Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:

Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.

Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situation, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries. This is sometimes referred to as 'metalexicography'.

A person devoted to lexicography is called a lexicographer.

General lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of general dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that provide a description of the language in general use. Such a dictionary is usually called a general dictionary or LGP dictionary (Language for General Purpose). Specialized lexicography focuses on the design, compilation, use and evaluation of specialized dictionaries, i.e. dictionaries that are devoted to a (relatively restricted) set of linguistic and factual elements of one or more specialist subject fields, e.g. legal lexicography. Such a dictionary is usually called a specialized dictionary or LSP dictionary and following Nielsen 1994, specialized dictionaries are either multi-field, single-field or sub-field dictionaries.

There is some disagreement on the definition of lexicology, as distinct from lexicography. Some use "lexicology" as a synonym for theoretical lexicography; others use it to mean a branch of linguistics pertaining to the inventory of words in a particular language.

It is now widely accepted that lexicography is a scholarly discipline in its own right and not a sub-branch of applied linguistics, as the chief object of study in lexicography is the dictionary (see e.g. Bergenholtz/Nielsen/Tarp 2009).

Etymology

Coined in English 1680, the word "lexicography" derives from the Greek "λεξικογράφος" (''lexikographos''), "lexicographer", from "λεξικόν" (''lexicon''), neut. of "λεξικός" (''lexikos''), "of or for words", from "λέξις" (''lexis''), "speech", "word", (in turn from "λέγω" – ''lego'', "to say", "to speak") + "γράφω" (''grapho''), "to scratch, to inscribe, to write".

Aspects

Practical lexicographic work involves several activities, and the compilation of well crafted dictionaries require careful consideration of all or some of the following aspects:

Profiling the intended users (i.e. linguistic and non-linguistic competences) and identifying their needs

Defining the communicative and cognitive functions of the dictionary

Selecting and organizing the components of the dictionary

Choosing the appropriate structures for presenting the data in the dictionary (i.e. frame structure, distribution structure, macro-structure, micro-structure and cross-reference structure)

Selecting words and affixes for systematization as entries

Selecting collocations, phrases and examples

Choosing lemma forms for each word or part of word to be lemmatized

Defining words

Organizing definitions

Specifying pronunciations of words

Labeling definitions and pronunciations for register and dialect, where appropriate

Selecting equivalents in bi- and multilingual dictionaries

Translating collocations, phrases and examples in bi- and multilingual dictionaries

Designing the best way in which users can access the data in printed and electronic dictionaries

One important goal of lexicography is to keep the lexicographic information costs incurred by dictionary users as low as possible. Nielsen (2008) suggests relevant aspects for lexicographers to consider when making dictionaries as they all affect the users' impression and actual use of specific dictionaries.

Theoretical lexicography (or metalexicography) concerns the same aspects as lexicography, but is meant to lead to the development of principles that can improve the quality of future dictionaries, for instance in terms of access to data and lexicographic information costs. Several perspectives or branches of such academic dictionary research have been distinguished: 'dictionary criticism' (or evaluating the quality of one or more dictionaries, e.g. by means of reviews (see Nielsen 2009)), 'dictionary history' (or tracing the traditions of a type of dictionary or of lexicography in a particular country or language), 'dictionary typology' (or classifying the various genres of reference works, such as dictionary versus encyclopedia, monolingual versus bilingual dictionary, general versus technical or pedagogical dictionary), 'dictionary structure' (or formatting the various ways in which the information is presented in a dictionary), 'dictionary use' (or observing the reference acts and skills of dictionary users), and 'dictionary IT' (or applying computer aids to the process of dictionary compilation).

One important consideration is the status of 'bilingual lexicography', or the compilation and use of the bilingual dictionary in all its aspects (see e.g. Nielsen 1994). In spite of a relatively long history of this type of dictionary, it is often said to be less developed in a number of respects than its unilingual counterpart, especially in cases where one of the languages involved is not a major language. Not all genres of reference works are available in interlingual versions, e.g. LSP, learners' and encyclopedic types, although sometimes these challenges produce new subtypes, e.g. 'semi-bilingual' or 'bilingualised' dictionaries such as Hornby's ''(Oxford) Advanced Learner's Dictionary English-Chinese'', which have been developed by translating existing monolingual dictionaries (see Marello 1998).

Recommended reading

Atkins, B.T.S. & Rundell, Michael (2008) ''The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography'', Oxford U.P. ISBN 978-0-19-927771-1

Bejoint, Henri (2000) ''Modern Lexicography: An Introduction'', Oxford U.P. ISBN 9780198299516

Bergenholtz, H., Nielsen, S., Tarp, S. (eds.): ''Lexicography at a Crossroads: Dictionaries and Encyclopedias Today, Lexicographical Tools Tomorrow''. Peter Lang 2009. ISBN 978-3-03911-799-4

Bergenholtz, Henning & Tarp, Sven (eds.) (1995) ''Manual of Specialised Lexicography: The Preparation of Specialised Dictionaries'', J. Benjamins. ISBN 978-9027216120

Green, Jonathon (1996) ''Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made'', J. Cape. ISBN 0-7126-6216-2

Hartmann, R.R.K. (2001) ''Teaching and Researching Lexicography'', Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0582369771

Hartmann, R.R.K. (ed.) (2003) ''Lexicography: Critical Concepts'', Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 3 volumes. ISBN 978-0415253659

Hartmann, R.R.K. & James, Gregory (comps.) (1998/2001) ''Dictionary of Lexicography'', Routledge. ISBN 978-0415141444

Kirkness, Alan (2004) "Lexicography", in ''The Handbook of Applied Linguistics'' ed. by A. Davies & C. Elder, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 54–81. ISBN 978-1405138093

Landau, Sidney (2001) ''Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography'', Cambridge U.P. 2nd ed. ISBN 052178512X

Marello, Carla (1998) "Hornby's biligualized dictionaries", in ''International Journal of Lexicography'' 11,4, pp. 292–314.

Nielsen, Sandro (1994) ''The Bilingual LSP Dictionary'', G. Narr. ISBN 978-3823345336

Nielsen, Sandro (2008) "The effect of lexicographical information costs on dictionary making and use", in ''Lexikos'' (AFRILEX-reeks/series 18), pp. 170–189.

Nielsen, Sandro (2009): "Reviewing printed and electronic dictionaries: A theoretical and practical framework". In S. Nielsen/S. Tarp (eds): ''Lexicography in the 21st Century. In honour of Henning Bergenholtz''. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 23-41.ISBN 978-90-272-2336-4

Ooi, Vincent (1998) ''Computer Corpus Lexicography'', Edinburgh U.P. ISBN 074860815X

Zgusta, Ladislav (1971) ''Manual of lexicography'' (Janua Linguarum. Series maior 39). Prague: Academia / The Hague, Paris: Mouton. ISBN 978-9027919212

See also

List of lexicographers

Lexicology

Lexicon

Vocabulary

Dictionary

*Bilingual dictionary

*Monolingual learner's dictionary

*Specialized dictionary (Picture dictionary, Multi-field dictionary, Single-field dictionary, Sub-field dictionary, Maximizing dictionary, Minimizing dictionary, LSP dictionary)

*Glossary (defining dictionary, Core glossary)

Idioms Lexicon

Specialised lexicography

English lexicology and lexicography

Terminology

Dictionary Society of North America

References

External links

''International Journal of Lexicography''

''Societies:''

Centre for Lexicography EN version

Dictionary Society of North America

Euralex – European Association for Lexicography

Afrilex – African Association for Lexicography

Australex – Australasian Association for Lexicography

Nordic Federation for Lexicography

Asialex – Asian Association for Lexicography

* Category:Lexicology Category:Greek loanwords Category:Applied linguistics Category:Interdisciplinary fields Category:Word sense disambiguation

ar:صناعة معجمية be:Лексікаграфія be-x-old:Лексыкаграфія bg:Лексикография ca:Lexicografia cv:Лексикографи cs:Lexikografie da:Leksikografi de:Lexikografie el:Λεξικογραφία es:Lexicografía eo:Leksikografio eu:Hiztegigintza fa:فرهنگ‌نویسی fr:Lexicographie gl:Lexicografía ko:사전 편찬 hi:कोशकर्म hr:Leksikografija id:Leksikografi it:Lessicografia lt:Leksikografija nl:Lexicografie no:Leksikografi nn:Leksikografi oc:Lexicografia mhr:Лексикографий pl:Leksykografia pt:Lexicografia ro:Lexicografie ru:Лексикография sq:Leksikografia sk:Lexikografia sl:Slovaropisje sh:Leksikografija sv:Lexikografi ta:அகராதிக் கலை uk:Лексикографія zh:辭書學

Erin McKean (born 1971) is an American lexicographer. Erin is a founder and the CEO of the online dictionary Wordnik. She was previously the Principal Editor of ''The New Oxford American Dictionary'', second edition. McKean is also the editor of ''Verbatim: The Language Quarterly'' and the author of ''Weird and Wonderful Words'', ''More Weird and Wonderful Words'', ''Totally Weird and Wonderful Words'', and ''That’s Amore''. She has a novel, ''The Secret Lives of Dresses'', coming out from Grand Central. She writes about dresses in her blog, ''A Dress A Day'', and about lexicography at ''Dictionary Evangelist''. She is currently a member of the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation and of Credo Reference. She has written "The Word" column in ''The Boston Globe'' during times when Jan Freeman has been on leave.

McKean has formulated 'McKean's law', a variation on Muphry's law: "Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error."

External links

;Biographies

“Official biography” at Dictionary Evangelist

McKean’s speaker profile for Wikimania 2007 Taipei

McKean’s biography as member of the Wikimedia Advisory Board

McKean’s biography at Stokefire

;Blogs

A Dress A Day

Dictionary Evangelist

McKean’s posts at Powells.com

;Talks

Video of a speech by Erin McKean at Google

TED Talks: Erin McKean redefines the dictionary at TED in 2007

Gel videos: Your daily lexicographer quota at Gel in 2006

;Profiles and interviews

''New York Times'': “In Land of Lexicons, Having the Last Word”

Chat at Wordsmith.org

''NPR'': “Googling for New Words”

''iCommons'': "A word or two with Erin McKean"

''Portfolio.com'': "A Woman of Many Words"

;Other

Verbatim magazine

Wordnik, an online dictionary that aims to collect all the words

References

Category:1971 births Category:American bloggers Category:American book editors Category:American lexicographers Category:Living people Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board members

nl:Erin McKean

Coordinates	10°57′50″N74°47′47″N
name	Jack Lynch
birth date	August 15, 1917
birth place	Shandon, Cork, Ireland
death date	October 20, 1999
death place	Donnybrook, Dublin, Ireland
office	Taoiseach
term start	10 November 1966
term end	14 March 1973
predecessor	Seán Lemass
successor	Liam Cosgrave
term start2	5 July 1977
term end2	11 December 1979
predecessor2	Liam Cosgrave
successor2	Charles Haughey
office3	Minister for Finance
term start3	21 April 1965
term end3	10 November 1966
predecessor3	James Ryan
office4	Leader of the Opposition
term start4	14 March 1973
term end4	5 July 1977
1blankname4	Deputy
1namedata4	George Colley
predecessor4	Liam Cosgrave
successor4	Garret FitzGerald
office5	Leader of Fianna Fáil
term start5	10 November 1966
term end5	7 December 1979
predecessor5	Seán Lemass
successor5	Charles Haughey
office6	Minister for Industry and Commerce
term start6	23 June 1959
term end6	21 April 1965
predecessor6	Patrick Hillery
successor6	Charles Haughey
office7	Minister for Education
term start7	20 March 1957
term end7	23 June 1959
predecessor7	Richard Mulcahy
successor7	Patrick Hillery
party	Fianna Fáil
spouse	Máirín O'Connor
alma mater	University College Cork
religion	Roman Catholicism }}

John Mary "Jack" Lynch (15 August 1917 – 20 October 1999) was the Taoiseach of Ireland, serving two terms in office; from 1966 to 1973 and 1977 to 1979.

Lynch was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Cork in 1948, and was re-elected at each general election until his retirement in 1981. He previously served as Minister for Finance (1965–1966), Minister for Industry and Commerce (1959–1965), Minister for Education (1957–1959), Minister for the Gaeltacht (1957) and as a Parliamentary Secretary. He was the third leader of Fianna Fáil from 1966 until 1979, succeeding the hugely influential Seán Lemass. Lynch was the last Fianna Fáil leader to secure (in 1977) an overall majority in the Dáil.

Prior to his political career Lynch had a successful sporting career as a dual player of Gaelic games. He played hurling with his local club Glen Rovers and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1950. Lynch also played Gaelic football with his local club St. Nicholas' and with the Cork senior inter-county team from 1936 until 1946. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest dual players of all-time.

In a senior inter-county hurling career that lasted for fourteen years he won five All-Ireland titles, seven Munster titles, three National Hurling League titles and seven Railway Cup titles. In a senior inter-county football career that lasted for ten years Lynch won one All-Ireland title, two Munster titles and one Railway Cup title. Lynch was later named at midfield on the GAA Hurling Team of the Century and the GAA Hurling Team of the Millennium

Early and private life

John Mary Lynch was born on 15 August 1917, just yards from the famous Shandon bells and St. Anne's in Cork City. The youngest of five boys, with two girls born after him, Jack, as he was known, was generally regarded as the "wild boy" of the family. He was educated at St. Vincent's Convent on Peacock Lane, and later at the famous "North Mon", the North Monastery Christian Brothers School. When Lynch was just thirteen years old his mother died suddenly. Lynch, who had been particularly close to his mother, was deeply affected by her death. His aunt, who herself had a family of six, stepped in to look after the family in this time of great upheaval for them. Lynch sat his Leaving Certificate in 1936, after which he moved to Dublin and worked with the Dublin District Milk Board, before returning to Cork to take up a position in the Circuit Court Office.

Lynch began working at the Cork Circuit Court as a clerk while still only nineteen years old. His work in the court ignited his interest in law and in 1941 he began a night course at University College Cork studying law. After two years in UCC he moved to Dublin to complete his studies at King's Inns. While continuing his studies he started work with the Department of Justice. In 1945 Lynch was called to the Bar and had to decide whether to remain in his Civil Service job or practice as a barrister. Lynch made the decision (literally on the toss of a coin) to move back to Cork and began a private practice on the Cork Circuit.

It was in 1943, while on holidays in Glengariff, West Cork, that Lynch met his future wife, Máirín O'Connor, the daughter of a Dublin judge. Lynch was to be her first and only boyfriend, and the couple were married three years later on 10 August 1946. Although she was apprehensive about her husband's decision to become active in politics, to become a Minister and even to become Taoiseach, she stood by him through it all and helped him make the tough decisions that would affect Lynch's life and her own. One story exists where Lynch, in spite of tremendous pressure from Seán Lemass and the entire Fianna Fáil party to stand for the leadership, only accepted the nomination after Máirín had agreed. The fact that the couple didn't have any children allowed Lynch to embark on a political career, without having to worry about his commitment to the family. However, he remained totally devoted to Máirín throughout his, and she became just as easily recognisable as her husband.

Sporting life

code	Hurling
name	Jack Lynch
irish	Seán Ó Loingsigh
fullname	John Mary Lynch
birth date	August 15, 1917
birth place	Shandon, Cork, Ireland
death date	October 20, 1999
death place	Donnybrook, Dublin, Ireland
county	Cork
province	Munster
club	Glen Rovers
clpositionh	Midfield
clpositionf	Half-back
clubs	Glen RoversSt. Nicholas'Civil Service
clyears	1934–19501934–19511943–1944
clcountyh	11
clcountyf	2
counties	Cork (H) Cork (F)
icpositionh	Half-back
icpositionf	Midfield
icyears	1936–19501939–1949
icapps(points)	42 (13-66)14 (1-6)
icprovincef	2
icprovinceh	6
icallirelandh	5
icallirelandf	1
icupdate	}}

From an early age, Lynch showed an enormous interest and great accomplishment as a sportsman. Rugby union, soccer, swimming and handball were all favourite pastimes for Lynch, however it was the sports of Gaelic football and hurling where Lynch showed particular flair.

Club

Lynch played his club hurling with the famous Glen Rovers club in the Blackpool area of Cork city. He enjoyed much success at underage levels, winning back-to-back minor county championship titles in 1933 and in 1934 as captain. That same year Lynch won his first senior county hurling championship with "the Glen." It was the first of a record-breaking eight county titles in-a-row for Glen Rovers and for Lynch, who served as captain of the side on a number of occasions. He finished off his club hurling career by winning a further three county medals in succession in 1948, 1949 and 1950.

Lynch also played club football with "the Glen’s" sister club St. Nicholas. Once again he enjoyed a successful underage career, winning back-to-back county minor titles in 1932 and 1933. Lynch won an intermediate county title in 1937, before adding a senior county football championship medal to his collection in 1938. Lynch won his second county football medal with "St. Nick’s" in 1941. While working in Dublin in the mid-1940s Lynch played club football with the Civil Service GAA team. In 1944 he won a Dublin Senior Football Championship title, alongside fellow Munster native Mick Falvey.

Inter-county

By the late 1930s Lynch was a dual player with the Cork senior hurling and senior football teams. In 1939 he became the only player, in history to captain both the inter-county football and hurling teams in the same year. That year he won his first Munster hurling title, however, Kilkenny later accounted for Cork in the famous "thunder and lightning" All-Ireland final. In 1939 and 1940 Lynch guided Cork to back-to-back National Hurling League titles, however, the 1941 championship was severely hampered due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Cork only had to play two games to be crowned All-Ireland hurling champions, however, they lost the delayed Munster hurling final to Tipperary.

In 1942 Lynch was selected as Cork hurling captain once again. That year he captured his second set of Munster and All-Ireland medals. 1943 proved to be a successful year for Lynch as he won a third Munster hurling medal and a first Munster football medal. While the footballers were later defeated in the All-Ireland semi-final, Lynch’s hurling team went on to win a third All-Ireland title in-a-row. In 1944 Lynch captured his fourth Munster hurling title. Later that year Cork created a piece of sporting history by becoming the first team to win four All-Ireland hurling titles in-a-row. Lynch was one of the heroes of the team who played in all four finals.

In 1945 Cork surrendered their provincial hurling crown, however, Lynch, as a member of the Cork senior football team won his second Munster football title. Cork later defeated Cavan in the All-Ireland final, giving Lynch his first, and only, All-Ireland football medal. In 1946 the Cork hurlers returned to their winning ways and Lynch claimed a fifth provincial hurling title. A fifth All-Ireland hurling medal was later added to his collection following a defeat of old rivals Kilkenny I the final. On that September day in 1946 Lynch made Irish sporting history by becoming the first, and to date the only, player to win six consecutive senior All-Ireland medals (five in hurling and one in football).

Lynch captured a sixth Munster hurling medal in 1947 before going on to play in his seventh All-Ireland hurling final in less than a decade. The game itself against Kilkenny has often been described as the greatest All-Ireland final ever played, however, Lynch ended up on the losing side by a single point. There was some consolation at the start of 1948 as Lynch claimed another National Hurling League medal, however, Tipperary quickly became the dominant force in the Munster Championship. Lynch retired from inter-county hurling in 1950. He had retired from inter-county football several years earlier.

Honours

Even at the height of his career, Lynch had come to be regarded as one of the all-time greats of Gaelic games. His contribution to the game of hurling was first recognised when he was named as the "Hurling Captain of the Forties". In the centenary year of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1984 Lynch was named on the "Hurling Team of the Century". At the special centenary All-Ireland final in Semple Stadium he received one of the loudest cheers and rounds of applause when all the former All-Ireland winning hurling captains were introduced to the crowd. Shortly after his death in 1999 Lynch’s reputation as one of the true greats of the game was further cemented when he was named on the "Hurling Team of the Millennium".

Political life

Early career

In 1946 Lynch had his first brush with politics when he was asked by his local Fianna Fáil cumann to stand for the Dáil in a by-election. He declined on this occasion, due to his lack of political experience, but indicated that he would be interested in standing in the next general election. In 1947 Lynch refused a similar offer to stand by the new political party Clann na Poblachta. A general election was eventually called for February 1948, Lynch topped the poll for the Cork Borough constituency and became a Fianna Fáil TD in the 13th Dáil. Although Fianna Fáil lost the election and were out of power for the first time in sixteen years, Lynch became speech writer and research assistant for the party leader, Éamon de Valera.

In 1951 Fianna Fáil were back in power and Lynch was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, with special responsibility for Gaeltacht areas. The party was out of power again between 1954 and 1957. During this period Lynch served as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on the Gaeltacht. After the 1957 general election Fianna Fáil returned to power and de Valera headed his last government. Lynch, at 39, became the youngest member to join the government, as Minister for Education, as well as holding the Gaeltacht portfolio for a short while. Lynch introduced innovative legislation, such as:

raising the school leaving age

reducing school class sizes

removing a ban on married women working as teachers.

allowing the Jewish skull cap to be worn but only from the age of 12

Minister for Industry and Commerce

In 1959 de Valera was elected President of Ireland and Seán Lemass became the new Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader. Lynch was promoted to Lemass' old portfolio as Minister for Industry and Commerce. Here he inherited the most dynamic department in the government, however, having replaced such a political giant, Lynch felt that his own scope for change was severely limited. Lynch was described as not being the most innovative of ministers but was particularly attentive when it came to legislation and detail. It was in this department where Lynch worked closely with Lemass and T. K. Whitaker in generating economic growth and implementing the Programme for Economic Expansion. He was also noted for his astuteness in solving several industrial disputes during his tenure at the Department.

Minister for Finance

In 1965 Lemass was once again re-elected Taoiseach. The big change was the retirement of such political heavyweights as James Ryan and Seán MacEntee, with Lynch taking over from the former as Minister for Finance. This appointment was particularly significant because Lemass was coming to the end of his premiership and wanted to prepare a successor. As a result Lynch took charge of the second most important position in the Government, gaining widespread experience in a number of affairs, and accompanying Lemass to London to sign one of the most important trade agreements between Ireland and the United Kingdom. One occasion in which Lynch's authority was seen to be undermined as Minister for Finance was when the Minister for Education, Donogh O'Malley, announced that the government would provide free secondary school education for all. This proposal had not been discussed at Cabinet level as would be required to fund such a service. It subsequently transpired that Lemass had previously agreed the decision without cabinet discussion as was required.

Lemass resignation

Lemass retired in 1966 after 7 years in the position and a leadership race (the first contested race in the history of the party) threatened to tear Fianna Fáil apart. Lynch, and another favourite of Lemass's, Patrick Hillery, ruled themselves out of the leadership election from the very beginning, however, other candidates such as Charles Haughey, George Colley and Neil Blaney threw their hats into the ring immediately. None of the candidates that were being offered to the party seemed particularly appealing and Lemass' made one last attempt to coax either Hillery or Lynch to join the race as a compromise candidate. Hillery remained adamant that he did not want the leadership and eventually Lynch allowed his name to go forward. Upon hearing this Haughey and Blaney, the latter having never really entered the race in the first place, withdrew and announced their support for Lynch. Colley refused to withdraw and when it was put to a ballot Lynch comfortably defeated him by 52 votes to 19. Lynch was thus elected Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil on 10 November 1966.

The Lynch succession however, was not a smooth one. Three men had openly expressed ambitions to be Taoiseach, Haughey, Blaney and Colley. Three other cabinet ministers had also contemplated running - Brian Lenihan, Kevin Boland and Donogh O'Malley.

Taoiseach 1966–1973

Because Lynch was elected as somewhat of a "compromise candidate" it appeared to many that he would only remain as an interim Taoiseach. This thought could not be further from his mind, and he outlined this intentions shortly after coming to power. Lynch took particular exception to the title "Interim Taoiseach" or "Reluctant Taoiseach". He had no intention of stepping aside after a few years in favour of one of the other candidates who had been unsuccessful against him in 1966. He was however reluctant in naming his first Cabinet. He believed that the existing members of the government owed their positions to Lemass, and so he retained the entire Cabinet, albeit with some members moving to different departments. Lynch adopted a chairman-like approach to government allowing his Ministers a free run in their respective Departments. He continued the modernising and liberal approach that Lemass had begun, albeit at a slower pace. Lynch was lucky in the timing of Lemass's resignation. The new Taoiseach now had almost a full Dáil term before the next general election.

PR referendum

With Fianna Fáil having been in power for eleven years by 1968, Lynch was persuaded once again to make an attempt to abolish the proportional representation method of voting in general elections in favour of a first-past-the-post system like in the United Kingdom. However, the campaign generated little enthusiasm, even within Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael and the Labour Party opposed the referendum when it transpired that Fianna Fáil could win up to 80 or 90 seats in a 144 seat Dáil if the motion was passed. Much like 1959, when the party tried to make the same referendum, the electorate believed this to be an attempt to institutionalise Fianna Fáil in power, and thus they rejected the motion put to them. This cast doubts on Lynch and his ability to win a general election, however, he proved his critics wrong in the 1969 general election when Fianna Fáil won its first overall majority since Éamon de Valera in 1957, and Lynch proved himself to be a huge electoral asset for the party.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland, and Lynch's attitude to the situation which was about to develop there would come to define his first tenure as Taoiseach. Lynch continued Lemass's approach in regard to relations with Northern Ireland. Better relations had been forged between the two parts of Ireland with co-operation between Ministers on several practical issues such as trade, agriculture and tourism. In December 1967 Lynch travelled to Stormont for his first meeting with the Prime Minister Terence O'Neill, in the hope of forming even more links. On 8 January 1968 they met again in Dublin. However, the situation was already beginning to deteriorate in the North with civil unrest and the resignation of O'Neill to come.

Shortly after Lynch's election victory, tensions in Northern Ireland finally spilled over and "the troubles" began. The sight of refugees from the North teeming across the border turned public opinion in the Republic. The Battle of the Bogside in Derry between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and residents in August 1969 prompted Lynch on 13 August to make what some people consider one of the most important broadcasts to the nation on Irish television, commenting on the ever-increasingly violent situation. He said:

''It is clear now that the present situation cannot be allowed to continue. It is evident also that the Stormont government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed, the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont governments. It is clear also that the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse. It is obvious that the RUC is no longer accepted as an impartial police force. Neither would the employment of British troops be acceptable nor would they be likely to restore peaceful conditions, certainly not in the long term. The Irish Government have, therefore, requested the British Government to apply immediately to the United Nations for the urgent dispatch of a Peace-Keeping Force to the Six Counties of Northern Ireland and have instructed the Permanent Representative to the United Nations to inform the Secretary General of this request. We have also asked the British Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of Derry should cease immediately.''

''Very many people have been injured and some of them seriously. We know that many of these do not wish to be treated in Six County hospitals. We have, therefore, directed the Irish Army authorities to have field hospitals established in County Donegal adjacent to Derry and at other points along the Border where they may be necessary.''

''Recognising, however, that the re-unification of the national territory can provide the only permanent solution for the problem, it is our intention to request the British Government to enter into early negotiations with the Irish Government to review the present constitutional position of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland.''

Lynch's statement that the Irish Government could "no longer stand by" was interpreted by Unionists in Northern Ireland as hinting at military intervention (and was misquoted as a promise not to "stand ''idly'' by"). A minority of ministers - two, according to Desmond O'Malley - would have favoured such a course, but the Irish Army was completely unprepared for an operation of this kind. The majority of the cabinet opposed military intervention, and Lynch took no such action, though he commissioned a study named ''Exercise Armageddon''. As the violence continued, the Minister for External Affairs, Patrick Hillery, met with the British Foreign Secretary and also went to the United Nations in a plea to send a peacekeeping force to the North and to highlight the Irish government's case. However, little else was achieved from these meetings other than media coverage of the activities in the north. The situation in Northern Ireland continued to deteriorate during Lynch's first term. Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972), saw the killing of 14 unarmed civilians by British paratroopers and a backlash of anti-British feeling in all parts of Ireland, including the burning of the British embassy in Dublin.

Arms crisis

Lynch's attitude towards the Northern Ireland question and the application of Fianna Fáil party policy to it would eventually come to define his first period as Taoiseach, and would once again show his critics that far from being "reluctant" he was in fact a strong and decisive leader. His strong leadership skills and determination were clearly evident in 1970 when allegations (later disproved in court, though questions since have emerged challenging that verdict in one case), that the hardline republican Minister for Agriculture, Neil Blaney, and the Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, were involved in an attempt to use £100,000 in aid money to import arms for the Provisional IRA. Both ministers were sacked after some initial procrastination on Lynch's part, his innocent Minister for Justice, Micheál Ó Móráin, retired the day before and a fourth minister, Kevin Boland and his Parliamentary Secretary, resigned in sympathy with Haughey and Blaney. The whole affair, which became known as the Arms Crisis, allowed Lynch to stamp his control on his government, but would eventually lead to deep division in Fianna Fáil for many decades to come. It is now believed that Lynch was aware of these activities, and acted only when his hand was forced.

EEC membership

One of the high points of Lynch's first term as Taoiseach, and possibly one of the most important events in modern Irish history, was Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community. Lynch personally steered the application for membership and the acceptance of membership by a five to one majority in a referendum shows that the vast majority of the country was behind him. Ireland officially joined, along with its nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom and Denmark, on 1 January 1973. Patrick Hillery became Ireland's first European Commissioner. In appointing Hillery Europe was gaining one of Ireland's most experienced politicians, while on the other hand Lynch was losing one of his staunchest allies. The admittance of Ireland was the culmination of a decade of preparation which was begun by Lynch and his predecessor, Seán Lemass, who unfortunately did not live to see what would have been his greatest achievement.

Opposition 1973–1977

Lynch's government was expected to collapse following the Arms Crisis; however, it survived until 1973. Lynch had wanted to call the general election for the end of 1972, however, events had conspired against him and the date was set for February, 1973. Lynch's government was defeated by the National Coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Liam Cosgrave was elected Taoiseach and Lynch found himself on the opposition benches for the first time in sixteen years. Lynch's popularity remained steadfast, so much so that during his tenure as Leader of the Opposition he was frequently referred to as "the Real Taoiseach". Lynch had some success while out of power. He had finally expelled all the elements of the party which threatened his leadership and the unification of the party. Lynch was now in complete control. Fianna Fáil began its electoral comeback by securing the election of its candidate, Erskine H. Childers, in becoming President of Ireland in 1973, defeating the odds-on favourite, the National Coalition's Tom O'Higgins.

In 1975 Lynch allowed Charles Haughey to return to his Front Bench as Spokesperson on Health. There was much media criticism of Lynch for this move. In the same year the Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Michael O'Kennedy, published a Fianna Fáil policy document calling for a withdrawal of British forces from Northern Ireland. The document was an echo of Fianna Fáil's republican origins, and although Lynch was not happy with it, he did not stop it.

Controversy continued to dog the National Coalition when the President of Ireland, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, resigned in 1976 after being called a "thundering disgrace" by the Minister for Defence, Paddy Donegan. Liam Cosgrave refused to sack his Minister and the government's popularity took a downturn. A former Fianna Fáil cabinet minister and a political ally of Lynch, Patrick Hillery, was eventually nominated (without election) as Ó Dálaigh's successor and sixth President of Ireland.

In 1977 the government, although reasonably unpopular, felt sure of an election victory and June date for the poll was fixed. The National Coalition's spirits had been buoyed up by the actions of the Minister for Local Government, James Tully. In what became known as the Tullymander (a pun on the word gerrymander) he re-drew every constituency in Ireland (as he had authority to do), apparently favouring Fine Gael and Labour Party candidates. However, when the election took place the coalition was swept out of office by Fianna Fáil which won an unprecedented twenty seat Dáil majority and over 50% of the first preference votes. Lynch himself received the biggest personal vote in the state. Although the large parliamentary majority seemed to restore Lynch as an electoral asset, the fact that the party was returned with an enormous vote allowed Lynch to be undermined by many new TDs who were not loyal to Lynch and wanted him removed.

Taoiseach 1977–1979

Early on in his second term as Taoiseach, Lynch decided that he would not lead Fianna Fáil into another general election campaign. The date of January 1980 was in his mind as a retirement date, however nothing had been made definite. It was during this time, due to a combination of a large parliamentary majority and the search for a new leader, when party discipline began to break down.

The economy

In the party's election manifesto in 1977 Fianna Fáil promised a whole range of new economic measures. These measures included the abolition of car tax, rates on houses and a number of other vote-winning "sweeteners." A new Department of Economic Planning and Development was set up to kick-start Ireland's flagging economy and to implement these new measures. The government abolished domestic rates on houses and unemployment fell from 106,000 to 90,000 between 1977 and 1979, however other actions that were taken were not so productive. In 1978 the Irish economy recorded the biggest deficit for an advanced country at 17.6% deficit. The national debt increased by £2 billion in the same period, protest marches by PAYE workers, an increase in electricity charges and the oil crisis of 1979 also caused problems for the government and its economic policy.

Party discipline

The year 1978 saw the first open revolt in party discipline. There was an open mutiny by many backbenchers when the Minister for Finance, George Colley, attempted to impose a 2% levy on farmers. Colley was forced into a humiliating climbdown at the behest of the backbenchers and the authority of the government was shaken. There was similar tension when a vote on the Family Planning Bill was proposed in the Dáil by the Minister for Health, Charles Haughey. The legislation proposed that only people with a prescription could be dispensed contraception and was described as "an Irish solution to an Irish problem". Jim Gibbons, who was a devout Catholic and had a deep hatred of Haughey failed to turn up and vote for this important legislation. It was the only time when a TD, let alone a cabinet minister, was allowed flout the party whip in Fianna Fáil and damaged Lynch's authority when he failed to expel the minister from the government and parliamentary party. As well as this, a group of backbench TDs began to lobby other TDs in support of Charles Haughey, should a leadership election arise. This group, known as the "gang of five," consisted of Jackie Fahey, Tom McEllistrim, Seán Doherty, Mark Killilea and Albert Reynolds.

Lynch's resignation

1979 proved to be the year in which Lynch finally realised that his grip on power had slipped. The first direct elections to the European Parliament took place in June saw the electorate severely punish the ruling Fianna Fáil party. A five-month postal strike also led to deep anger amongst people all over the country. On 27 August 1979 the Provisional IRA assassinated Earl Mountbatten of Burma in County Sligo. On the same day the IRA killed 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint in County Down. A radical security review and greater cross-border co-operation were discussed with the new British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. These discussions led Síle de Valera, a backbench TD, to directly challenge the leadership in a speech at the Liam Lynch commemoration at Fermoy on the 9th of September. Although Lynch quickly tried to impose party discipline, attempting to discipline her for opposing party policy at a parliamentary party meeting held at the 28th of September, de Valera correctly pointed out that she had not opposed the party policy regarding the North which called for the declaration of the British intent to withdraw from the north. The result was embarrassing for Lynch.

The visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in September proved to be a welcome break for Lynch from the day-to-day running of the country. In November, just before Lynch departed on a visit to the United States he decided that he would resign at the end of the year. This would allow him to complete his term as President of the European Community. The defining event which made up his mind was the news that Fianna Fáil had lost two by-elections in his native Cork (Cork City and Cork North East, both on 7 November). In addition during the trip Lynch claimed in an interview with the Washington Post that a five-kilometre air corridor between the border was agreed upon during the meeting with Thatcher to enhance security co-operation This was something highly unsavoury to many in Fianna Fáil. When Lynch returned he was confronted openly by Síle de Valera, Dr Bill Loughnane, a noted hardline Republican backbencher, along with Tom McEllistrim, a member of Haughey's gang of five, at a parliamentary party meeting. Lynch stated that the British did not have permission to overfly the border. Afterwards Loughnane went public with the details of the meeting and accused Lynch of deliberately misleading the party. An attempt to remove the whip from Loughnane failed. At this stage Lynch's position had become untenable, with supporters of Haughey caucusing opinion within the party. George Colley, the man who Lynch saw as his successor, went to him and encouraged him to resign sooner. Colley was convinced that he had enough support to defeat the other likely candidate, Charles Haughey, and that Lynch should resign early to catch his opponents on the hop. Lynch agreed to this and resigned as leader of Fianna Fáil on 5 December 1979, assured that Colley had the votes necessary to win. However, Haughey and his supporters had been preparing for months to take over the leadership and Lynch's resignation came as no surprise. He narrowly defeated Colley in the leadership contest and succeeded Lynch as Taoiseach.

Lynch remained on in Dáil Éireann as a TD until his retirement from politics at the 1981 general election.

Retirement

Following Lynch's retirement from politics the offers from various companies flooded in. He became a director on the boards of a number of companies, including Irish Distillers, Smurfit and Hibernian Insurance. He also embarked on a good deal of foreign travel. He was conferred with the freedom of his own native Cork city. He continued to speak on political issues, particularly in favour of Desmond O'Malley at the time of his expulsion from Fianna Fáil. Lynch also declined to accept nominations to become President of Ireland, a position he had little interest in. In 1992 he suffered a severe health set-back, and in 1993 suffered a stroke in which he nearly lost his sight. Following this he withdrew from public life, preferring to remain at his home with his wife Máirín where he continued to be dogged by ill-health.

He continued to be honoured by, among others, the Gaelic Athletic Association and various other organisations. In 1999 the Jack Lynch Tunnel under the river Lee was named by Cork Corporation in his honour. A plaque was also erected at his birthplace in Shandon. Lynch died in the Royal Hospital, Donnybrook, Dublin on 20 October 1999 at the age of 82. He was honoured with a state funeral which was attended by the President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, former Taoisigh John Bruton, Albert Reynolds and Charles Haughey, and various political persons from all parties. The coffin was then flown from Dublin to Cork where a procession through the streets of the city drew some of the biggest crowds in the city's history. Lynch's friend and political ally, Desmond O'Malley, delivered the graveside oration, paying tribute to Lynch's sense of decency. He is buried in St Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork city.

Jack Lynch has been described as "the most popular Irish politician since Daniel O'Connell." This praise did not come from Lynch's allies or even his own party, but from the former leader of Fine Gael, Liam Cosgrave. As a sportsman Lynch earned a reputation for a decency and fair play, characteristics he brought to political life. It was for this that the man known as "the Real Taoiseach" or "the Reluctant Taoiseach", with his ever-present pipe and the soft Cork lilt in his voice will be remembered.

Governments

The following governments were led by Jack Lynch:

12th Government of Ireland (November 1966–July 1969)

13th Government of Ireland (July 1969–March 1973)

15th Government of Ireland (July 1977–December 1979)

See also

List of people on stamps of Ireland

References

{{s-ttl|title = Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Cork Borough |years = 1948–1969}} {{s-ttl|title = Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Cork City North West |years = 1969–1977}} {{s-ttl|title = Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Cork City |years = 1977–1981}} {{s-ttl|title = Parliamentary Secretary to the Government |years = 1951–1954}} {{s-ttl|title = Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands |years = 1951–1954}} {{s-ttl|title = Minister for the Gaeltacht |years = 1957}} {{s-ttl|title = Minister for Education |years = 1957–1959}} {{s-ttl|title = Minister for Industry and Commerce |years = 1959–1965}} {{s-ttl|title = Minister for Finance |years = 1965–1966}} {{s-ttl|title = Taoiseach |years = 1966–1973}} {{s-ttl|title = Leader of the Opposition |years = 1973–1977}} {{s-ttl|title = Taoiseach |years = 1977–1979}} {{s-ttl|title = Leader of Fianna Fáil |years = 1966–1979}}

{{s-ttl|title = Cork Senior Hurling Captain |years = 1938–1940}} {{s-ttl|title = Cork Senior Football Captain |years = 1940}} {{s-ttl|title = Cork Senior Hurling Captain |years = 1942}} {{s-ttl|title = All-Ireland Senior Hurlingwinning captain |years = 1942}} {{s-ttl|title = Interprovincial Hurling Finalwinning captain |years = 1943}} {{s-ttl|title = GAA All-Time All-Star Award |years = 1981}}

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Coordinates	10°57′50″N74°47′47″N
Name	Samuel Johnson LLD MA
Birth date
Birth place	Lichfield, Staffordshire, Great Britain
Death place	London, Great Britain
Occupation	essayist, lexicographer, biographer, poet
Spouse	Elizabeth Jervis Porter
language	English
nationality	English
ethnicity	English }}

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''.

Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write miscellaneous pieces for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. His early works include the biography ''The Life of Richard Savage'', the poems "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes", and the play ''Irene''.

After nine years of work, Johnson's ''Dictionary of the English Language'' was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship." The ''Dictionary'' brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' 150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays, and the widely read tale ''Rasselas''. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in ''A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland''. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential ''Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets'', a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Johnson had a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics were confusing to some on their first encounter with him. Boswell's ''Life'', along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After a series of illnesses he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In the years following his death, Johnson began to be recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and even as the only great critic of English literature.

Biography

Early life and education

Born on 18 September 1709 (New Style) to Michael Johnson, a bookseller, and his wife, Sarah Ford, Samuel Johnson often claimed that he grew up in poverty. Since both families had money, it is uncertain what happened between Michael and Sarah's marriage and the birth of Samuel just three years later to provoke such a change in fortune. Johnson was born in the family home above his father's bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire and, because his mother Sarah was 40 when she gave birth, a "man-midwife" and surgeon of "great reputation" named George Hector was brought in to assist. He did not cry and, with doubts surrounding the newborn's health, his aunt claimed "that she would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street". As it was feared the baby might die, the vicar of St Mary's was summoned to perform a baptism. Two godfathers were chosen: Samuel Swynfen, a physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a lawyer, coroner, and Lichfield town clerk.

Johnson's health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew. He soon contracted scrofula, known at that time as the "King's Evil" because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former physician to Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should receive the "royal touch", which he received from Queen Anne on 30 March 1712. However, the ritual was ineffective, and an operation was performed that left him with permanent scars across his face and body. With the birth of Johnson's brother, Nathaniel, a few months later, Michael was unable to keep on top of the debts he had accumulated over the years, and his family was no longer able to live in the style to which it had been accustomed.

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

Johnson demonstrated signs of great intelligence as a child, and his parents, to his later disgust, would show off his "newly acquired accomplishments". His education began at the age of three, and came from his mother who had him memorise and recite passages from the Book of Common Prayer. When Johnson turned four, he was sent to a nearby school, and, when he reached the age of six, he was sent to a retired shoemaker to continue his education. A year later, Johnson was sent to Lichfield Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin. During this time, Johnson started to exhibit the tics that would influence how people viewed him in his later years, and which formed the basis for the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome. He excelled at his studies and was promoted to the upper school at the age of nine. During this time, he befriended Edmund Hector, nephew of his "man-midwife" George Hector, and John Taylor, with whom he remained in contact for the rest of his life.

At the age of 16, Johnson was given the opportunity to stay with his cousins, the Fords, at Pedmore, Worcestershire. There he became a close friend of Cornelius Ford, who employed his knowledge of the classics to tutor Johnson while he was not attending school. Ford was a successful, well-connected academic, but was also a notorious alcoholic whose excesses contributed to his death six years after Johnson's visit. Having spent six months with his cousins, Johnson returned to Lichfield, but Mr. Hunter, the headmaster, "angered by the impertinence of this long absence", refused to allow him to continue at the grammar school. Unable to return to Lichfield Grammar School, Johnson was enrolled into the King Edward VI grammar school at Stourbridge. Because the school was located near Pedmore, Johnson was able to spend more time with the Fords, and he began to write poems and verse translations. However, he spent only six months at Stourbridge before returning once again to his parents' home in Lichfield.

During this time, Johnson's future was uncertain as his father was deeply in debt. To earn money, Johnson began to stitch books for his father, and it is possible that Johnson spent most of his time in his father's bookshop reading various works and building his literary knowledge. They remained in poverty until Sarah Johnson's cousin, Elizabeth Harriotts, died in February 1728 and left enough money to send Johnson to college. On 31 October 1728, a few weeks after he turned 19, Johnson entered Pembroke College, Oxford. The inheritance did not cover all of his expenses at Pembroke, but Andrew Corbet, a friend and fellow student at Pembroke, offered to make up the deficit.

Johnson made friends at Pembroke and read much. In later life, he told stories of his idleness. He was later asked by his tutor to produce a Latin translation of Alexander Pope's ''Messiah'' as a Christmas exercise. Johnson completed half of the translation in one afternoon and the rest the following morning. Although the poem brought him praise, it did not bring the material benefit he had hoped for. The poem later appeared in ''Miscellany of Poems'' (1731), edited by John Husbands, a Pembroke tutor, and is the earliest surviving publication of any of Johnson's writings. Johnson spent the rest of his time studying, even over the Christmas vacation. He drafted a "plan of study" called "Adversaria", which was left unfinished, and used his time to learn French while working on his knowledge of Greek.

After thirteen months, a shortage of funds forced Johnson to leave Oxford without a degree, and he returned to Lichfield. Towards the end of Johnson's stay at Oxford his tutor, Jorden, left Pembroke and was replaced by William Adams. He enjoyed Adams as a tutor, but by December, Johnson was already a quarter behind in his student fees, and he was forced to return home. He left behind many books that he had borrowed from his father because he could not afford to transport them and as a symbolic gesture in that he hoped to return to his studies soon.

He eventually received a degree: just before the publication of his ''Dictionary'' in 1755, Oxford University awarded Johnson the degree of Master of Arts. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1765 by Trinity College Dublin and in 1775 by Oxford University. In 1776, he returned to Pembroke with Boswell and toured the college with his previous tutor Adams, who was then its Master. He used that visit to recount his time at the college, his early career, and to express his later fondness for Jorden.

Early career

Little is known about Johnson's life between the end of 1729 and 1731; it is likely that he lived with his parents. He experienced bouts of mental anguish and physical pain during years of illness; his tics and gesticulations associated with Tourette syndrome became more noticeable and were often commented upon. By 1731 Johnson's father was deeply in debt and had lost much of his standing in Lichfield. Johnson hoped to get an usher's position which became available at Stourbridge Grammar School, but as he did not have a degree his application was passed over on 6 September 1731. At about this time, Johnson's father became ill and developed an "inflammatory fever" which led to his death in December 1731. Johnson eventually found employment as undermaster at a school in Market Bosworth, run by Sir Wolstan Dixie, 4th Baronet who allowed Johnson to teach without a degree. Although Johnson was treated as a servant, he found pleasure in teaching despite thinking it boring. After an argument with Dixie he quit the school, and by June 1732 he had returned home.

Johnson continued to look for a position at a Lichfield school. After being turned down for a position in Ashbourne, he spent his time with his friend Edmund Hector, who was living in the home of the publisher Thomas Warren. At the time Warren was starting his ''Birmingham Journal'', and he enlisted Johnson's help. This connection with Warren grew, and Johnson proposed a translation of Jeronimo Lobo's account of the Abyssinians. Johnson read Abbé Joachim Le Grand's French translations, and thought that a shorter version might be "useful and profitable". Instead of writing the whole work himself, he dictated to Hector, who then took the copy to the printer and made any corrections. Johnson's ''A Voyage to Abyssinia'' was published a year later. He returned to Lichfield in February 1734, and began an annotated edition of Poliziano's Latin poems, along with a history of Latin poetry from Petrarch to Poliziano; a ''Proposal'' was soon printed, but a lack of funds halted the project.

Johnson remained with his close friend Harry Porter during a terminal illness, which culminated when Porter died on 3 September 1734, leaving his wife Elizabeth Jervis Porter (otherwise known as "Tetty") widowed at the age of 45, with three children. Some months later, Johnson began to court her. The Reverend William Shaw claims that "the first advances probably proceeded from her, as her attachment to Johnson was in opposition to the advice and desire of all her relations". Johnson was inexperienced in such relationships, but the well-to-do widow encouraged him and promised to provide for him with her substantial savings. They married on 9 July 1735, at St Werburgh's Church in Derby. The Porter family did not approve of the match, partly because Johnson was 25 and Elizabeth was 21 years his elder, and Elizabeth's marriage to Johnson so disgusted her son Jervis that he severed relations with her. However, her daughter Lucy had accepted Johnson from the start, and her other son, Joseph, accepted the marriage later.

In June 1735, while working as a tutor for Thomas Whitby's children, Johnson had applied for the position of headmaster at Solihull School. Although Walmesley gave his support, Johnson was passed over because the school's directors thought he was "a very haughty, ill-natured gent., and that he has such a way of distorting his face (which though he can't help) the gent[s] think it may affect some lads". With Walmesley's encouragement, Johnson decided that he could be a successful teacher if he ran his own school. In the autumn of 1735, Johnson opened Edial Hall School as a private academy at Edial, near Lichfield. He had only three pupils: Lawrence Offley, George Garrick, and the 18-year-old David Garrick, who later became one of the most famous actors of his day. The venture was unsuccessful and cost Tetty a substantial portion of her fortune. Instead of trying to keep the failing school going, Johnson began to write his first major work, the historical tragedy ''Irene''. Biographer Robert DeMaria believed that Tourette syndrome likely made public occupations like schoolmaster or tutor almost impossible for Johnson to hold; this may have led Johnson to "the invisible occupation of authorship".

Johnson left for London with his former pupil David Garrick on 2 March 1737, the day Johnson's brother had died. He was penniless and pessimistic about their travel, but fortunately for them, Garrick had connections in London, and the two were able to stay with his distant relative, Richard Norris. Johnson soon moved to Greenwich near the Golden Hart Tavern to finish ''Irene''. On 12 July 1737 he wrote to Edward Cave with a proposal for a translation of Paolo Sarpi's ''The History of the Council of Trent'' (1619), which Cave did not accept until months later. In October 1737 Johnson brought his wife to London, and he found employment with Cave as a writer for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. His assignments for the magazine and other publishers during this time were "almost unparalleled in range and variety", and "so numerous, so varied and scattered" that "Johnson himself could not make a complete list". The name ''Columbia'', a poetic name for America coined by Johnson, first appears in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in the Magazine.

In May 1738 his first major work, the poem ''London'', was published anonymously. Based on Juvenal's Satire III, it describes the character Thales leaving for Wales to escape the problems of London, which it portrays as a place of crime, corruption, and neglect of the poor. Johnson could not bring himself to regard the poem as earning him any merit as a poet. Alexander Pope claimed that the author "will soon be déterré" (brought to light, become well known), but this would not happen until 15 years later.

In August, Johnson's lack of an MA degree from Oxford or Cambridge led to his being denied a position as master of the Appleby Grammar School. In an effort to end such rejections, Pope asked Lord Gower to use his influence to have a degree awarded to Johnson. Gower petitioned Oxford for an honorary degree to be awarded to Johnson, but was told that it was "too much to be asked". Gower then asked a friend of Jonathan Swift to plead with Swift to use his influence at the University of Dublin to have a Masters degree awarded to Johnson, in the hope that this could then be used to justify an MA from Oxford, but Swift refused to act on Johnson's behalf.

Between 1737 and 1739, Johnson befriended Richard Savage. Feeling guilty about living on Tetty's money, Johnson stopped living with her and spent his time with Savage. They were poor and would stay in taverns or sleep in "night-cellars" except for nights that they would roam the streets because they lacked the necessary funds. Savage's friends tried to help him by attempting to persuade him to move to Wales, but Savage ended up in Bristol and again fell into debt. He was committed to debtors' prison and died in 1743. A year later, Johnson wrote ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'' (1744), a "moving" work which, in the words of the biographer and critic Walter Jackson Bate, "remains one of the innovative works in the history of biography".

''A Dictionary of the English Language''

In 1746, a group of publishers approached Johnson about creating an authoritative dictionary of the English language; a contract with William Strahan and associates, worth 1,500 guineas, was signed on the morning of 18 June 1746. Johnson claimed that he could finish the project in three years. In comparison, the Académie Française had forty scholars spending forty years to complete its dictionary, which prompted Johnson to claim, "This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman". Although he did not succeed in completing the work in three years, he did manage to finish it in nine, justifying his boast. According to Bate, the ''Dictionary'' "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time". However, others, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay who described Johnson as "a wretched etymologist," have criticised Johnson's dictionary.

Johnson's dictionary was not the first, nor was it unique. It was, however, the most commonly used and imitated for the 150 years between its first publication and the completion of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 1928. Other dictionaries, such as Nathan Bailey's ''Dictionarium Britannicum'', included more words, and in the 150 years preceding Johnson's dictionary about twenty other general-purpose monolingual "English" dictionaries had been produced. However, there was open dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period. In 1741, David Hume claimed: "The Elegance and Propriety of Stile have been very much neglected among us. We have no Dictionary of our Language, and scarce a tolerable Grammar". Johnson's ''Dictionary'' offers insights into the 18th century and "a faithful record of the language people used". It is more than a reference book; it is a work of literature.

For a decade, Johnson's constant work on the ''Dictionary'' disrupted his and Tetty's living conditions. He had to employ a number of assistants for the copying and mechanical work, which filled the house with incessant noise and clutter. He was always busy with his work, and kept hundreds of books around. John Hawkins described the scene: "The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning". Johnson was also distracted by Tetty's health, as she started to show signs of a terminal illness. To accommodate both his wife and his work, he moved to 17 Gough Square near his printer, William Strahan.

In preparation for the work, Johnson wrote a ''Plan'' for the ''Dictionary''. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was the patron of the ''Plan'', to Johnson's displeasure. Seven years after first meeting Johnson to go over the work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in ''The World'' recommending the ''Dictionary''. He complained that the English language lacked structure and argued in support of the dictionary. Johnson did not like the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield had not fulfilled his obligations as the work's patron. Johnson wrote a letter expressing this view and harshly criticising Chesterfield, saying "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it." Chesterfield, impressed by the language, kept the letter displayed on a table for anyone to read.

The ''Dictionary'' was finally published in April 1755, with the title page acknowledging that Oxford had awarded Johnson a Master of Arts degree in anticipation of the work. The published dictionary was a huge book. Its pages were nearly tall, and the book was wide when opened; it contained 42,773 entries, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions, and sold for the extravagant price of £4 10s, perhaps the rough equivalent of £350 today. An important innovation in English lexicography was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. It was years before "Johnson's Dictionary", as it came to be known, turned a profit. Author's royalties were unknown at that time, and Johnson, once his contract to deliver the book was fulfilled, received no further money from its sale. Years later, many of its quotations would be repeated by various editions of the ''Webster's Dictionary'' and the ''New English Dictionary''.

Besides working on the ''Dictionary'', Johnson also wrote various essays, sermons, and poems during these nine years. He decided to produce a series of essays under the title ''The Rambler'' that would run every Tuesday and Saturday for twopence each. Explaining the title years later, he told his friend, the painter Joshua Reynolds: "I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. ''The Rambler'' seemed the best that occurred, and I took it". These essays, often on moral topics, tended to be more grave than the title of the series would suggest; his first comments in ''The Rambler'' were to ask "that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others". The popularity of ''The Rambler'' took off once the issues were collected as a volume; they were reprinted nine times during Johnson's life. Writer and printer Samuel Richardson, enjoying the essays greatly, questioned the publisher as to who wrote the works; only he and a few of Johnson's friends were told of Johnson's authorship. One friend, the novelist Charlotte Lennox, includes a defence of ''The Rambler'' in her novel ''The Female Quixote'' (1752). In particular, the character Mr. Glanville says, "you may sit in Judgment upon the Productions of a ''Young'', a ''Richardson'', or a ''Johnson''. Rail with premeditated Malice at the ''Rambler''; and for the want of Faults, turn even its inimitable Beauties into Ridicule" (Book VI, Chapter XI). Later, she claims Johnson as "the greatest Genius in the present Age".

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

However, not all of his work was confined to ''The Rambler''. His most highly regarded poem, ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'', was written with such "extraordinary speed" that Boswell claimed Johnson "might have been perpetually a poet". The poem is an imitation of Juvenal's ''Satire X'' and claims that "the antidote to vain human wishes is non-vain spiritual wishes". In particular, Johnson emphasises "the helpless vulnerability of the individual before the social context" and the "inevitable self-deception by which human beings are led astray". The poem was critically celebrated but it failed to become popular, and sold less than ''London''. In 1749, Garrick made good on his promise that he would produce ''Irene'', but its title was altered to ''Mahomet and Irene'' to make it "fit for the stage". The show eventually ran for nine nights.

Tetty Johnson spent most of her time in London ill, and in 1752 she decided to return to the countryside while Johnson was busy working on his ''Dictionary''. She died on 17 March 1752, and, at word of her death, Johnson wrote a letter to his old friend Taylor, which according to Taylor "expressed grief in the strongest manner he had ever read". He wrote a sermon in her honour, to be read at her funeral, but Taylor refused to read it, for reasons which are unknown. This only exacerbated Johnson's feelings of being lost, and his despair after the death of his wife, and John Hawkesworth had to take over organising the funeral. Johnson felt guilty about the poverty in which he believed he had forced Tetty to live, and blamed himself for neglecting her. He became outwardly discontent, and his diary was filled with prayers and laments over her death until his own. She was his primary motivation, and her death hindered his ability to complete his work.

Later career

On 16 March 1756, Johnson was arrested for an outstanding debt of £5 18s. Unable to contact anyone else, he wrote to the writer and publisher Samuel Richardson. Richardson, who had previously lent Johnson money, sent him six guineas to show his good will, and the two became friends. Soon after, Johnson met and befriended the painter Joshua Reynolds, who so impressed Johnson that he declared him "almost the only man whom I call a friend". Reynolds' younger sister Frances observed during their time together "that men, women and children gathered around him [Johnson]", laughing at his gestures and gesticulations. In addition to Reynolds, Johnson was close to Bennet Langton and Arthur Murphy. Langton was a scholar and an admirer of Johnson who persuaded his way into a meeting with Johnson which led to a long friendship. Johnson met Murphy during the summer of 1754 after Murphy came to Johnson about the accidental republishing of the ''Rambler'' No. 190, and the two became friends. Around this time, Anna Williams began boarding with Johnson. She was a minor poet who was poor and becoming blind, two conditions that Johnson attempted to change by providing room for her and paying for a failed cataract surgery. Williams, in turn, became Johnson's housekeeper. To occupy himself, Johnson began to work on ''The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review'', the first issue of which was printed on 19 March 1756. Philosophical disagreements erupted over the purpose of the publication when the Seven Years' War began and Johnson started to write polemical essays attacking the war. After the war began, the ''Magazine'' included many reviews, at least 34 of which were written by Johnson. When not working on the ''Magazine'', Johnson wrote a series of prefaces for other writers, such as Giuseppe Baretti, William Payne and Charlotte Lennox. Johnson's relationship with Lennox and her works was particularly close during these years, and she in turn relied so heavily upon Johnson that he was "the most important single fact in Mrs Lennox's literary life". He later attempted to produce a new edition of her works, but even with his support they were unable to find enough interest to follow through with its publication. To help with domestic duties while Johnson was busy with his various projects, Richard Bathurst, a physician and a member of Johnson's Club, pressured him to take on a free slave, Francis Barber, as his servant.

These efforts, however, consumed only a small portion of his time; his work on ''Edition of Shakespeare'' took up the rest. On 8 June 1756, Johnson published his ''Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Dramatick Works of William Shakespeare'', which argued that previous editions of Shakespeare were edited incorrectly and needed to be corrected. However, Johnson's progress on the work slowed as the months passed, and he told music historian Charles Burney in December 1757 that it would take him until the following March to complete it. Before that could happen, he was arrested again, for a debt of £40, in February 1758. The debt was soon repaid by Jacob Tonson, who had contracted Johnson to publish ''Shakespeare'', and this encouraged Johnson to finish his edition to repay the favour. Although it took him another seven years to finish, Johnson completed a few volumes of his ''Shakespeare'' to prove his commitment to the project.

In 1758, Johnson began to write a weekly series, ''The Idler'', which ran from 15 April 1758 to 5 April 1760, as a way to avoid finishing his ''Shakespeare''. This series was shorter and lacked many features of ''The Rambler''. Unlike his independent publication of ''The Rambler'', ''The Idler'' was published in a weekly news journal ''The Universal Chronicle'', a publication supported by John Payne, John Newbery, Robert Stevens and William Faden. Since ''The Idler'' did not occupy all Johnson's time, he was able to publish his philosophical novella ''Rasselas'' on 19 April 1759. The "little story book", as Johnson described it, describes the life of Prince Rasselas and Nekayah, his sister, who are kept in a place called the Happy Valley in the land of Abyssinia. The Valley is a place free of problems, where any desire is quickly satisfied. The constant pleasure does not, however, lead to satisfaction; and, with the help of a philosopher named Imlac, Rasselas escapes and explores the world to witness how all aspects of society and life in the outside world are filled with suffering. They return to Abyssinia, but do not wish to return to the state of constantly fulfilled pleasures found in the Happy Valley. ''Rasselas'' was written in one week to pay for his mother's funeral and settle her debts; it became so popular that there was a new English edition of the work almost every year. References to it appear in many later works of fiction, including ''Jane Eyre'', ''Cranford'' and ''The House of the Seven Gables''. Its fame was not limited to English-speaking nations: ''Rasselas'' was immediately translated into five languages (French, Dutch, German, Russian and Italian), and later into nine others.

By 1762, however, Johnson had gained notoriety for his dilatoriness in writing; the contemporary poet Churchill teased Johnson for the delay in producing his long-promised edition of Shakespeare: "He for subscribers baits his hook / and takes your cash, but where's the book?" The comments soon motivated Johnson to finish his ''Shakespeare'', and, after receiving the first payment from a government pension on 20 July 1762, he was able to dedicate most of his time towards this goal. Earlier that July, the 24-year-old King George III granted Johnson an annual pension of £300 in appreciation for the ''Dictionary''. While the pension did not make Johnson wealthy, it did allow him a modest yet comfortable independence for the remaining 22 years of his life. The award came largely through the efforts of Sheridan and the Earl of Bute. When Johnson questioned if the pension would force him to promote a political agenda or support various officials, he was told by Bute that the pension "is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done".

On 16 May 1763, Johnson first met 22-year-old James Boswell—who would later become Johnson's first major biographer—in the bookshop of Johnson's friend, Tom Davies. They quickly became friends, although Boswell would return to his home in Scotland or travel abroad for months at a time. Around the spring of 1763, Johnson formed "The Club", a social group that included his friends Reynolds, Burke, Garrick, Goldsmith and others (the membership later expanded to include Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon). They decided to meet every Monday at 7:00 pm at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, and these meetings continued until long after the deaths of the original members.

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

On 9 January 1765, Murphy introduced Johnson to Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer and MP, and his wife Hester. They struck up an instant friendship; Johnson was treated as a member of the family, and was once more motivated to continue working on his ''Shakespeare''. Afterwards, Johnson stayed with the Thrales for 17 years until Henry's death in 1781, sometimes staying in rooms at Thrale's Anchor Brewery in Southwark. Hester Thrale's documentation of Johnson's life during this time, in her correspondence and her diary (''Thraliana''), became an important source of biographical information on Johnson after his death.

Johnson's edition of ''Shakespeare'' was finally published on 10 October 1765 as ''The Plays of William Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes ... To which are added Notes by Sam. Johnson'' in a printing of one thousand copies. The first edition quickly sold out, and a second was soon printed. The plays themselves were in a version that Johnson felt most true to the original based on his analysis of the manuscript editions. Johnson's revolutionary innovation was to create a set of corresponding notes that allow readers to identify the meaning behind many of Shakespeare's more complicated passages or ones that may have been transcribed incorrectly over time. Included within the notes are occasional attacks upon rival editors of Shakespeare's works and their editions. Years later, Edmond Malone, an important Shakespearean scholar and friend of Johnson's, stated that Johnson's "vigorous and comprehensive understanding threw more light on his authour than all his predecessors had done".

In February 1767 Johnson was granted a special meeting with King George III. This took place at the library of the Queen's house, and it was organised by Barnard, the King's librarian. The King, hearing that Johnson would visit the library, commanded Barnard to introduce him to Johnson. After a short meeting, Johnson was impressed with both the King himself and their conversation.

Final works

On 6 August 1773, eleven years after first meeting Boswell, Johnson set out to visit his friend in Scotland, to begin "a journey to the western islands of Scotland", as Johnson's 1775 account of their travels would put it. The work was intended to discuss the social problems and struggles that affected the Scottish people, but it also praised many of the unique facets of Scottish society, such as a school in Edinburgh for the deaf and mute. Also, Johnson used the work to enter into the dispute over the authenticity of James Macpherson's Ossian poems, claiming they could not have been translations of ancient Scottish literature on the grounds that "in those times nothing had been written in the Earse [i.e. Gaelic] language". There were heated exchanges between the two, and according to one of Johnson's letters, MacPherson threatened physical violence. Boswell's account, ''The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides'' (1786), was a preliminary attempt at a biography before his ''Life of Johnson''. Included were various quotes and descriptions of events, including anecdotes such as Johnson swinging around a broadsword while wearing Scottish garb, or dancing a Highland jig.

In the 1770s, Johnson, who had tended to be an opponent of the government early in life, published a series of pamphlets in favour of various government policies. In 1770 he produced ''The False Alarm'', a political pamphlet attacking John Wilkes. In 1771, his ''Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands'' cautioned against war with Spain. In 1774 he printed ''The Patriot'', a critique of what he viewed as false patriotism. On the evening of 7 April 1775, he made the famous statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." This line was not, as widely believed, about patriotism in general, but the false use of the term "patriotism" by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (the patriot-minister) and his supporters; Johnson opposed "self-professed Patriots" in general, but valued what he considered "true" patriotism.

The last of these pamphlets, ''Taxation No Tyranny'' (1775), was a defence of the Coercive Acts and a response to the Declaration of Rights of the First Continental Congress of America, which protested against taxation without representation. Johnson argued that in emigrating to America, colonists had "voluntarily resigned the power of voting", but they still had "virtual representation" in Parliament. In a parody of the Declaration of Rights, Johnson suggested that the Americans had no more right to govern themselves than the Cornish people. If the Americans wanted to participate in Parliament, said Johnson, they could move to England and purchase an estate. Johnson denounced English supporters of American separatists as "traitors to this country", and hoped that the matter would be settled without bloodshed, but that it would end with "English superiority and American obedience". Years before, Johnson had advocated that the English and the French were just "two robbers" who were stealing land from the natives, and that neither deserved to live there. After the signing of the 1783 Peace of Paris treaties, marking the colonists' defeat of the British, Johnson was "deeply disturbed" with the "state of this kingdom".

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

On 3 May 1777, while Johnson was trying to save Reverend William Dodd from execution, he wrote to Boswell that he was busy preparing a "little Lives" and "little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets". Tom Davies, William Strahan and Thomas Cadell had asked Johnson to create this final major work, the ''Lives of the English Poets'', for which he asked 200 guineas, an amount significantly less than the price he could have demanded. The ''Lives'', which were critical as well as biographical studies, appeared as prefaces to selections of each poet's work, and they were quite larger than originally expected. The work was finished in March 1781 and the whole collection was published in six volumes. As Johnson justified in the advertisement for the work, "my purpose was only to have allotted to every Poet an Advertisement, like those which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates and a general character."

Johnson was unable to enjoy this success because Henry Thrale, the dear friend with whom he lived, died on 4 April 1781. Life changed quickly for Johnson, and Hester Thrale became interested in the Italian singing teacher Gabriel Mario Piozzi, which forced Johnson to move on from his previous lifestyle. After returning home and then travelling for a short period, Johnson received word that his friend and tenant Robert Levet, had died on 17 January 1782. Johnson was shocked by the death of Levet, who had resided at Johnson's London home since 1762. Shortly afterwards Johnson caught a cold which turned into bronchitis, lasting for several months, and his health was further complicated by "feeling forlorn and lonely" by Levet's death being accompanied by the deaths of Johnson's friend Thomas Lawrence and his housekeeper Williams.

Final years

Although he had recovered his health by August, he experienced emotional trauma when he was given word that Hester Thrale would sell the residence that Johnson shared with the family. What hurt Johnson the most was the possibility that he would be left without her constant company. Months later, on 6 October 1782, Johnson attended church for the final time in his life, to say goodbye to his former residence and life. The walk to the church strained him, but he managed the journey unaccompanied. While there, he wrote a prayer for the Thrale family:

}}

Hester Thrale did not completely abandon Johnson, and asked him to accompany the family on a trip to Brighton. He agreed, and was with them from 7 October until 20 November 1782. On his return, his health began to fail him, and he was left alone following Boswell's visit on 29 May 1783 until he travelled to Scotland.

On 17 June 1783, Johnson's poor circulation resulted in a stroke and he wrote to his neighbour, Edmund Allen, that he had lost the ability to speak. Two doctors were brought in to aid Johnson; he regained his ability to speak two days later. Johnson feared that he was dying, and wrote:

}} By this time he was sick and gout-ridden. He had surgery for gout, and his remaining friends, including novelist Fanny Burney (the daughter of Charles Burney), came to keep him company. He was confined to his room from 14 December 1783 to 21 April 1784.

His health had begun to improve by May 1784, and he travelled to Oxford with Boswell on 5 May 1784. By July, many of Johnson's friends were either dead or gone; Boswell had left for Scotland and Hester Thrale had become engaged to Piozzi. With nobody to visit, Johnson expressed a desire to die in London and arrived there on 16 November 1784. On 25 November 1784, he allowed Burney to visit him and expressed an interest to her that he should leave London; he soon left for Islington, to George Strahan's home. His final moments were filled with mental anguish and delusions; when his physician, Thomas Warren, visited and asked him if he were feeling better, Johnson burst out with: "No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I advance towards death."

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

Many visitors came to see Johnson as he lay sick in bed, but he preferred only Langton's company. Burney waited for word of Johnson's condition, along with Windham, Strahan, Hoole, Cruikshank, Des Moulins and Barber. On 13 December 1784, Johnson met with two others: a young woman, Miss Morris, whom Johnson blessed, and Francesco Sastres, an Italian teacher, who was given some of Johnson's final words: "''Iam Moriturus''" ("I who am about to die"). Shortly afterwards he fell into a coma, and died at 7:00 pm.

Langton waited until 11:00 pm to tell the others, which led to John Hawkins' becoming pale and overcome with "an agony of mind", along with Seward and Hoole describing Johnson's death as "the most awful sight". Boswell remarked, "My feeling was just one large expanse of Stupor ... I could not believe it. My imagination was not convinced." William Gerard Hamilton joined in and stated, "He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which ''nothing has a tendency to fill up''. -Johnson is dead.- Let us go to the next best: There is nobody; -''no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson''."

He was buried on 20 December 1784 at Westminster Abbey with an inscription that reads: :Samuel Johnson, LL.D. :''Obiit XIII die Decembris,'' :''Anno Domini'' :M.DCC.LXXXIV. :''Ætatis suœ'' LXXV.

Critical theory

Johnson's works, especially his ''Lives of the Poets'' series, describe various features of excellent writing. He believed that the best poetry relied on contemporary language, and he disliked the use of decorative or purposefully archaic language. In particular, he was suspicious of the poetic language used by Milton, whose blank verse he believed would inspire many bad imitations. Also, Johnson opposed the poetic language of his contemporary Thomas Gray. His greatest complaint was that obscure allusions found in works like Milton's ''Lycidas'' were overused; he preferred poetry that could be easily read and understood. In addition to his views on language, Johnson believed that a good poem incorporated new and unique imagery.

In his smaller poetic works, Johnson relied on short lines and filled his work with a feeling of empathy, which possibly influenced Housman's poetic style. In ''London'', his first imitation of Juvenal, Johnson uses the poetic form to express his political opinion and, as befits a young writer, approaches the topic in a playful and almost joyous manner. However, his second imitation, ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'', is completely different; the language remains simple, but the poem is more complicated and difficult to read because Johnson is trying to describe complex Christian ethics. These Christian values are not unique to the poem, but contain views expressed in most of Johnson's works. In particular, Johnson emphasises God's infinite love and shows that happiness can be attained through virtuous action.

When it came to biography, Johnson disagreed with Plutarch's use of biography to praise and to teach morality. Instead, Johnson believed in portraying the biographical subjects accurately and including any negative aspects of their lives. Because his insistence on accuracy in biography was little short of revolutionary, Johnson had to struggle against a society that was unwilling to accept biographical details that could be viewed as tarnishing a reputation; this became the subject of ''Rambler'' 60. Furthermore, Johnson believed that biography should not be limited to the most famous and that the lives of lesser individuals, too, were significant; thus in his ''Lives of the Poets'' he chose both great and lesser poets. In all his biographies he insisted on including what others would have considered trivial details to fully describe the lives of his subjects. Johnson considered the genre of autobiography and diaries, including his own, as one having the most significance; in ''Idler'' 84 he explains how a writer of an autobiography would be the least likely to distort his own life.

Johnson's thoughts on biography and on poetry coalesced in his understanding of what would make a good critic. His works were dominated with his intent to use them for literary criticism. This was especially true of his ''Dictionary'' of which he wrote: "I lately published a Dictionary like those compiled by the academies of Italy and France, ''for the use of such as aspire to exactness of criticism, or elegance of style''". Although a smaller edition of his ''Dictionary'' became the standard household dictionary, Johnson's original ''Dictionary'' was an academic tool that examined how words were used, especially in literary works. To achieve this purpose, Johnson included quotations from Bacon, Hooker, Milton, Shakespeare, Spenser, and many others from what he considered to be the most important literary fields: natural science, philosophy, poetry, and theology. These quotations and usages were all compared and carefully studied in the ''Dictionary'' so that a reader could understand what words in literary works meant in context.

Not being a theorist, Johnson did not attempt to create schools of theories to analyse the aesthetics of literature. Instead, he used his criticism for the practical purpose of helping others to better read and understand literature. When it came to Shakespeare's plays, Johnson emphasised the role of the reader in understanding language: "If Shakespeare has difficulties above other writers, it is to be imputed to the nature of his work, which required the use of common colloquial language, and consequently admitted many phrases allusive, elliptical, and proverbial, such as we speak and hear every hour without observing them".

His works on Shakespeare were devoted not merely to Shakespeare, but to understanding literature as a whole; in his ''Preface'' to Shakespeare, Johnson rejects the previous dogma of the classical unities and argues that drama should be faithful to life. However, Johnson did not only defend Shakespeare; he discussed Shakespeare's faults, including his lack of morality, his vulgarity, his carelessness in crafting plots, and his occasional inattentiveness when choosing words or word order. As well as direct literary criticism, Johnson emphasised the need to establish a text that accurately reflects what an author wrote. Shakespeare's plays, in particular, had multiple editions, each of which contained errors caused by the printing process. This problem was compounded by careless editors who deemed difficult words incorrect, and changed them in later editions. Johnson believed that an editor should not alter the text in such a way.

Character sketch

|source=Boswell's ''Life of Samuel Johnson''}}

Johnson's tall and robust figure combined with his odd gestures were confusing to some; when William Hogarth first saw Johnson standing near a window in Samuel Richardson's house, "shaking his head and rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner", Hogarth thought Johnson an "ideot, whom his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson". Hogarth was quite surprised when "this figure stalked forwards to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting and all at once took up the argument ... [with] such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that this ideot had been at the moment inspired". Not everyone was misled by Johnson's appearance; Adam Smith claimed that "Johnson knew more books than any man alive", while Edmund Burke thought that if Johnson were to join Parliament, he "certainly would have been the greatest speaker that ever was there". Johnson relied on a unique form of rhetoric, and he is well known for his "refutation" of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialism, his claim that matter did not actually exist but only seemed to exist: during a conversation with Boswell, Johnson powerfully stomped a nearby stone and proclaimed of Berkeley's theory, "I refute it ''thus''!"

Johnson was a devout, conservative Anglican and a compassionate man who supported a number of poor friends under his own roof, even when unable to fully provide for himself. Johnson's Christian morality permeated his works, and he would write on moral topics with such authority and in such a trusting manner that, Walter Jackson Bate claims, "no other moralist in history excels or even begins to rival him". However, Johnson's moral writings do not contain, as Donald Greene points out, "a predetermined and authorized pattern of 'good behavior, even though Johnson does emphasise certain kinds of conduct. He did not let his own faith prejudice him against others, and had respect for those of other denominations who demonstrated a commitment to Christ's teachings. Although Johnson respected John Milton's poetry, he could not tolerate Milton's Puritan and Republican beliefs, feeling that they were contrary to England and Christianity. He was an opponent of slavery on moral grounds, and once proposed a toast to the "next rebellion of the negroes in the West Indies". Beside his beliefs concerning humanity, Johnson is also known for his love of cats, especially his own two cats, Hodge and Lily. Boswell wrote, "I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat."

Although Johnson was also known as a staunch Tory, he admitted to sympathies for the Jacobite cause during his younger years but, by the reign of George III, he came to accept the Hanoverian Succession. It was Boswell who gave people the impression that Johnson was an "arch-conservative", and it was Boswell, more than anyone else, who determined how Johnson would be seen by people years later. However, Boswell was not around for two of Johnson's most politically active periods: during Walpole's control over British Parliament and during the Seven Years' War. Although Boswell was present with Johnson during the 1770s and describes four major pamphlets written by Johnson, he neglects to discuss them because he is more interested in their travels to Scotland. This is compounded by the fact that Boswell held an opinion contradictory to two of these pamphlets, ''The False Alarm'' and ''Taxation No Tyranny'', and so attacks Johnson's views in his biography.

In his ''Life of Samuel Johnson'' Boswell referred to Johnson as ‘Dr. Johnson’ so often that he would always be known as such, albeit he hated being called so. Boswell's emphasis on Johnson's later years shows him too often as merely an old man discoursing in a tavern to a circle of admirers, though this depiction is appealing. Although Boswell, a Scotsman, was a close companion and friend to Johnson during many important times of his life, like many of his fellow Englishmen Johnson had a reputation for despising Scotland and its people. Even during their journey together through Scotland, Johnson "exhibited prejudice and a narrow nationalism". Hester Thrale, in summarising Johnson's nationalistic views and his anti-Scottish prejudice, said: "We all know how well he loved to abuse the Scotch, & indeed to be abused by them in return."

Health

Johnson had several health problems, including childhood tuberculous scrofula, gout, testicular cancer, and a stroke in his final year that left him unable to speak; his autopsy indicated that he had pulmonary fibrosis along with cardiac failure probably due to hypertension, a condition then unknown. Although Johnson overall was probably as healthy as others of his generation, he displayed signs consistent with several diagnoses, including depression and Tourette syndrome (TS).

There are many accounts of Johnson suffering from bouts of depression and what Johnson thought might be madness. As Walter Jackson Bate puts it, "one of the ironies of literary history is that its most compelling and authoritative symbol of common sense—of the strong, imaginative grasp of concrete reality—should have begun his adult life, at the age of twenty, in a state of such intense anxiety and bewildered despair that, at least from his own point of view, it seemed the onset of actual insanity". To overcome these feelings, Johnson tried to constantly involve himself with various activities, but this did not seem to help. Taylor said that Johnson "at one time strongly entertained thoughts of Suicide". Boswell claimed that Johnson "felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible melancholia, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery".

Early on, when Johnson was unable to pay off his debts, he began to work with professional writers and identified his own situation with theirs. During this time, Johnson witnessed Christopher Smart's decline into "penury and the madhouse", and feared that he might share the same fate. Hester Thrale Piozzi claimed, in a discussion on Smart's mental state, that Johnson was her "friend who feared an apple should intoxicate him". To Hester Thrale, what separated Johnson from others who were placed in asylums for madness—like Christopher Smart—was his ability to keep his concerns and emotions to himself.

Two hundred years after Johnson's death, the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome became widely accepted. The condition was unknown during Johnson's lifetime, but Boswell describes Johnson displaying signs of TS including tics and other involuntary movements. According to Boswell "he commonly held his head to one side ... moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand ... [H]e made various sounds" like "a half whistle" or "as if clucking like a hen", and "... all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a Whale." There are many similar accounts; in particular, Johnson was said to "perform his gesticulations" at the threshold of a house or in doorways. When asked by a little girl why he made such noises and acted in that way, Johnson responded: "From bad habit." The diagnosis of the syndrome was first made in a 1967 report, and TS researcher Arthur K. Shapiro described Johnson as "the most notable example of a successful adaptation to life despite the liability of Tourette syndrome". Details provided by the writings of Boswell, Hester Thrale, and others reinforce the diagnosis, with one paper concluding:

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From early childhood, Johnson suffered from poor eyesight, especially in his left eye, which interfered with his education. There were somewhat contradictory reports about his eyesight from his contemporaries. He appeared to have been near-sighted, yet he did not use eyeglasses. His eyesight became worse with age; still, his handwriting remained quite legible.

Legacy

Johnson was, in the words of Steven Lynn, "more than a well-known writer and scholar"; he was a celebrity. His activities and the state of his health in his later years were constantly reported in various journals and newspapers, and when there was nothing to report, something was invented. According to Bate, "Johnson loved biography," and he "changed the whole course of biography for the modern world. One by-product was the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature, Boswell's ''Life of Johnson'', and there were many other memoirs and biographies of a similar kind written on Johnson after his death." These accounts of his life include Thomas Tyers's ''A Biographical Sketch of Dr Samuel Johnson'' (1784); Boswell's ''The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides'' (1785); Hester Thrale's ''Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson'', which drew on entries from her diary and other notes; John Hawkins's ''Life of Samuel Johnson (1787)'', the first full-length biography of Johnson; and, in 1792, Arthur Murphy's ''An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson'', which replaced Hawkins's biography as the introduction to a collection of Johnson's ''Works''. Another important source was Fanny Burney, who described Johnson as "the acknowledged Head of Literature in this kingdom" and kept a diary containing details missing from other biographies. Above all, Boswell's portrayal of Johnson is the work best known to general readers. Although critics like Donald Greene argue about its status as a true biography, the work became successful as Boswell and his friends promoted it at the expense of the many other works on Johnson's life.

In criticism, Johnson had a lasting influence, although not everyone viewed him favourably. Some, like Macaulay, regarded Johnson as an idiot savant who produced some respectable works, and others, like the Romantic poets, were completely opposed to Johnson's views on poetry and literature, especially in regards to Milton. However, some of their contemporaries disagreed: Stendhal's ''Racine et Shakespeare'' is based in part on Johnson's views of Shakespeare, and Johnson influenced Jane Austen's writing style and philosophy. Later, Johnson's works came into favour, and Matthew Arnold, in his ''Six Chief Lives from Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"'', considered the ''Lives'' of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Addison, Swift, and Gray as "points which stand as so many natural centres, and by returning to which we can always find our way again." One of Samuel Johnson's famous quotes, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." was used at the beginning of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and in the movie adaptation.

More than a century after his death, literary critics such as G. Birkbeck Hill and T. S. Eliot came to regard Johnson as a serious critic. They began to study Johnson's works with an increasing focus on the critical analysis found in his edition of Shakespeare and ''Lives of the Poets''. Yvor Winters claimed that "A great critic is the rarest of all literary geniuses; perhaps the only critic in English who deserves that epithet is Samuel Johnson". F. R. Leavis agreed and, on Johnson's criticism, said, "When we read him we know, beyond question, that we have here a powerful and distinguished mind operating at first hand upon literature. This, we can say with emphatic conviction, really ''is'' criticism". Edmund Wilson claimed that "The ''Lives of the Poets'' and the prefaces and commentary on Shakespeare are among the most brilliant and the most acute documents in the whole range of English criticism". The critic Harold Bloom placed Johnson's work firmly within the Western Canon describing him as "unmatched by any critic in any nation before or after him...Bate in the finest insight on Johnson I know, emphasised that no other writer is so obsessed by the realisation that the mind is an ''activity'', one that will turn to destructiveness of the self or of others unless it is directed to labour." It is no wonder that his philosophical insistence that the language within literature must be examined became a prevailing mode of literary theory during the mid-20th century.

There are many societies formed around and dedicated to the study and enjoyment of Samuel Johnson's life and works. On the bicentennial of Johnson's death in 1984, Oxford University held a week-long conference featuring 50 papers, and the Arts Council of Great Britain held an exhibit of "Johnsonian portraits and other memorabilia". The London ''Times'' and ''Punch'' produced parodies of Johnson's style for the occasion. In 1999, the BBC Four television channel started the Samuel Johnson Prize, an award for non-fiction.

Half of Johnson's surviving correspondence, together with some of his manuscripts, editions of his books, paintings and other items associated with him are in the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson, housed at Houghton Library at Harvard University since 2003. Materials in the collection may be accessed through the Houghton Reading Room. The collection includes drafts of his "Plan for a Dictionary", documents associated with Hester Thrale Piozzi and James Boswell (including corrected proofs of his ''Life of Johnson'') and a teapot owned by Johnson.

Major works

{| | ||Essays, pamphlets, periodicals, sermons |- | |- | 1732–33||''Birmingham Journal'' |- | 1747||''Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language'' |- | 1750–52||''The Rambler'' |- | 1753–54||''The Adventurer'' |- | 1756||''Universal Visiter'' |- | 1756-||''The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review'' |- | 1758–60||''The Idler (1758–1760)'' |- | 1770||''The False Alarm'' |- | 1771||''Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands'' |- | 1774||''The Patriot'' |- |rowspan=2 valign=top| 1775||''A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland'' |- ||''Taxation No Tyranny'' |- | 1781||''The Beauties of Johnson'' |- | |- | ||Poetry |- | |- | 1728||''Messiah'', a translation into Latin of Alexander Pope's ''Messiah'' |- | 1738||''London'' |- | 1747||''Prologue at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane'' |- |rowspan=2 valign=top| 1749||''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' |- ||''Irene, a Tragedy'' |- | |- | ||Biographies, criticism |- | 1744||''Life of Mr Richard Savage'' |- | 1745||''Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth'' |- |rowspan=2 valign=top| 1756||"Life of Browne" in Thomas Browne's ''Christian Morals'' |- ||''Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Dramatick Works of William Shakespeare'' |- |rowspan=2 valign=top| 1765||''Preface to the Plays of William Shakespeare'' |- ||''The Plays of William Shakespeare'' |- | 1779–81||''Lives of the Poets'' |- | |- | ||Dictionary |- | |- |rowspan=2 valign=top| 1755||''Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language'' |- ||''A Dictionary of the English Language'' |- | |- | ||Novellas |- | 1759||''The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia'' |- |}

Notes

References

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Further reading

External links

BBC audio file. ''In Our Time'' Radio 4 discussion. 45 minutes.

A Monument More Durable Than Brass: The Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson – online exhibition from Houghton Library, Harvard University.

The Samuel Johnson Project and sculpture initiative in Lichfield

The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page, comprehensive collection of quotations

The History Page at Dr. Johnson's House, London

by James Boswell, abridged by Charles Grosvenor Osgood in 1917 "... omitt[ing] most of Boswell's criticisms, comments and notes, all of Johnson's opinions in legal cases, most of the letters, ..."

Category:1709 births Category:1784 deaths Category:18th-century English people Category:Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:English Anglicans Category:English biographers Category:English book editors Category:English booksellers Category:English educators Category:English essayists Category:English lexicographers Category:English literary critics Category:English poets Category:English sermon writers Category:English travel writers Category:People educated at King Edward VI School (Lichfield) Category:People from Lichfield Category:People from London Category:People with Tourette syndrome Category:Streathamites Category:Grammarians of English

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Coordinates	10°57′50″N74°47′47″N
name	Dimitrija Čupovski
birth date	November 08, 1878
birth place	Papradište (Čaška), Ottoman Empire, (now Republic of Macedonia)
death date	October 29, 1940
death place	Leningrad, Soviet Union(now Russian Federation)
occupation	Lexicographer and philologist
website	}}

Dimitrija Čupovski () (November 8, 1878, Papradište–October 29, 1940, Leningrad) was a Macedonian textbook writer and lexicographer.

Early years

Dimitrija Čupovski was born in the village of Papradište (now part of Čaška Municipality) in the Ottoman Empire, (now Republic of Macedonia). Before Čupovski was born, his father had been killed by Albanian mercenaries. When he was 10 years old his village was burned, and he and his family then settled in Kruševo, the birth place of his mother. After learning the painting trade, he and his brothers left for Sofia in search of work. In the capital of the newly established Kingdom of Bulgaria Čupovski worked during the day and visited the school organized by Dame Gruev, Petar Pop Arsov and other students.

However after that he continued his education in Belgrade and Saint Petersburg. By the replacement of the Bulgarian Exarchate bishop of Skopje, when the Serbs managed to get a Serbian bishop with the backing of the Russians in 1901-1902, he supported the Serbo-Russian side. The pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) revolutionary Hristo Shaldev, who lived during 1899 - 1903 in St. Petersburg described him also as sharing pro-Serbian and pro-Russian views. When in 1905 Čupovski tried to organize a ''pan-Macedonian conference'' in Veles, he was expelled from the town by a local pro-Bulgarian chief of IMRO Ivan Naumov Alyabaka.

He was one of the founders of the Macedonian Literary Society, established in Saint Petersburg in 1902, and served as its president from 1902 to 1917. He was also the author of a large number of articles and official documents, publisher of the printed bulletin of the ''Macedonian Colony'', and organiser of several Macedonian associations. He wrote verse both in Russian and Macedonian. He also produced the first Macedonian-Russian dictionary, worked on a Macedonian grammar and an encyclopaedic monograph on Macedonia and the Macedonians. He also drew up an ethnic and geographical map of Macedonia.

In the period 1913-1918, Čupovski published the newspaper "Македонскi Голосъ" (Macedonian Voice) in which he and fellow members of the Petersburg Macedonian Colony promoted the existence of a separate Macedonian people which is different from the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, and were struggling to popularize the idea for an independent Macedonian state.

Dimitrija Čupovski is considered one of the most prominent ethnic Macedonians in history and one of the most important actors of the ethnic Macedonian awakening.

References

External links

МАКЕДОНСКIЙ ГОЛОСЪ - Број 1 (9 Јуни 1913 година).

Category:1878 births Category:1940 deaths Category:People from Čaška Category:Macedonian writers Category:Macedonian culture Category:Early Macedonists

bg:Димитър Чуповски es:Dimitrija Čupovski mk:Димитрија Чуповски