tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post6262108018274335609..comments2024-03-27T13:13:25.164-04:00Comments on johnshaplin: Sermon IV by Samuel Johnsonjohnshaplinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-69118019357052555952009-07-26T09:54:54.527-04:002009-07-26T09:54:54.527-04:00Johnson wrote more than forty sermons in his lifet...Johnson wrote more than forty sermons in his lifetime. Their bulk comprises one of his most impressive achievements- especially impressive, in personal terms, because he wrote them secretly for 'sundry beneficed clergymen' at their request- twenty-five were for John Taylor alone- with the demand that they must never reveal his authorship.<br /><br />That it was not an uncommon practice for clergymen to have sermons written for them, and that he charged two guineas each for them and, felt, therefore, he had no further right to be identified as the author, does not diminish the selflessness and charity of the act in a lifetime of writing anonymously for others in a multitude of ways.<br /><br />"Manly sense, deep penetration, and ardent love of virtue': such words have often been used to decribe Johnson's sermons. Steeped in the English homelitic tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially the sermons of Richard Hooker, John Tillotson and Jeremy Taylor, the sermons are much more than standard variations on Anglican theological themes of communion, vanity, repentance and charity, among others. With their strong moral reflections, they make one think immediately of the Rambler essays and their insight into the recesses of the human mind. They are all about making one's way as best one can in this mortal existence with realism, dignity and spiritual sensitivity and devoutness. The themes Johnson wrote about include marriage, the vanity of human wishes and self-deception, arrogance and intellectual pride, envy, war, death, law and morals, capital punishment, idleness, charity and the 'compassionate heart', friendship and God.'johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6130830332820181818.post-66398418973423369702009-07-26T08:46:24.682-04:002009-07-26T08:46:24.682-04:00In regards to charity, Johnson burdened himself co...In regards to charity, Johnson burdened himself considerably in the exercise of it through-out his life, as th following passage indicates. Frank (Barber) was the freed West Indian slave whom Johnson took into his household at the age of 10, nurturing and educating him.<br /><br />"In 1777 Johnson took another lodger, Tetty's* old friend Mrs. Desmoulins, who for many years had been living in Chelsea in poverty. Although he did not much like her, he felt a lingering obligation to her not only on account of Tetty but also because she was the daughter of his godfather, after who he had been named and who helped him to get to Oxford with some small financial assistance. He gave her an allowance of half a guinea per week and allowed her (with her daughter) to move into the same room with a "Scotch wench", Poll Carmichael, whom Johnson may have taken in as early as 1773, if she was one and the same as the prostitute he found nearly lifeless in the street one day and carried home on his back. He took care of Poll for years and had long been assisting her to recover a small patrimony she said she had been unjustly denied. She did not work out in the house as well as he had hoped:' we could spare her very well from us; Poll is a stupid slut', he remarked to Mrs. Thrale in 1778.<br /><br />Desmoulins and her daughter brought to seven the total number of dependants living in Bolt Court in the summer of 1777. She completed the recipe for domestic chaos in the house, for she and Mrs. Williams ( J's. blind housekeeper) despised each other and the normal bickering in the house increased exponentially. Mrs. Thrale was both amused and horrified that Johnson's house was 'overun with all sorts of strange creatures, whom he admits for mere charity', but as they both be occasionally of service to each other, and neither of them have any other place to go to, their animosity does not force them to seperate'. None of the inhabitants, in fact, liked Mrs. Desmoulins. 'Mr. Levet who thinks his ancient rights are violated, stands at bay, fierce as ten furies', Johnson grumbled to Mrs. Thrale;'Mrs. Williams growls and scolds, but Poll does not much flinch." After a year with all of them, Johnson summed up the turmoil in the house: "We have tolerable concord at home, but no love. Williams hates everyone. Levet hates Desmoulins and does not love Williams. Desmoulin hates them both. Poll loves none of them. Levet, in spite of feeling besieged by all those women, and Frank were the only stable ones. The seventy-two-year old was good company for Johnson, breakfasting with him and costing little because of his medical attentions to the poor and indigent living in the neighborhoods of Marylebone for which they were able to pay him one way or another. Johnson's deep affection for Lever and his charitable work never wavered. However, lengthy visits to Staffordshire became more than ever a way to escape the cacaphony of argument at home. This pattern of existance would last to the end of his life.<br /><br />*His Wife, died in 1751<br /><br /><br />"johnshaplinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17618981988062495637noreply@blogger.com