Samuel Johnson 塞缪尔·约翰逊

Samuel Johnson and his famous letter The day June the 18th of 1746 is a milestone in the history of English dictionary. On this day, a poverty-stricken scholar signed an impressive contract with a publisher in London. He decided to compile the first English dictionary on his own. This extraordinary intellectual is Samuel Johnson, a great British poet, essayist, literary critic, biographer and lexicographer. Why do I call the contract impressive? For the compiling job is too trying and arduous to be imagined. It took 40 years and 40 scholars to finish the French Dictionary in 1694. However, Dr. Johnson, a frail man, accomplished this unmatchable dictionary in a very short period time of seven years! Gathering material, confirming the glossary, explaining origins and definitions of words, he finished these work all by himself. It is this dictionary that brought Johnson to distinction. It established his status and an annual pension of 300 pounds were granted to him by the crown, which enabled him to live without any more financial care. And he was awarded a doctoral degree by the University of Berlin and Oxford. You see, this dictionary is a magnet for fame. Thus, Lord Chesterfield, a rich and distinguished politician and a well-known writer himself, recognized its worth and published two articles to warmly praise it and regarded its compiler the authority of language and lexicography. However, in his letter to Lord Chesterfield, Johnson declared that “to be so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.” Why did he refuse Lord Chesterfield’s praise? It went like this: At the time, Lord Chesterfield, a rich and distinguished politician and a well-known wrier himself, was famed for his kindness toward starters in literature. In 1747, Johnson proposed a plan and dedication to Chesterfield, requesting the latter’s patronage and support. However, when Johnson went to visit Chesterfield, he was kept waiting for a long time and was treated dismissively by Chesterfield. Johnson had suffered the long 7 years of lonely struggle and difficulties, now, how could he, a dignified and uncourtly scholar received the belated endorsement! So in his letter, he poured out all his injured and poignant feelings, he gave an account of what have happened when he went to seek help from Chesterfield seven years ago. The tone is blunt, he says “no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little”. From this, we can feel the anger and rage that are seething under the surface. And in the next paragraph, he further criticized Chesterfield and exposed his hypocrisy. He uses a long complex sentence and irony to declare that he never had a patron before. Also, with an allusion to Greek classic literature: “the shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with love, and found him a native of the rocks,”Johnson indicates that one can never find a real patron in “civilized”England just as love couldn’t be found amongst Romans. Moreover, in the following paragraph, Johnson applies parallelism to further justify his rejection of Chesterfield’s patronage. We all know that parallelism and repetition together make a very formidable pair in forceful writing of any kind. Here, the using of parallelism emphasizes Johnson’s refusal and reaffirms his stand concerning Chesterfield’s self-patronage. Samuel Johnson’s letter, with its dignified and weighty style, has been taken as a fine example of the English prose ever since. It ushered in a new age of market economy in which the writers would depend on their readers for development and prosperity.