Samuel Johnson, Biography

These are notes taken from  Samuel Johnson's biography, but the one by John Wain 1974, so this is not the official Boswell biography.

Image credits: Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds, the first picture in 1775 and the second in 1772. The third picture had to wait until about 2010, but comfortably inhabits the internet hall of fame as a meme, seen here in the original macro image series formula, and usually placed after a screenshot of some crazy comment or question already posted online (filed as "dafuq" as in "wtf did I just read").

• On the Episode of Dr. Swinfin and the Latin Document (AKA 1700's HIPAA) - Johnson calls on a Dr. Swinfin to help with his depression, but because of his enviable command of language, he wrote out his symptoms in Latin, to which Swinfin was so impressed, he showed all his friends. p59
• On Living Cheaply - he only made social calls on 'clean shirt days' p80
• On Psalmanazar the Faker - this was a friend of his, and this guy is so crazy, I need to write it out: He (Psalm.) got taken into another man's plot, to be 'converted' to Christianity by baptism, but pretending ot be Formosan it made the other guy look good as a clergyman. It worked, and the clergyman got his chaplaincy, and Psalmanazar stayed in London, as a Formosan, while he completely fabricated a book about his birthplace (published 1704). But wait - in the process he created a fake Formosan language, and made up all the letters, and was send to Oxford to teach it to young men who would go as missionaries. He would burn a candle all night in his window so people thought he was studying non-stop. p121 (no update given on what happened to those poor missionaries)
• Samuel Johnson started his Dictionary at a time when England was not yet as powerful as an empire. They didn't have all the academies and learned men and public money and private patronage. They had an agreement between seven different booksellers and the genius of S.J. The biography's author calls this an example of the 'enlightened behavior' the free market is sometimes capable of. p130
• The most polite letter ever - actually he was a very polite person in general, but this I'd like to copy, for the edification of any reader; this was written to a gentleman who asked how he could get a copy of the Dictionary when it came out, and despite his being a total stranger, Johnson wrote this response: Sire, If you imagine that by delaying my answer I intended to show any neglect of the notice with which you have favored me, you will neither think justly of yourself nor of me. Your civilities were offered with too much elegance not to engage attention, and I have too much pleasure in pleasing men like you, not to feel very sensibly the distinction which you have bestowed upon me. ... p200-201
• On what I will call the Evolution of Authority; he's working with a professor at Oxford to help him write lectures, this one is about kingship, called "The King and his Coronation Oath" - In that age of prejudice and ignorance, when the civil institutions were yet few, and the securities of legal obligation very weak, both because offenses against the law were often unpunished, and because the law itself could be but little known, it was necessary to invest the king with some thing of a sacred character that might secure obedience by reverence, and more effectually preserve his person from danger and violation. For this reason it was necessary to interpose the clerical authority that the crown being imposed by a holy hand might communicate some sanctity to him that wore it. And, accordingly, the inauguration of a king is by our ancient historians termed consecration; and the writings, both fabulous and historical, of the Middle Ages connect with royalty some supernatural powers. p272
• And then, he's writing about the American colonists (and he's kind of against them I think), but I might just call it 'Being Human' - No man has a right to any good without partaking of the evil by which that good is necessarily produced; no man has a right to security by another's danger, nor to plenty by another's labor, but as he gives something of his own which he who meets the danger, or undergoes the labour, but as he gives something of his own which he who meets the danger, or undergoes the labour considers as equivalent; no man has a right to the security of government without bearing his share of inconveniences. ... If by forsaking our native country we could carry away all its happiness and leave its evils behind, what human being would not wish for exile? p272
• "A decent provision of the poor is a true test of a civilization." p280
• Forsooth!
• They used to wear an ink horn dangling from the lapel, for writing on the go. p357

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography

Written 1706-1790; this is considered the first autobiography (a la Albrecht Dürer's self-portrait?)

• Says the Pope, judiciously: "Men should be taught as if you taught them not. And things unknown propos'd as things forgot."
• Ben Franklin became a vegetarian because of that guy's book Way to Health(?), until he realized that animals eat other animals - he saw a fish get cut open once, and other fish were in its stomach.
• (Talking shit) It was a habit he had acquired. He wanted to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. 
• "Taking a Saint Monday" is when you're hung over from Sunday night, and call out of work.
• He mentions how when they wanted to increase circulation of paper money, rich people didn't like the idea, but they had nobody to write about it. Ben Franklin could write, and had his own press, so he wrote in favor, and it happened. Imagine a day when simply knowing how to write made you that valuable. But also imagine a time when it was so rare that even "the rich" couldn't find one. 
• I think "shut up" originally meant shut up in the house, not to shut your mouth.
• He seems to think that reading, in itself, makes you a better person. Granted, it was very new at the time, and so yes it may have given you a huge advantage, like having a PhD today.
• Imagine the nerve - "In the conduct of my newspaper I carefully excluded libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stagecoach in which any one who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute to himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction, and that having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation in which they had no concern without doing them manifest injustice. ... These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily .... In the Pennsylvania Gazette for June 10, 1731, Franklin wrote of having displeased many men "for refusing absolutely to print any of their party or personal reflections". On December 24, 1782, he wrote Francis Hopkinson: "If people will print heir abuses of one another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they think proper.
• He tells a story of a guy he doesn't like, but who he has no choice but to cooperate with, and who is above him in station, and who would likely be for a long time: "I did not however aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but after some time took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately; and I returned it in about a week, with another note expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House he spoke to me, (which he had never done before) and with great civility. And he ever afterwards manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends and our friendship continued to his death. Tis is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged. And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return and continue inimical proceedings. [inimical: adverse, hurtful, enemy]
• Ben Franklin on vaccines (in the *** 1700's) - In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of 4 years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had no given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents, who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen. 
• Note, also from the 1700's, most of the profits of his paper came from advertisements.

Image credit: Benjamin Franklin - Joseph-Siffred Duplessis - 1785