Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

1

The DNB and the DAB both contain accounts of Callender (complete, of course, with lists of their primary sources) to which we are indebted for various details in our own sketch of his life. However, neither mentions his pamphlets on Johnson.

2

Quoted from Hamilton by David Loth in Alexander Hamilton: Portrait of a Prodigy (New York, 1939), p. 249.

3

From the Richmond Recorder as printed in the New York Evening Post, 10 September 1802; quoted from Jefferson Reader, ed. Francis Coleman Rosenberger (New York, 1953), pp. 109-111.

4

There were apparently three editions of A Critical Review: (1) Edinburgh: Printed for J. Dickson, and W. Creech, 1783. (2) Second Edition. London. Printed for the Author, and sold by T. Cadell and J. Stockdale; at Edinburgh, by J. Dickson and W. Creech, 1783. (3) London. Printed for R. Rusted, 1787. We are indebted to the Pierpont Morgan Library for a photographic reproduction of its copy of the first edition of the pamphlet.

5

Brit. Mus. Addit. MS 6401, f. 175 b. Part of this letter is quoted by L. F. Powell in Boswell's Life of Johnson, IV, 499 (cited hereafter as Life).

6

Writing to Boswell on 28 March 1782, Johnson remarks: "The Beauties of Johnson are said to have got money to the collector; if the 'Deformities' have the same success, I shall be still a more extensive benefactor" (The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. R. W. Chapman [Oxford, 1952], II, 475).

7

Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. With Critical Observations on His Works (3rd ed.; Edinburgh, 1815), p. 231. Anderson is apparently incorrect in saying that Callender was Thomson's nephew.

8

There is apparently no copy of A Critical Review in the Bodleian.

9

In his Introduction to a recent reprint (New York, 1965) of John Rae's Life of Adam Smith (1895), Jacob Viner (who expresses his indebtedness to "Herman W. Liebert for bringing A Critical Review to my attention and for warning me that J. T. Callender, its author, was probably also the author of Deformities of Dr. Samuel Johnson") concludes that the quotation from John Callander in A Critical Review is sufficient "to acquit John Callander of any responsibility for authorship of either Deformities of Samuel Johnson or A Critical Review" (p. 68; see also pp. 62-69).

10

William P. Courtney and D. Nichol Smith, A Bibliography of Samuel Johnson (Oxford, 1915; reissued with facsimiles, 1925), p. 136.

11

Life, IV, 499. Callender's letter itself, reproduced in the R. B. Adam Library (III, 48), is now in the Hyde Collection. Dr. Powell, like Robert Anderson, says that James Thomson Callender was a nephew of the poet James Thomson, and gives the DNB as the source of his information.

12

In 1962, one of the present writers, J. E. Congleton, published an article on "James Thomson Callender, Johnson and Jefferson" (Johnsonian Studies [Cairo, 1962], pp. 161-172) which forms the basis of a part of the present introduction.

13

Life, III, 106, 107, 214, 488.

14

Ibid., III, 106.

15

Ibid., IV, 252-253, 526.

16

The work appeared well before 28 March 1782 when Johnson referred to it in the letter of Boswell cited above in note 6. In the Life (IV, 148), Boswell remarks that he had previously "informed" Johnson "that as 'The Beauties of Johnson' had been published in London, some obscure scribbler had published at Edinburgh, what he called 'The Deformities of Johnson.'"

17

On p. 63, Callender calls the work "a shilling pamphlet." We are grateful to the Pierpont Morgan Library for a photographic reproduction of its copy of the first edition of the Deformities.

18

Since its Preface is dated 21 November 1782, the second edition was presumably published after that time but before the beginning of 1783.

19

At the end of the second edition, Callender declares: "To collect every particle of inanity which may be found in our patriot's works is infinitely beyond the limits of an eighteen-pence pamphlet" (p. 88).

20

In a footnote on p. 51, Callender tells us that the "remarks" of the "judicious friend" appear in No. 12 of the Weekly Mirror, a periodical which, according to the CBEL (II, 665, 685), was published at Edinburgh from 22 September 1780 through 23 March 1781, for a total of 26 numbers; the editor was apparently James Tytler, the publisher J. Mennons.

21

Read Mr Mason's Ode to Truth, and pick out a single sentiment if you can.

22

World, No. 100.

23

Swift had the splendid misfortune to be a man of genius. By a very singular felicity, he excelled both in verse and prose. He boasted, that no new word was to be found in his volumes; though, in glory above all writers of his time, he did not fancy that entitled him to ingross or insult conversation. He was no less remarkably clean, than some are remarkably dirty. His love of fame never led him into the lowest of all vices; and a sense of his own dignity made him respect the importance and the feelings of others. He often went many miles on foot, that he might be able to bestow on the poor, what a coach would have cost him. He raised some hundreds of families from beggary, by lending them five pounds a-piece only. He inspired his footmen with Celtic attachment. Whatever was his pride, he shewed none of it in 'the venerable presence of misery.' Though a poet he was free from vanity; though an author and a divine, his example did not fall behind his precepts; though a courtier, he disdained to fawn on his superiors; though a patriot, he never, like our successive generations of blasted orators, sacrificed his principles to his passions. 'His meanest talent was his wit.' His learning had no pedantry, his piety no superstition; his benevolence almost no parallel. His intrepid eloquence first pointed out to his oppressed countrymen, that path to Independence, to happiness, and to glory, which their posterity, at this moment, so nobly pursue. His treatise on the conduct of their foreign allies, first taught the English nation the dangers of a continental war, dispelled their delusive dreams of conquest, and stopt them in the full career to ruin.

24

See parallel between Diogenes and Dr Johnson in Town and Country Magazine. In his life of Swift, the Doctor tells us, that 'he relieved without pity, and assisted without kindness.'

25

Idler, No. 70.