10 Poets Buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey

National Library of Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1. Geoffrey Chaucer c. 1343 1400 Author and poet
2. Edmund Spenser c. 1552 1599 Poet
3. Abraham Cowley 1618 1667 Poet
4. John Dryden 1631 1700 Poet and playwright
5. Samuel Johnson 1709 1784 Author, poet and lexicographer
6. Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809 1892 Poet
7. Robert Browning 1812 1889 Poet and playwright
8. Thomas Hardy 1840 1928 Author and poet
9. John Masefield 1878 1967 Poet and author
10. Rudyard Kipling 1865 1936 Author and poet

Five Good Books Recently Read

One tries to keep reading. Here are five I've recently got through and enjoyed. First, Nick Needham's superb fifth volume on church history. This time we are in the wonderful eighteenth century. Much of it I knew but a great deal I did not. I particularly enjoyed the section on Bengel the commentator. I don't recall seeing the bald statement that Wesley was happy about women preachers anywhere else. I bought Footnotes on spec when I saw going cheap in a local bookshop. A great bargain, it travels various parts of Britain in the company of Dickens, Blyton and others in a partly random series of trips. Its chief strength is that it is very well written. Most engaging. I got the book on animals in the same manner as the Fiennes' book. I thought it was part of another series but it is not. I would think it is fairly easy to write such a book but very enjoyable to read (if you ignore the evolutionary stuff).

When my father-in-law demobbed his vast library most of it went to Newcastle but I did get hold of the five volume Vos Systematic Theology. Recently I thought I had better start reading it and so took up Volume 1. It is hard going in parts but mostly just keeps going. There is no prolegomena so the first volume covers Scripture, God and his decree. I have already started on Volume 2. I actually paid full price for the McCall short stories in a different booksop (I'm not a complete skinflint - though rather impulsive). I've not read any Smith for ages and enjoyed these spy stories immensely, although the final story which touches on theology had a very disappointing section attempting to explain what orthodox catholic Christians believe about the Holy Spirit. It is unnerving when you see what a hash he makes of it, having been so impressed with everythhing else. I might hunt down some more McCall Smith; there's loads of it. I thought this was an interesting quote from one of the stories

Sides are often arbitrary - the result of historical accident: friendship can be much more important than allegiance and membership, and can, sometimes, outrank other, lesser loyalties. Where you are born, and the flag that flies over your birthplace, may turn out to be far less important than the promptings of the heart within.

10 London Musea focused chiefly on individuals

1. Sigmund Freud (Freud Museum)
2. John Wesley (Wesley's Chapel and House)
3. Thomas Carlyle (Carlyle's House)
4. Charles Dickens (Charles Dickens Museum)
5. Samuel Johnson (Dr Johnson's House)
6. Georg Handel (and Jimi Hendrix) (Handel and Hendrix in London)
7. John Keats (Keats House)
8. William Hogarth (Hogarth's House)
9. Benjamin Franklin (Franklin's House)
10. Florence Nightingale (Florence Nightingale Museum)

Samuel Johnson

Eluveitie, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

I was in Fleet Street the other week and I noticed this statue of Johnson outside St Clement Danes, the church he used to attend.

On the base it says

Samuel Johnson LLD, critic, essayist, philologist, biographer, wit, poet, moralist, dramatist, political writer, talker. Born 1709, died 1784. The gift and handiwork of Percy Fitzgerald, FSA and erected by the Revd. S. Pennington, MA, Rector of St. Clement Danes, 1910.

(Around the pedestal there are 3 large bronze reliefs: - on front - Boswell's head in profile, inscribed "Boswell" - on left hand side - Johnson with Mrs Thrale, inscribed "Mrs Thrale" - on right hand side - Johnson with Boswell, in the Highlands).

12 London Museums about people

1. Alexander Fleming Laboratory, Paddington

2. Benjamin Franklin House, Westminster

3. Carlyle's House, Chelsea

4. Charles Dickens Museum, Holborn*

5. Dr Johnson's House, City*

6. Florence Nightingale Musem, Lambeth

7. Freud Museum. Hampstead*

8. Handel House, Mayfair*

9. Hogarth's House, Chiswick*

10. Keats House, Hamsptead*

11. Michael Faraday Museum, Mayfair

12. Wesley's Chapel, City Road*

 

We could also have Baden-Powell House, South Ken and further out Down House, Downe (Darwin) and Red House, Bexley Heath (Wm Morris). Sherlock Holmes (Baker Street) is a fictional character.

*Those I've been to.

Novelists 5 Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson 1709-1784 is most famous for his mammoth work the English Dictionary but he wrote a lot of other things including (in 1759) a philosophical novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abbysinia. He wrote it to support his seriously ill mother who died as it was published. As he himself once said "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." I have read a book claiming he became a Christian in later life. If so, he may be the same as Daniel Defoe mentioned before, who someone contacted me about saying he too was converted in later life.

Dr Johnson's Dictionary

I've just finished Henry Hitchings' excellent 2005 book on Samuel Johnson and his dictionary. Hitchings has PD on Johnson so knows his stuff. He manages to present the material in an interesting and informative way and I would recommend the book to anyone with an interest in English language, literature or history. He sets out his chapters in a clever A-Z fashion that does not intrude but enhances the experience. W should all know at least something about Dr Johnson and his dictionary.

Johnson's Dictionary

Here are some (mostly) famous entries in Sameul Johnson's English Dictionary of 1755.

Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.

Distiller: One who makes and sells pernicious and inflammatory spirits.

Dull: Not exhilaterating (sic); not delightful; as, to make dictionaries is dull work.

Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.

Far-fetch: A deep stratagem. A ludicrous word.

Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections. (See how he defined 'reticulated,' below.)

Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.

Pastern: The knee of a horse. (This is wrong. When Johnson was once asked how he came to make such a mistake, Boswell tells us he replied, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.")

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Pension: An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.

Politician: 1. One versed in the arts of government; one skilled in politicks. 2. A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.

Reticulated: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.

Tory: One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a Whig.

Whig: The name of a faction.

To worm: To deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue, which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad.

These are taken from the Samuel Johnson sounbite page here.