This essay is written by Max Beerbohm, in the year 1918. The essay is influenced or derived from James Boswell’s record of Johnson’s life probably from the biography “Life of Samuel Johnson”, which he published in 1971. In this famous biography of Samuel Johnson, Boswell presents him, mostly as an intellectual person, who engages in many table-talks. One such episode is being highlighted in this essay by Beerbohm in which Johnson and Boswell engages in an intellectual meeting “at Streatham, in the well-appointed house of Mr. Thrale” on April 7th, 1778. Henry Thrale, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1780. He was also a close friend of Samuel Johnson. This meeting was also joined by Sir John Pringle, (“father of military medicine”) and they were discussing about the sermons and the peculiarities of some sermon writers.
Max Beerbohm, uses this incident to paint the imagined past that he recreates in this essay. He introduces the passive yet the main focus, the Clergyman into this actual incident so as to give his imaginary character a sense of reality. He verbally caricatures this passive character who “cuts in” their conversation as a “man with a high, thin voice, and without power to impress anyone with a sense of his importance, a man so null in effect that even the retentive mind of Boswell did not retain his very name, would assuredly not be a self-confident man. He sat forgotten, overlooked; so that his self-assertion startled everyone just as on Boswell’s page it startles us”. Beerbohm gives the details of this meeting as if he were among the intellectuals who actually participated in the meeting. The Clergyman, as Beerbohm presents him is a young man who is “unregarded, shy” and with a nice persons’ thin voice. His shyness and thin voice enhance his passiveness. On the contrary Johnson is presented as the centre of this intellectual meeting, and this eager clergyman waits for him to notice him. He musters up all his courage to ask a question to Johnson, but he dismisses him with his disdainful remark.
“A CLERGYMAN, whose name I do not recollect: Were not Dodd’s sermons addressed to the passions? JOHNSON: They were nothing, Sir, be they addressed to what they may.’”
The clergyman is portrayed as a nonentity or an unwelcomed intrusion in the so-called intellectual gathering and Max Beerbohm gives us a number of possibilities as of why he remained largely unnoticed. The essayist opines that it could be because of his thin voice , or could be because he was not properly dressed, or could be because the others in the gathering outshined him. He also presents the possibility that the Johnson, as he was a deaf “old lion” by then, was never aware that he was actually, permanently damaging the clergyman with his “force of paw and claws” which were not the less lethal. The social courage that had been sapped in him, was destroyed, by this experience.
It could be interpreted that Johnson could have dismissed the clergyman’s question because he mentioned William Dodd, whom “Johnson had befriended in adversity”. William Dodd, was an English Anglican clergyman and a man of letters, he was also a controversial topic, for he was caught and punished for forgery. It was said that he had received the assistance of Samuel Johnson. Thus, when the Clergyman mentioned this person, Johnson was caught off-guard and that is why he might have shunned him with his disdainful remark.
The writer also draws parallels between two ages; one, that of Johnson’s, in which sermons were given ore importance and the other, probably the Victorian age, in which novels replaced the sermons. He says that after some time in the future the intellectuals will start discussing about the novels, not the sermons. He comments that by following the trends of the age, people are being capricious and as the Clergyman is being neglected now, people will neglect the sermons for the novels. This, he presents through the conversation between a Pundit and his disciples on many novel writers and their significance. With this conversation he also draws parallels to the characters of the passive clergyman and the “poor nameless wretch” and Johnson to the Pundit.
He concludes the essay, suggesting that hopefully theses nameless and passive people might get the attention they required. It seems impossible. “But we must remember that things are not always what they seem”. On a philosophical note, “Every man illustrious in his day, however much he may be gratified by his fame, looks with an eager eye to posterity for a continuance of past favors, and would even live the remainder of his life in obscurity if by so doing he could ensure that future generations would preserve a correct attitude towards him forever”. He wishes that the clergyman hadn’t been there at that meeting so that he would not have been nipped in the bud and so, would have saved his face for posterity. Thus, the writer does not fully convey his opinions for the neglect of the clergyman. He just gives his opinions as possibilities. At the end, he suggests that for delicate people like the clergyman, such experiencing might have a long-term effect and the damaged caused could not be reversed. “He sank into a rapid decline”. He also hopes that this person might have died “forgiving Dr. Johnson”.
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