SAMUEL JOHNSON'S DIARY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 148, 10 July 1937, Page 11

SAMUEL JOHNSON'S DIARY

An. unpublished diary kept by Dr. Samuel Johnson from 1765 to 1784 has been diseovexed in tlie st^ong room of Malahide Gastle, near Dublin, by Lieut. Gol. Ealph Ishain, American collector of eighteenth-centuiy English manuscripts. ..Malahide Castle is tho homo of Lord Talbot de Malahide, a great-grcat-grandson of James Boswell, Pr. Johnson 'b biographer. In 1927 Lord Talbot sold to Golonel Isham, for a sum estimated at between £60,000 and £100,000., the entire collection of Boswell relics in the castle. Most of these wero xjontaincd nai Boswell 5s ' ' ebony cabinet ' J ia which he had stored his most prccious docu- . nionts. The collection, wliich rau to more than 1,000,000 words^ included tho manuseript of the Boswell 's "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" and part of the manuseript of the fLife of Johnson." Eeeently thinking that there inight be* more papers in the house, Lord Talbot "nnvited Golonel Isham to make a further search. '

The stroug room, formerly a dungeon, contained -18 iron chests fitted with rusty padlocks, which had to be broken open. After several days of search, Colonel Isham Teached the fiftecnth ehest, and after going through several thousauds of papera it contained, tinally come upon an oblong book bound in green vellum. In opening it, he recognised Dr. Johnson 's handwriting and instantly realised that he had . diseovexed the diary mentioned by Boswell in his "Lifo of Johnson," and whieh nobody had eecn sinco Johnson 's passing in 17S4. j. The first otry for tho ycar 1776 run-s: "Ecsolutions. God help mo — Eead tho Biblo through this ycar,- combat seruplcs, riso carlyj drink littlo wino. " Tho fact thafc the diary, whilo eovering 19 years of Dr. Johnson 's career? runs to only 84 pages, indicates that it. was not assiduously kept. Boswell records that in 1773 Johnteon told him that he had 12 or 14 times attempted lo keep a journal of his days, but could never persqvere. Just like more ordinary folk.