HKB
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Often appears with: rhetoric and persuasion · books, libraries, and learning · william shakespeare · traditional claims about monuments · theatre and performance · the nature and attributes of God · the city and urban life · saint columba · richard steele/addison (as referenced) · religious persecution and toleration · reason and the intellect · poetry and the poets
Usually: detachment (3) · narrative (2) · curiosity (2) · indignation (2) · argument (1) · letter or document (1) · reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · injustice endured (1) · censure (1)
“He answered, with quick vivacity, 'It is of two evils chooseing the least.” James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Jo · wit
A biographical-literary appraisal contrasts Burke with Johnson, Goldsmith, and the Literary Club, arguing that Burke’s speaking style was oratorical and passionate, with occasional faults of ostentation and self-consciousness.
one of the highest types, he had other interests than those directly suggested by his office, and in one of these, at least, he affords an interesting and profitable study. To the student of literature Burke's name must always suggest that of Johnson and Goldsmith. It was eight years after Burke's first appearance as an author, that the famous Literary Club was formed. At first it was the intention to limit the club…
Johnson’s February 7, 1755 letter to the Earl of Chesterfield complains of seven years of neglect while Johnson worked toward publishing his dictionary, ending with a bitter definition of what a “patron” is.
'SAM. JOHNSON[771].' 'While this was the talk of the town, (says Dr. Adams, in a letter to me) I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who finding that I was acquainted with Johnson, desired me earnestly to carry his compliments to him, and to tell him, that he honoured him for his manly behaviour in rejecting these condescensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the treatment he had received from him, with a prop…
On 20 October James Boswell and Samuel Johnson inspect the ruins on Iona with a local guide, compare disappointments about the lack of “royal” inscriptions, and discuss how Johnson corrects traditional errors.
Wednesday, 20th October Early in the morning we surveyed the remains of antiquity at this place, accompanied by an illiterate fellow, as cicerone, who called himself a descendant of a cousin of Saint Columba, the founder of the religious establishment here. As I knew that many persons had already examined them, and as I saw Dr Johnson inspecting and measuring several of the ruins of which he has since given so full …
At Glasgow, Boswell recounts Johnson’s sharp retorts to professors Foulis and his view of “unsettled” disputation; he then describes dining and teases him, praising Principal Robertson’s caution and later receiving the Earl and Countess of Loudoun.
afraid of being publickly exposed; so they were forced to a compliance. It is now in my possession, and is, perhaps, one of the best productions of his masterly pen. Professors Reid and Anderson, and the two Messieurs Foulis, the Elzevirs of Glasgow, dined and drank tea with us at our inn, after which the professors went away; and I, having a letter to write, left my fellow-traveller with Messieurs Foulis. Though go…
On the English theatre, Voltaire criticizes Samuel Johnson’s assessment of Shakespeare and defends Shakespeare’s genius, then contrasts it with Addison’s more dignified but colder tragedy, and turns to an entry on envy.
in his verse and in his prose. A friend of propriety and orderliness, he wanted tragedy to be written with dignity, and it is thus that his "Cato" is composed. From the very first act the verses are worthy of Virgil, and the sentiments worthy of Cato. There is no theatre in Europe where the scene of Juba and Syphax was not applauded as a masterpiece of skill, of well-developed characters, of fine contrasts, and of p…