boswell. He said that all of their accounts agree exactly on the movements (not necessarily the rate of occurance). Wiltshire then turns to Meige and Feindel's Tics and their Treatment (1907 translation) to distinguish between tics and reoccuring habits to show that they are not just "habits".

p. 29 Wiltshire says the first one to use TS to diagnose Johnson was McHenry in 1967, and a comprehensive study was in Shapiro et al Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome (1978) declares "Samuel Johnson... is the most notable example of a successful adaptation to life despite the liability of Tourette syndrome." (they, however, say that TS is difficult to diagnose, so their diagnosis of Johnson says a lot). Then, Murray's article, and Wiltshire says "this conclusion has been widely publicised."

p. 30 Wiltshire then discusses the biological vs psychological view of TS, and follows Shapiro's argument that "the disorder has an organic origin, possibly in the basal ganglia." But he says that there are possibility psychologica/psychosocial "factors".

p. 31 Discusses Johnson's discussion with Smart's neice about "bad habits" and says Reynolds agreed, "My opinion is, that it proceded from a habit which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions." Reynold's sister (Frances) said "Many people have supposed that they were the natural effects of a nervous disorder, but had that been the case he could not have sat still when he chose, which he did, and so still indeed when sitting for his picture, as often to have been complimented with being a pattern for sitters" and Miss Thrale says(31-32) "I dare say the King saw none of these odd gesticulations, nor did he MUCH use them at Church" (also in JM II p. 273-274)

p. 32 - says that the "genteel" movements sometimes described by Miss Reynolds (actions while drinking tea) could not be neurological "but as a means of dealing with various tensions - though I am well aware that the term 'tensions' in its turn begs innumerable questions. One thing is clear, though, Had these been the 'sudden, lgithning=like and jerky' TS movements, the cup of tea would certainly have been spilled."

p. 32-33 "Whiltst one cannot be certain, with W. J. Bate, that Johnson's 'embarrassing tics and other compulsive mannerisms' developed in the 1729-1732 crisis, there is little convincing evidence that peculiarities in Johnson's behaviour were noticed in his youth. If Johnson's own statement that his 'unease' began in his twentieth year is accepted as including, though not necessarily comprehending, these symptoms, then this would make the onset of the disorder extraordinarily, perhaps, uniquely, late. The fact that Johnson did not suffer from coprolalia need not preclude a diagnosis of TS since only 55 per cent of patients do in fact show this symptom. On the other hand, there is good evidence that Johnson's mouth movements and mutterings were forms of prayer, and they certainly did not interrupt normal speech. Mrs Thrale said that Johnson's eye trembled, but there is little evidence for other facial movements. Many of his gestures - see-sawing, rolling his head etc. - seem less automatic and bizarre than exaggerations of traits which may be seen in many less gifted and perfectly ordinary mortals.

Besides acts which were perceived as involuntary or 'convulsive' Johnson performed ones which seemed quite the opposite - deliterate, ritualized and quite complex - (though some commentators run them together):" he quotes from Boswell: "He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or left foot (I am not certain which,) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness: and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back, again put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion."

Miss Reynolds report of this: "extraordinary gestures or anticks with his hands and feet, particularly when passing over the threshold of a Door, rather before he would venture to pass through any doorway. On entering Sir Joshua's house with poor Mrs Williams, a blind lady who lived with him, he would quite her hand, or else whirl her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted about to perform his gesticulations; and as soon as he had finish'd, he would give a sudden spring and make such an extensive stride over the threshold, as if he was trying for a wager how far he could stride, Mrs Williams standing groping about outside the door, unless the servant or the mistress of the House more commonly took hold of her hand to conduct her in, leaving Dr Johnson to perform at the Parlour Door much the same exercise over again .

But the strange positions in which he would place his feet (generally I think before he began his straddles, as if necessarily preparatory) are scarcely credible. Sometimes he would make the back part of his heels to touch sometimes the extremity of his toes, as if endeavouring to form a triangle, or some geometrical figure."

p. 34 Bate claims the rituals show "a compulsion neurosis" = "a powerful nconcious need to release nervous tension through order, pattern, or rhythm and keep it from overhwlming the psyche - a need to 'divide up' the welter of subjective feeling and reduce to manageable units, which we also see in his constant resort to arithmetic and counting." Wilthisre then says "These rituals do seem peculiarly difficult to explain as straightforward results or extensions of neurological disease, though parallel case of 'arithomania' occur in discussion of various forms of tic. Such acts may, conceivably, be invented by the suffer tand have a diversionary or therapeutic relation to an original disease or disturbance. Alternatively, they may be thought to take their roots int he same 'unease'. Certainly, if, with Russell Brain and other physicians who have studied the evidence one rejects neurological disease as an explanation for Johnson's behaviour, a problem remain. 'His movement and psychological disturbances were not on the basis of brain anoxia or cerebral palsy, but were manifestations of his underlying psychological make-up', concludes McHenry. This gap in the explanation of Johnson's behaviour has been readily filled by psychoanalytic accounts."

p. 35 discusses Foucault and three other problems of Johnson - gout, asthma and melancholy