Samuel Johnson

"Bate, certainly prior to the latest Peter Martin biography, which I haven’t read, is, despite being marred by a slight touch of Freudianism, the definitive modern biography of Johnson. It is easier to read than the Boswell and more comprehensive than the John Wain. He has absorbed all the existing material and research and has also done his own research. Everyone gets very uptight, and there is a great mystery, about whether or not Johnson was having a sado-masochistic relationship with his friend, Mrs Hester Thrale. The evidence is taken from her letters and notes to him in Latin and from his own notes that refer to “sweet bondage”. John Wain thought they had been having a sado-masochistic relationship, but Bate thinks it refers to Johnson’s fear of madness and his periods of depression. He had always had bouts of depression, when he didn’t finish Oxford (he was at Pembroke College) because his father went bankrupt and he went back to Lichfield for two years. Then, later, he had another breakdown and was rescued by Mrs Thrale and her family. So, he had this fear of madness and was either afraid of being locked up or he wanted someone to lock him up. Personally, I don’t know or care very much since it didn’t seem to inform his life in other ways if he had a bit of bondage with Mrs Thrale! If he did, I’m sure he regretted it. He was very devout and unsure as to whether his repentance was great enough to ensure a happy afterlife. It is very hard to see why he was worried. He was incredibly generous and essentially ran a welfare state of his own. There was an old lady he took in and she accompanied him to fashionable places where she caused distress by her poor table manners. His adopted son, Frank Barber, was a freed black slave and became his heir. He took in reformed prostitutes and half a dozen others. He spent half his money on derelicts and drop-outs. He showed a goodness that is rarely practised on this scale. I quoted him in my Party Conference speech in 1992, when I was Social Security Secretary, saying: “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation.”"