Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works
INTRODUCTION
During the early part of his literary career, James Thomson Callender (1758-1803)1 belittled Samuel Johnson; during the later, he denigrated Thomas Jefferson. Thus his reputation as a Scots master of scurrility and a vicious scandalmonger was earned on both sides of the Atlantic.
Probably because his anonymous pamphlets about Johnson's writings – the Deformities of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Selected from his Works (1782) and A Critical Review of the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1783) – were not both ascribed to him until 1940, Callender first came into public notice in 1792, when in Scotland he published The Political Progress of Britain, or An Impartial Account of the Principal Abuses in the Government of this Country from the Revolution in 1688. For these intemperate remarks, though anonymous, he was indicted in 1793 for sedition. He fled from Edinburgh and made his way, "with some difficulty," soon thereafter to Philadelphia.
During the first several years in Philadelphia, he was reporter of the Congressional debates for the Philadelphia Gazette and did some editorial hackwork. He also published the third edition of the Political Progress, which was favorably noticed by Jefferson. In 1797 he published The History of the United States for 1796: Including a Variety of Particulars Relative to the Federal Government Previous to that Period, which brought the charge against Alexander Hamilton of "a connection with one James Reynolds for purpose of improper pecuniary speculation." Hamilton, after making preliminary preparations for a duel, came to the conclusion that he would have to sacrifice his private reputation to clear his public actions. So he calmly wrote, "My real crime is an amorous connection with his [Reynolds'] wife for a considerable time, with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me."2
In The Prospect before Us (1800), written under the secret patronage of Jefferson, Callender assailed John Adams and lashed through Adams at his predecessor, Washington. Ending his diatribe, he said, "Take your choice, between Adams, war and beggery and Jefferson, peace and competency." Because of his remarks about Adams, he was tried under the Sedition Law, fined $200, and sent to prison for nine months. While in prison he wrote two fiery anti-Federalist pamphlets, for which Jefferson advanced money under ambiguous terms. When Jefferson became President in 1801, he pardoned Callender (and all others convicted under the unwise Sedition Law), and Callender's fine was remitted. But Callender was not satisfied; he wanted Jefferson to appoint him postmaster of Richmond, Virginia. Jefferson refused, in spite of the tone of blackmail which now pervaded Callender's importunities. Soon he turned his political coat and began editing the most scurrilous anti-Jefferson paper in the country, the Richmond Recorder, to the infinite delight of the Federalists, who immediately circulated the periodical far and wide. Callender accused Jefferson of dishonesty and cowardice, but pure malice inspired his most injurious charges.
It is well known that the man, whom it delighted the people to honor, keeps … as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is Sally. The name of her eldest son is Tom. His features are said to bear a striking resemblance to those of the president himself… By this wench Sally, our President has had several children. There is not an individual in the neighborhood of Charlottesville who does not believe the story; and not a few who know it… Behold the favorite! the first born of republicanism! the pinnacle of all that is good and great! If the friends of Mr. Jefferson are convinced of his innocence, they will make an appeal… If they rest in silence, or if they content themselves with resting upon a general denial, they cannot hope for credit. The allegation is of a nature too black to be suffered to remain in suspense. We should be glad to hear of its refutation. We give it to the world under the firmest belief that such a refutation never can be made. The AFRICAN VENUS is said to officiate as housekeeper at Montecello. When Mr. Jefferson has read this article, he will find leisure to estimate how much has been lost or gained by so many unprovoked attacks upon J. T. Callender!3
Callender's ignominious end came on 17 July 1803. The Gentleman's Magazine declared (LXXIII [September 1803], 882) that he, "after experiencing many varieties of fortune as Iscariot Hackney … drowned himself … in James River": the coroner's jury, however, declared that his death was accidental, following intoxication.
There can be scant doubt that the Deformities and A Critical Review4 have a common origin. The paper, type, and makeup of the title-pages indicate that they were issued from the same press. In the "Introduction" to A Critical Review, the statement is made that "The author of the present trifle was last year induced to publish a few remarks on the writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson… Like the former essay, these pages will endeavour to ascertain the genuine importance of Dr. Johnson's literary character" (pp. iii, v). In the text on page 50, the Deformities is cited in proprietary tones; and it is also mentioned in notes on pages 19, 37, 55, and 63. Moreover, the tell-tale words "deformities" and "deformity" appear (pp. 31, 43) in the text, and there is an advertisement for the Deformities on page 72.
An attempt to identify the author of the Deformities was made by George Steevens when it appeared. In a letter to William Cole dated 14 May 1782, he says that it was "written by a Club of Caledonian Wits."5 The Critical Review for August 1782 (LIV, 140) surmised that "the pamphlet … is apparently written by some angry Caledonian, who, warmed with the deepest resentment for some real or supposed injury, gives vent to his indignation, and treats every part of Dr. Johnson's character with the utmost asperity." A month later, the Gentleman's Magazine (LII [September 1782], 439), "reciting the circumstance" of the origin of the Deformities, contended that it was a revenge pamphlet inspired by an anti-Ossian publication by William Shaw ("Nadir" Shaw, in the Deformities), who "'denied the existence of Gaelic poetry…'" "Dr. Johnson was his patron; and THEREFORE this Essayist, 'by fair and copious quotations from Dr. Johnson's ponderous performances, has attempted to illustrate'" his extraordinary defects. And in February 1783 (LXVIII, 185-186), the Monthly Review briefly noted:
This seems to be the production of some ingenious but angry Scotchman, who has taken great pains to prove, what all the world knows, that there are many exceptionable passages in the writings of Dr. Johnson. There are, however, few spots in this literary luminary now pointed out that have not been discovered before. So that the present map must be considered rather as a monument of the delineator's malignity, than of his wit. – His personalities seem to indicate personal provocation; though perhaps it may be all pure nationality.
Though Boswell mentions the pamphlet and quotes a letter in which Johnson comments on it,6 neither he nor any of his editors before L. F. Powell try to identify the incensed author. In 1815 Robert Anderson said that the Deformities, "an invidious contrast to 'The Beauties of Johnson,'" is "the production of Mr. Thomson Callender, nephew of Thomson the poet."7
When the Deformities was catalogued in the Bodleian Library in 1834,8 it was attributed to John Callander of Craigforth. In A Critical Review of the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the statement is made (p. 4) that "Mr. Callander of Craigforth … observes" that "'Had the laborious Johnson been better acquainted with the oriental tongues, or had he even understood the first rudiments of the northern languages from which the English and Scots derive their origin, his bulky volumes had not presented to us the melancholy truth, that unwearied industry, devoid of settled principles, avails only to add one error to another.'" This latter blast, taken from the "Introduction" to Callander's Two Ancient Scottish Poems, The Gaberlunzie Man and Christ's Kirk on the Green (Edinburgh, 1782), may well have been the evidence that caused A Critical Review to be attributed to John Callander of Craigforth; then, because of the interconnections between it and the Deformities and because of their convincing similarity, the Deformities was also assigned to him. On the other hand, one is puzzled