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The
Hongkong Telegraph.
MONDAY, JULY 6, 1936.
WHO MAKES WARS ?
I
You have heard of Doctor Johnson, alleged dry-as-
-as-dust classic. But did you know-
He gave us
the
we
Two
language
speak
hundred hundred years
ago he wrote the first dictionary-because he failed as teacher
WAS in the Cheshire Cheese the other day, drinking with a friend, a foolish man whose views are always wrong, and who is
"What about this old Dr. Press Johnson?" he said. "Who was
he?"
(
by
LORD
CLONMORE
their fortunes, Johnson by Rterature: Garrick on the singe Garrick wa successful almost from the start, but Johnson had to face ten
years of I guessed there was something struggle and poverty. There were times when he did not have enough tiresome coming.
money to buy a night's lodging,
Who makes wars? This ques-always airing them. tion has been engaging the at- tention of the British latterly, and there is, as might be expected, considerable diver- sity of view on the subject. During the Great War, an American diplomat asserted that it was "this King business" that he? was responsible. But since he? those days, nny Kings have vanished and war clouds, denser than ever, scem, to hang over
#
"Used to come in here, didn't Wrote a dictionary, didn't Dry old bird, I should say,"
OU'D have found
Y
I hate a fool, and I hate to hear fool discussing sensible people But my friend thought he was. In teresting me.
N 1747 success at last began to come
To TASTE, voitta
W
HEN he was -beginning,
a friend came to see him, and asked him how he expected to finish the work single- handed in three years, when forty learned men of the French Academy had taken forty years to finish their werk,
"Sir," said Johnson (he was al ways saying "SI"), "thus it is: this in the proportion, let me see; forty times forty in sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of on Englishman. to a Frenchnian."
Ode. by Garrick
When the book was finished and an advertisement appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine," it contained a complimentary ade by David Gar- rick, which ended up
And Johnson well armed like a
hero of yore,.
Hus beat forty French, and will
bent forty more."
**^ To try by the mouth ; to eat, dilion. To have a fmack; to produce on the plate a particular sentation...
Swift Ta diftinguth intellectually, Swift, 21 To telish intellectually to approve. My Milton
To be inflicted pricceive fome qua- ity of character, der
To Try the relih of any
3. To take enjoyment.
To have perception of
Wirda
To enjoy fparingly
TASTE, Jom the verb.).
1. The act of tulling; guitation. Milen
2. The fenfe by which the relish of any
thing on the palate is perceived.
17
ge That fenfation which all things takih into the mouth give particularly to the 4 fatellectual relish or difcernment.
Hooker, Millst 5. An effsys a trial; an experiment.
SHANITOWIE
OHNSON'S die tionary
is E
bulky work, and was originally publish, ed in two volumes. 1 think most of the later editions are in four. If you should be in the neighbourhood of Eton, visit to the
pay
achool library; it is open to the public, and you will find a first edition of the diction- nry resting on the desk at which Johnson worked,
The book is full of interesting information in addition to defini- tions of words. John- of son backs up most His definitions with quotations from: Eng lish
and from authors,
these it is clear. thai his reading must have wen extremely wide.
lle was
A violent, vivacious man,
with strong loves and hates, and now and then he can no longer contain himself.
For instance, he hated
the Excise system which was Imposed at the
his way, as he was hoisterous gentleman Part of a page time, and defines Excise
commissioned to write a dictionary of cume along and, as a the English language, and for this contemporary saki, "sta he was to be paid £1,500 (little bilised
the English from Johnson's enough, if one thinks of the labour Janguage," there wers and expense involved). If his scent no real dictionaries in dictionary had not failed his dictionary might England. never have been written.
You may agree with my friend in
as " hateful tax levied commodities and ad- fudged not by the com- mon judges of property. but wretches hired by those to whom Excise in Johnson was the first With each definition paid." For this he ia given the name of narrowly escaped being the author who need it. prosecuted.
the Cheshire Cheese and say this is man to pat into print all dull. You may be dull like, him. everything that could be You may say that dictionaries are known about the English language. useful books, that you can buy them But for him, you and I might be
sixpence for
nowadays, and that the talking and writing entirely different less you hear about them the better.
English from the English we use to- L ny seem to
you that a man who is prepared to write a dictionary day. must either be, a mechanical drudge
or a pedantic old fool. Johnson Helped by
himself when he wrote his dietionary described Textographers writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."
him dry." I answer ed. "You'd and the world. Some lay the guilt anybody dry who wasn't like a P. G. at the door of the professional | Wodehouse hero. Have some more soldier, but here, again, there is beer and we'll talk about something scarcely an oid soldier who more in your line." knows war who does not de-. nounce it in unmeasured tones. At the recent annual conference
lie went on with a lot of the British Legion, which was of talk about dry-as-dust professors attended by many foreign and that sort of thing. soldiers, high-placed, oflicers of Something various nationalities expressed a went Wrong sincere desire never to see war
Like the deaf adder, I stopped up again. Armament manufac-my cars. It get me thinking, how- turers are also blamed, but there ever, and I remembered that for about ten years I had neglected one of the were wars in plenty before these most enjoyable books ever written, were big concerns came into being | Boawell's "Life of Johnson." and when there were no large And then I found that it was 200 profits to be made out of war. years ago this year when something Some say that the origin of most went wrong indirectly caused us to be given the Arst, complete English wars is to be laid at the door of
dictionary. politicians and diplomatists who entangle themselves among their young man from Lichfield called own swords and cannot cut their Samuel Johnson married Mrs. mich older then way out except by the sword. Porter, a widow
himself, who had a little fortune,
The answer
In 1735
clave but pentiless
11
to the query has still to be found, but this much School Had can be said that whoever is to Two Pupils blame it is not the people. No In 1736 they invested the money in nation persistently and con: a school for boys at Edial, in Stafford- complete sistently desires and plans wars.shire. The school
fallure. They were only able to get There is another fact which is two pupils. One of these was David deserving of emphasis when con-Garrick, who afterwords became the sidering this matter-namely, famous actor.
more
was
P
and Garrick came to London to seek
that when a war ends no-one When the school failed, Johnson respects his late enemy ardently and sincerely than the men who have done the fighting, devotion of the British silois That point was made plain while who fought in the war. An- the Great War was going on, other gratifying feature of the and since then thero have been Jutland commemoration was many proofs that whoever that the British and German wishes to keep up evil feeling,
communities in Gothenburg, it is not the old soldier or sailor.
Sweden, for the first time held a A British ex-naval officer who witnessed the dedication of the common service in memory of naval memorial at Kiel says he the dead. These are points was particularly impressed by which we should do well to bear the friendly feeling that all in mind amid all our fears of Germans he met have for Great the future. And the thought Britain and the British people. can hardly be escaped that upon At the same gathering, the such a structure it should be German Commander-in-Chief possible to lay the foundation's paid a generous tribute, to the of u great and lasting peace.
Six-Writers-
He was at work on it for eight
ho Was years, though
optimistic enough at first to think it would take him only three. Ile did all the difficult work alone, and was helped But Johnson and his dictionary by six wrliers who attended to the
far from dull. Until that muchankal side.
A Boisterous Gentleman
SIDE GLANCES By George Clark
|_ ONEILMASTROČENIE - REALLY PUT-OFF
“You see, we couldn't pay the doctor as much as he ušn...” ally gets, so we named the baby after hint la sort of
make up for it,” :
He hated the Scots, and says of oats that it is "a grain which in England is usually given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.".
The 'Government in power in his day was undoubtedly corrupt, and he disapproved of it. Pensions were one of the politician's means of gaining his ends; ho therefore says that a pension is "un allowance made to any one without an equivalent, In Eng- land it is generally understood to mean pay to State hireling for treason to his country."
Pension Doubts
It is not surprising that when King George III, eventually gave Dr. John- ‚son a pension of £300 a year, he was ·
not oure if he ought to accept it.
-Some of his writing wa nright think rather pompous and obscure.
What about this sentence from the preface to his dictionary: "When the radical idea branches out into parallel rami- fications, how can a consecutive séries be formed of senses in their own na- ture collateral"?
Boswell, his blographer. thought this wonderful, and quotes it as an example of how clearly he wrote, but I doubt if even Gertrude Stein could be more diflcult to understand.
He Wasn't. Handsome
Johnson was certainly no sourfaced pedant, but he cannot have been hand- Rome,
Ills wifo said that when he was first introduced to her "his appearance was very forbidding; he was then Jena und lunk, so that his immense structuro of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible.” . But Johnson was u, gónial, kindly man, who loved good food and the' company of his friends, and though he was usually bullying and bluater- ing in conversation, was never happy as when silting in a tavern with his frients, or, better still, in post-chaise.
D
.
PO
R. JOHNSON was "much of a John Bull," He was. says Boswell,
He was what all good. John Bulle ought to be, a lover of friends and good living, and a hater of fools and knaves, especially of fools.
If you want to think of the real Johnson you must see him, not poring over his books in the garret where he worked, but enjoying good food and company. In the tavern.