How Samuel Johnson Celebrated His Sixty-Eighth Birthday

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England on this day in 1709.

“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.”
―from A JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND

In 1773, the great Samuel Johnson–then 63–and his young friend and future biographer, James Boswell, traveled together around the coast of Scotland, each writing his own account of the 83-day journey. Published in one volume, the very different travelogues of this unlikely duo provide a fascinating picture not only of the Scottish Highlands but also of the relationship between two men whose fame would be forever entwined. Johnson's account contains elegant descriptions and analyses of what was then a remote and rugged land. In contrast, the Scottish-born Boswell's journal of the trip focuses on the psychological landscape of his famously gruff and witty companion, and is part of the material he was already collecting for his future Life of Samuel Johnson, the masterly biography that would make his name. Read together, the two accounts form both a unique classic of travel writing and a revelation of one of the most famous literary friendships. READ more here: http://knopfdoubleday.com/…/a-journey-to-the-western-islan…/

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The Paris ReviewDon’t trouble your head with sickly thinking: take a cup, and be merry.


How Samuel Johnson Celebrated His Sixty-Eighth Birthday
An excerpt from James Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson.”
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From James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. Johnson was born on September 18, 1709; Boswell wrote this passage in 1777, on the occasion of Johnson’s sixty-eighth birthday.

Thursday, September 18. Last night Dr. Johnson had proposed that the crystal lustre, or chandelier, in Dr. Taylor’s large room, should be lighted up some time or other. Taylor said, it should be lighted up next night. ‘That will do very well, (said I,) for it is Dr. Johnson’s birth-day.’ When we were in the Isle of Sky, Johnson had desired me not to mention his birth-day. He did not seem pleased at this time that I mentioned it, and said (somewhat sternly,) ‘he would not have the lustre lighted the next day.’

Some ladies, who had been present yesterday when I mentioned his birth-day, came to dinner to-day, and plagued him unintentionally, by wishing him joy. I know not why he disliked having his birth-day mentioned, unless it were that it reminded him of his approaching nearer to death, of which he had a constant dread.

I mentioned to him a friend of mine who was formerly gloomy from low spirits, and much distressed by the fear of death, but was now uniformly placid, and contemplated his dissolution without any perturbation. ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) this is only a disordered imagination taking a different turn.’

He observed, that a gentleman of eminence in literature had got into a bad style of poetry of late. ‘He puts (said he,) a very common thing in a strange dress till he does not know it himself, and thinks other people do not know it.’ 

BOSWELL. ‘That is owing to his being so much versant in old English poetry.’ JOHNSON. ‘What is that to the purpose, Sir? If I say a man is drunk, and you tell me it is owing to his taking much drink, the matter is not mended. No, Sir, ——— has taken to an odd mode. For example, he’d write thus:

“Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,
Wearing out life’s evening gray.”

Gray evening is common enough; but evening gray he’d think fine.—Stay;—we’ll make out the stanza:

“Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,
Wearing out life’s evening gray;
Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell,
What is bliss? and which the way?”

BOSWELL. ‘But why smite his bosom, Sir?’ 

JOHNSON. ‘Why, to shew he was in earnest,’ (smiling.)—He at an after period added the following stanza:

‘Thus I spoke; and speaking sigh’d;
—Scarce repress’d the starting tear;—
When the smiling sage reply’d—
—Come, my lad, and drink some beer.’

I cannot help thinking the first stanza very good solemn poetry, as also the three first lines of the second. Its last line is an excellent burlesque surprise on gloomy sentimental enquirers. And, perhaps, the advice is as good as can be given to a low-spirited dissatisfied being:—‘Don’t trouble your head with sickly thinking: take a cup, and be merry.’