Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

by James Thomson Callender

Then in 1940, D. Nichol Smith, no doubt having followed the suspicion he and W. P. Courtney expressed in 1915, and having available the proof unearthed by Dr. Powell, attributed both items to J. T. Callender in the CBEL (II, 627), listing two editions of the Deformities in 1782 and two of A Critical Review in 1783. The British Museum Catalogue also now credits the same Scotsman with both works.

The information in Callender's letter to Stockdale, Anderson's identification, a fairly plausible reason that the Deformities was so long attributed to John Callander, the similarity of the styles and contents of the two pamphlets, the parallel circumstances of publication, the virtual acknowledgement of the Deformities in A Critical Review—all point to a safe conclusion that the two works were the creations of James Thomson Callender.

Though students of Johnson have frequently noticed the bitter ridicule in the Deformities and A Critical Review, they (since the author of the pamphlets was unknown) have seldom,[12] if ever, detailed Callender's turbulent career in America. Similarly, students of American history have studied Callender's attacks on early American statesmen; but they have been completely unaware, it seems, that the pamphleteer who wrote them began his career by making fun of Samuel Johnson. Now that the authorship of these two early productions has been established, a study of them provides details that illuminate the foreground of Callender's career in America. Likewise, of course, the particulars of his activities in America illuminate the background of his career in Great Britain.

Near the conclusion of the Deformities, Callender relates the "circumstances which," as he says, "gave ... birth" to the work.

In 1778, Mr William Shaw published an Analysis of the Gaelic language. He quoted specimens of Gaelic poetry, and harangued on its beauties.... A few months ago, he printed a pamphlet. He traduced decent characters. He denied the existence of Gaelic poetry, and his name was echoed in the newspapers as a miracle of candour. Is there in the annals of Grubæan impudence any parallel to this?... This incomparable bookbuilder, who writes a dictionary before he can write grammar, had previously boasted what a harvest he would reap from English credulity. He was not deceived. The bait was caught.... Mr Shaw wants only money.... But better things might have been expected from the moral and majestic author of the Rambler. He must have seen the Analysis of the Gaelic language, for Shaw mentions him as the patron of that work. He must have seen the specimens of Celtic poetry there inserted. That he is likewise the patron of this poor scribble, no man, I suppose, will offer to deny. From this single circumstance, Dr Johnson stands convicted of an illiberal intention to deceive. Candour can hardly hesitate to sum up his character in the vulgar but expressive pollysyllable [pp. 86-87].

Readily available facts support some of the central assertions in this rather heated description of the inception of the Deformities. Specifically, as readers of Boswell's Life may recall, Johnson must be considered a—if not the—principal patron of the Scotsman William Shaw's Analysis of the Gaelic Language: he wrote the official proposals for the work, he solicited subscribers to it, and he received from the grateful author a public acknowledgement (in the "Introduction") that "To the advice and encouragement of Dr. Johnson, the friend of letters and humanity, the public is indebted for these sheets."[13] It is probable, too, that he examined the book at least cursorily[14] and that in doing so he caught sight of one or more of the references to Ossian's poetry, perhaps including the "specimen" on pages 145-149. Moreover, in the pamphlet Callender mentions, entitled An Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems Ascribed to Ossian (1781), Shaw, setting out to demolish the arguments favoring the ostensible origins of the purported translations, accords (p. 2) Johnson pride of place in starting "objections" to the poems and quotes (pp. 6-12) approvingly first a lengthy passage from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) and then Johnson's famous letter to James Macpherson. In addition, Boswell records Johnson's later assistance to Shaw in composing a reply to John Clark's pro-Ossian Answer to Mr. Shaw's Inquiry (1781).[15] But to admit all this is scarcely to "convict" Johnson of a deliberate "intention to deceive." On the contrary, since by 1778 his scepticism regarding the Ossianic writings was widely known, his Journey having appeared three years earlier, it could be argued that his patronage of Shaw's Analysis revealed a degree of understanding and tolerance not always associated with his name.

For the irate Callender, however, such "shameful" conduct demanded countermeasures—even by "a private individual, without interest or connections." The self-appointed champion both of "virtue" and also of "a world ... weary of" the culprit's "arrogant pedantry" and "officious malice," he hoped "to humble and reform" Johnson by "glean[ing] the tithe of" his "absurdities," which, Callender declares, illustrate, among other defects, Johnson's "prolixity," "corruptions of our language," "want of general learning," "antipathy to rival merit," "paralytick reasoning," "adherence to contradictions," "defiance of decency," and "contempt of truth" (pp. 87-88).

After garnering the supposed proofs of these multitudinous "deformities," Callender published his book at Edinburgh (where it was sold by "W. Creech") in the early part of 1782.[16] The pamphlet, priced at a shilling and consisting of a two-page introduction and sixty-three pages of text, was also sold at London by "T. Longman, and J. Stockdale."[17] Towards the end of the same year (probably in December),[18] encouraged by the initial "reception," he brought out a second, enlarged edition of the work, which he had "perused ... with honest attention, from the first line to the last, that he might endeavour to supply its deficiencies, and to correct its errors" (p. vi). Selling for "eighteen pence"[19] and appearing at both Edinburgh and London, this edition includes a separate preface and comes to a total of eighty-nine pages. We have chosen it as the text for the present reproduction of the Deformities.

Callender's very limited powers of ridicule and exposure reside largely in his amassment of material, not in his ability to arrange and synthesize that material. Indeed, one looks in vain at the work for anything more than the most obvious and elementary form of organization. The Preface begins with brief general remarks on "man's" incapacity to "reform" his "follies" and the "prejudice" and "good nature" of the "public" respecting this human frailty, offers "Dr. Samuel Johnson" as a capital example of the general observation, proceeds to "enquire" how "such a man crawled to the summit of classical reputation," and concludes, rather abruptly, with a short postcript on the second edition of the Deformities itself. The Introduction stresses the enormous differences that, according to Callender, often exist between a man's words and deeds—particularly, so the reader is told repeatedly if a bit obliquely, between Johnson's writings (especially the Dictionary) and actions.

The body of the pamphlet may be divided into five unequal parts. In the first (pp. 11-15), Callender launches a freewheeling attack on Johnson, accusing him of "ill-nature," a revengeful spirit, peevishness, and insolence (among other lamentable traits), and announces his chosen mode of chastisement: "From the Doctor's volumes I am to select some passages, illustrate them with a few observations, and submit them to the reader's opinion." In the second (pp. 15-47), he presents a disconnected string of quotations drawn from a number of Johnson's works and embellished with caustic strictures on their creator's presumed moral, intellectual, and literary shortcomings. In the third and longest section (pp. 47-82), separated from the second by a small printer's device, Callender, after "quoting [pp. 47-51] the remarks already made by a judicious friend,[20] on this subject," begins a series of disjointed, angry comments on the supposed weaknesses of "the Doctor's English Dictionary." Thirty-one pages later, having vented his ire on the choice and definitions of hundreds of words in the Dictionary, he "take leave" of the "enormous compilation," stigmatized as "perhaps ... the strangest farrago which pedantry ever produced," and "return" briefly, in part four (pp. 82-86; set off from part three by another small device), "to the rest of" Johnson's publications, extracts from which he again employs as a means of exhibiting his subject's supposed faults. Finally, he brings the rambling essay to a close (pp. 86-89) by recounting its origins, repeating his principal charges against Johnson, and reasserting his hopes for the Doctor's "reformation."