'The Brightest Jewel of This Oxford Visit'

It may be sadly unfair but some men are remembered solely for their friendship with other, greater men. We know John Hamilton Reynolds and Benjamin Bailey because of Keats and Oliver St. John Gogarty (“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan”) thanks to Joyce. Such is the case with Thomas Warton, one of the “Graveyard Poets” and for five years the British Poet Laureate. We know Warton because of his friendship with Dr. Johnson. 

In 1754, eight years after signing his contract with publishers, Johnson was nearing completion of his Dictionary and traveled to Oxford to use the libraries. Warton had graduated from the university in 1747 and had recently become a Fellow at Trinity. That same year he had published and sent to Johnson Observations on the Faery Queen of Spenser, which the elder critic much admired. Johnson befriended Warton, who later told Boswell: “. . . during his visit at Oxford, he collected nothing in the libraries for his Dictionary.” Instead, the lexicographer spent five weeks on holiday. In 1729, Johnson had dropped out of the university after one year because of his family’s poverty. John Wain writes in his biography:

 

“Still, Jonson had never put his whole trust in reading as a means of acquiring learning. There were hours of convivial talk with Warton and with other dons to whom Warton introduced him: besides, he doubtless felt, as many have felt, that the very stones of Oxford seem gently to smooth away the rough edges of one’s ignorance. (A dangerous illusion, for you and me. But less so for a Johnson.)”

 

In 1755, Johnson published his Dictionary and received his Master of Arts degree – honoris causa – for his services to literature from Oxford, thus becoming “Dr.” Johnson. Warton’s poetry has not aged well. It is conventionally derivative of Spenser, Milton and Pope. His best-known poem is the unpromisingly titled “The Pleasures of Melancholy.” I would, however, love to see the anthology of Oxford wit and verse edited by Warton titled The Oxford Sausage (1764). Later, ever the critic, Johnson wrote a brief satirical poem about his friend’s work, “Lines on Thomas Warton’s Poems”:

 

“Wheresoe’er I turn my view,

All is strange, yet nothing new;

Endless labour all along,

Endless labour to be wrong;

Phrase that time hath flung away,

Uncouth words in disarray,

Trick’d in antique ruff and bonnet,

Ode and elegy and sonnet.”

 

Warton was offended, of course, but Wain reminds us of that happy summer of 1754: “Altogether, it is clear that the ripening friendship with Tom Warton was the brightest jewel of this Oxford visit. Warton was admirably fitted to be a friend of Johnson and his chief academic ally. . . . In Warton’s company, Johnson blossomed.”

 

Warton was born on this date, January 9, in 1728 and died on May 21, 1790, almost six year after Johnson.