`Two Hours Sooner Than He Wished to Rise'

Thanks to Dave Lull for passing along a link to a catalog of Samuel Johnson’s library of 760 volumes. One is impressed though hardly surprised by the seriousness of Johnson’s books. He was the least frivolous of men and his library makes mine, which contains perhaps four or five times as many books, appear trifling. Do I really need Stephen Dixon’s Frog or a biography of S.J. Perelman? As Johnson often told Mrs. Thrale:

“Books without the knowledge of life are useless, for what should books teach but the art of living?”

Johnson’s library reflects the breadth of his interests and accomplishments. Volumes in Greek and Latin predominate, with a smattering of others in French and Italian. Included are books of theology, chemistry, economics, medicine, law, mathematics, history, philosophy, painting, mythology, geography, metallurgy, geology, travel, music, gardening, astronomy, botany, numismatics, agriculture, even fiction (Richardson’s Clarissa), and many Bibles and dictionaries. When I consider the vastness of Johnson’s reading I feel like an idle dilettante. This week I’ve corresponded daily with a reader in Scotland. I admitted the inadequacy of my reading in his nation’s literature – a little Burns and MacDiarmid, some Scott and Stevenson, but not in years – and he set me straight:

“RLS certainly isn't just a boys' writer. Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde are certainly for grown-ups, and there's so much more too. I re-read The Silverado Squatters a week or so ago, and was charmed by it. Did you know Stevenson got married in San Francisco? If you ever get to Edinburgh I'm sure you'll love it for its strong RLS associations. Not to mention the Scott Monument!”

He has more faith in my reading than I do, though thanks to his enthusiasm I plan to mend my ways with Stevenson. I find one comfort in reading the catalog of Johnson’s library -- the handful of books our shelves share, beginning with Shakespeare. And both of us prize Robert Burton’s peculiar masterpiece. As Boswell reports in his Life of Johnson:

“Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.”