The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  Townley, Charles (1746–1800?), mezzotint engraver and miniature painter: 1000 n. c

  Townley, Mr, of the Commons, brother of the above, engraver: 1000 n. c

  Townshend, Charles (1725–67), politician; Secretary at War (1761-2); president of the Board of Trade (1763); first lord of the Admiralty (1763); Paymaster-General (1765); Chancellor of the Exchequer in Pitt’s ministry (1766); associated with the taxation of the colonies and famed for his ‘champagne speech’, hitting targets all round the political spectrum; brilliant but unreliable, career cut short by premature and unexpected death: 378, 520

  Townshend, Thomas, 1st Viscount Sydney (1733–1800), politician; Paymaster-General of the Forces (1767); Privy Councillor (1767); one of the most prominent MPs in opposition to North’s ministry; Secretary at War in the Rockingham ministry (1782) before replacing Shelburne at the Home Office and serving under Pitt the younger (until 1789); notable debater: 939

  Townson, Dr Thomas (1715–92), rector of Malpas, Cheshire, and religious writer: 929 n. a

  Trapp, Dr Joseph (1679–1747), Church of England clergyman and writer; Tory; strong High Churchman; chaplain to Viscount Bolingbroke (1712); translated the complete works of Virgil into blank verse (1733); best-remembered religious work was The Nature, Folly, Sin and Danger, of being Righteous over-much (1739): 10, 976 n. a

  Trecothick, Alderman Barlow (1720–75), merchant and politician; Alderman of London for Vintry ward (1764–74); London’s sheriff (1766), then Lord Mayor (1770); New Hampshire’s colonial agent (1766–74); owned shares in a plantation in Grenada and several estates in Jamaica: 560, 632

  ‘Tribunus’, pseudonym: 83

  Trimlestown, Robert Barnewall, 12th Baron (d. 1779): 646–7

  Trotter, Alexander, of Fogo, father of the following: 718

  Trotter, Beatrix, Thomson the poet’s mother: 718

  Trotter, Thomas (d. 1803), engraver: 1000 n. c

  Trotz, Prof. Christian Hendrik (c. 1700–73), Dutch jurist: 250–51

  Tursellinus, Horatius (1545–99), Italian historian: 47

  Turton, Dr John (1735–1806), physician; S.J. wrote some verses to his wife; travelling fellow at University College, Oxford (1761); fellow of the Royal Society (1763); fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (1768); physician to the Queen’s household (1771); physician-in-ordinary to the Queen (1782); physician-in-ordinary to the King and to the Prince of Wales (1797): 611

  Twalmley, ‘the great’ (?Josiah Twalmley, ironmonger): 870

  Twiss, Richard (1747–1821), travel writer; author of Travels through Portugal and Spain in 1772 and 1773 (1775), read lazily by S.J.; fellow of the Royal Society (1774), withdrawing in 1794; fortune ruined by entering into a speculation of making paper from straw: 447

  Tyers, Jonathan (d. 1767), pleasure garden proprietor; transformed Spring Gardens (later the Vauxhall Gardens), near the Thames on the South Bank, into a fashionable venue for evening entertainment; S.J. and J.B. were both visitors; a high quality of musical entertainment attracted the visits and performances of musicians such as Handel and a young Mozart: 689

  Tyers, Thomas (1726–87), writer; eldest son of Jonathan Tyers; acquaintance of S.J. and J.B.; the inspiration behind S.J.’s portrayal of Tom Restless (The Idler, no. 48); author of Political Conferences (1780), a series of imaginary conversations between statesmen, and adulatory pieces on Pope and Addison; regular contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine, publishing a ‘biographical sketch’ of S.J. on the author’s death in 1784: 315, 689–90

  Tyrawley, James O’Hara, 2nd Baron (1690–1773), field marshal and diplomatist: 373

  Tyrconnel, John Brownlow, Viscount (d. 1754), MP: 99 and nn. a and b

  Tyrwhitt, Thomas (1720–86), literary editor and critic; clerk of the House of Commons (1762); fellow of the Royal Society (1771); curator of the British Museum (1784); examined or edited Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Aristotle and Euripides; assisted the Johnson and Steevens Shakespeare supplement (1778); implicated in the Rowley controversy as an expert in mediaeval philology: 544 n. a, 843 n. a

  Udson, Mr (fl. 1775): 476

  Upper Ossory, John Fitzpatrick, 2nd Earl of (1745–1818); member of the Club: 252

  Ussher, Dr James (1581–1656), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and scholar: 109 n. b, 330

  ‘Vagabond, Mr’: 113, 745

  Vallancey, Colonel Charles (1721–1812), antiquary: 914, 917

  Vanbrugh, Sir John (1664–1726), playwright and architect; early member of the Kit-Cat Club; author of the comedy The Relapse (Drury Lane, 1696) and The Provoked Husband; variously adapted and translated works by playwrights such as Moliere and Fletcher; architect of Castle Howard, completed 1712, and Blenheim Palace; comptroller of her Majesty’s works (1702–26 except for a gap in 1713–14); Clarenceux herald (1704); developer, architect and co-manager of the Queen’s Theatre at Haymarket (officially opened 1705); surveyor of gardens and waters (1715): 288, 793

  Vansittart, Dr Robert (1728–89), regius professor of civil law, Oxford: 186 and n. a, 362

  Veal, Mrs (d. 1705): 347

  Veale, Thomas (d. 1780), of Coffleet: 807 n. a

  Veitch, James, see Elliock, James Veitch, Lord

  Vertot, Rene Aubert de (1655–1735), French historian: 386, 936

  Vesey, Agmondesham (d. 1785), husband of Elizabeth Vesey; member of the Literary Club; Irish MP for Harristown, Co. Kildare, and Kinsale, Co. Cork; Accountant-General for Ireland: 252, 433, 753, 778

  Vestris, Gaetan Apolline Balthasar (1729–1808), dancer: 808

  Victor, Benjamin (d. 1778), theatre manager and writer; treasurer and deputy manager to Thomas Sheridan at the theatre in Smock Alley, Dublin (from 1746); Poet Laureate of Ireland (1755); treasurer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (from c.1759); published a three-volume Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems (ijj6), with a dedication to Garrick: 791

  Vilette, or Villete, Revd John (d. 1799), Ordinary of Newgate: 586, 945

  Villiers, Sir George (d. 1606), knight of Brooksby: 714

  Virgil, Publius Virgilius Maro (70–19

  bc), pre-eminent Roman poet, whose Georgics, Eclogues and, above all, Aeneid form much of the foundation of later European poetry; General: 32, 39, 40, 42, 45, 59, 123, 138, 142, 147, 210, 297, 328, 416, 529 n. a, 627 and n. b, 628, 703, 764, 771, 860, 861 n. a, 870–71, 883–4, 993 n. a; Quotations: Aeneid 42, 274–5; Eclogues 32; Georgics 328, 860

  Vitalis, Janus (d. c. 1560), Italian poet and theologian: 659

  Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de (1694–1778), French writer and philosopher; Anglophile; acquainted with Swift, Gay, Pope and Horace Walpole; reputation as a historian established through Histoire de Charles XII (1731) and Annales de l’empire (1753-4), a particularly strong formal influence on Hume and Gibbon; the most innovative French dramatist of his time, writing Zaire (1732) and Mahomet (1742); author of the epic poem La Henriade (1728) and the enduringly popular and influential satire Candide (1759), so close in date and theme to S.J.’s Rasselas; visited by J.B. in 1764: 169, 182, 184, 230, 261, 263, 266, 290, 306 and n. a, 326, 480, 665, 678, 703, 716, 747, 923

  Volusene, Florence (1504?–! 547?), Scottish humanist scholar; wrote two slim commentaries on the Psalms; associated with a range of Continental humanists, dedicating his De animi tranquillitate dialogus (1543) to Francesco Micheli: 639

  Vyse, Ven. William (1709–70), archdeacon of Salop and rector of St Philip’s, Birmingham: 588

  Vyse, Dr William (1742–1816), rector of Lambeth and son of the above: 588, 589, 971 n. a

  Walker, John (1732–1807), elocutionist and lexicographer; actor with Garrick’s company at Drury Lane, Barry’s at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin and Beard’s at Covent Garden (1757–68); leader of the ‘mechanical’ school of elocution; author of Elements of Elocution (1781), Rhetorical Grammar (1785) and The Melody of Speaking (1787); more famed for his contributions to lexicography, the Rhyming Dictionary (1775) and the Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791); protege of S.J.: 877, 1000 n. c
/>   Walker, Joseph Cooper (1761–1810), antiquary; best remembered as a pioneering student of contemporary literature and vernacular poetry in the Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786); one of the original members of the Royal Irish Academy (1785): 172, 580 n. b

  Walker, Thomas (1698–1744), actor and playwright; Drury Lane comedian, debuting in 1715; ran his own great booth in Bird Cage Alley at Southwark fair; moved to Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1721; established himself in the role of Macheath in The Beggar’s Opera; beset by debt throughout his life: 458

  Wall, Dr Martin (1747–1824), physician at Oxford: 926

  Waller, Edmund (1606–87), poet and politician; elected to the Short Parliament in 1640, representing Amersham, and sat for St Ives, Cornwall, in the Long Parliament until his expulsion in 1643; discredited by the fiasco of ‘Waller’s plot’, an attempt to establish a middle party in 1643 that resulted in bloodshed and the precipitation of civil war; lyricist and panegyrist poised between the Renaissance and Augustan ages: 292, 454, 692, 700 n. a, 782 and n. a, 783–4, 819, 924 nn. a and b

  Walmsley, Gilbert (1680–1751), friend of S.J.; lived in the bishop’s palace at Lichfield for thirty years; described by Anna Seward as Garrick’s and S.J.’s first patron; some of his correspondence with Garrick and S.J. remains in Garrick’s Private Correspondence and in S.J.’s Letters: 48–9 and n. b, 59, 60, in, 228, 514, 761

  Walmsley, Mrs Magdalen (i709?-86), wife of the above: 513

  Walpole, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97), author, politician and patron of the arts; son of Robert Walpole; the historian of his own times; founder of the Strawberry Hill press; author of the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1763) and committed to the Gothic revival in landscaping and architecture; patron of Thomas Chatterton and implicated in the Rowley controversy; extensive Memoirs only published posthumously; publicly disliked S.J., a rival literary titan of the eighteenth century; reputation has suffered in posterity: 219 n. b, 568, 867 n. a, 937–8

  Walpole, Sir Robert, 1st Earl of Orford (1676–1745), prime minister; leader of the Whigs; member of the Kit-Cat Club from 1703; Secretary at War (1708–10); treasurer of the navy (1710-n); Paymaster of the Forces (1714, 1720); first lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1715); played a key role in formulating a response to the bursting of the South Sea Bubble; returned to first lord of the Treasury in 1721; headed the Townshend-Walpole ministry (1722-3); knight of the Garter (1726); ridiculed for venality in The Beggar’s Opera and Gulliver’s Travels; indisputably ‘prime minister’, the first to claim this title, by the 1730s; resigned in 1742; unassailable position held largely due to the favour of George I and II and their mistrust of the Tories: 75, 76, 82, 321, 363, 448, 451, 547, 568, 653, 809, 938

  Walsh, William (1663–1708), poet; colleague of Dryden; Low Church Whig; member of the Kit-Cat Club; mentor of Alexander Pope, proofing manuscripts of some of his pastorals: 330 n. a

  Walton, Izaak (1593–1683), author and biographer; unwavering royalist; friend and biographer (1640) of John Donne; senior warden of the Yeomanry (1638); best remembered for his Compleat Angler (1653), although the fishing manual was not tremendously popular in his own lifetime; wrote further lives of Hooker, Sir Henry Wotton, George Herbert and Robert Sanderson; considerable influence on J.B. for the style and form of his Life: 411, 413–14, 456, 502, 577, 936

  Warburton, Dr William (1698–1779), bishop of Gloucester (1760) and controversialist; staunchly loyal Whig; rector of Brant Broughton, Lincs. (1728–46); close friend of Pope, making an imaginative contribution to The Dunciad, Book 4, and acting as the poet’s executor after death; friend of Richardson, Sterne and Fielding; author of the controversial Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated (1738–41); Shakespeare scholar; chaplain to the King (1754); dean of Bristol (1757): 11, 20, 91, 100–101, 143 and n. b, 151, 177, 282 n. a, 283 and n. a, 558 n. a, 628, 691 n. a, 740 n. a, 788 and n. a, 789, 794, 922

  Ward, Joshua (1685–1761), medical practitioner and inventor of medicines; satirized in at least four references by Pope as a ‘quack’; patented a process for the relatively cheap manufacture of sulphuric acid (1749); recipient of royal patronage after treating George II’s dislocated thumb: 733

  Warren, Dr Richard (1731–97), physician: 252, 754, 988, 995

  Warren, John (1673–1743), of Trewern, Pembrokeshire: 53

  Warren, Thomas (d. 1767), Birmingham bookseller: 50–51

  Warton, Dr Joseph (1722–1800), poet and literary critic; youthful author of the poem The Enthusiast, or, The Lover of Nature (1744); translated Virgil (4 vols., 1754); headmaster of the Winchester school (1766); contributed lastingly to literary scholarship with An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756); member of the Literary Club (1777); disliked by S.J. after an earlier friendship; remained a friend of luminaries such as Garrick and Reynolds: 13, 113 n. a, 137–8, 166, 175, 221 n. a, 236, 252, 282 n. a, 284, 320, 349, 564 n. a, 584, 588, 647, 722, 740 n. a

  Warton, Mrs (d. 1772), Mary, first wife of the above: 320

  Warton, Revd Thomas (1728–90), the younger, historian of English poetry: 6, 48 n. a, 96, 146, 148 and n. a, 149 and nn. a and b, 150 nn. a-f, 151 and nn. a and b, 152 nn. a-d, 154 and n. c, 158 and nn. a, c and d, 162, 164 n. a, 173 and nn. b, c and d, 175, 177, 179 and nn. b and c, 180 nn. a and b, 181, 252, 297, 319, 441 n. a, 502–4, 544 n. a, 766, 843 n. a, 938

  Waters, Ambrose (fl. 1660): 989 n. a

  Waters, Mr (fl. 1766), Paris banker: 262

  Watson, Dr Richard (1737–1816), bishop of Llandaff (1782–1816); advocate of religious toleration; professor of chemistry (1764–73) then regius professor of divinity (1771) at Cambridge University; fellow of the Royal Society (1769); archdeacon of Ely (1779); failed to progress from Llandaff after the deaths of all his important allies: 828

  Watson, Robert (c. 1730–81), historian and rhetorician; professor of logic, rhetoric and metaphysics at St Andrews (1756), later becoming principal (1778); visited by J.B. and S.J.; best known for The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain (2 vols., 1777) and an incomplete history of Philip III, both conceived as sequels to Robertson’s history of Charles V: 575

  Watts, Dr Isaac (1674–1748), Independent minister and writer; minister of the Independent church at Mark Lane, London (1702); poet of the Horae lyricae (2 books, 1706); hymn writer; venerated by S.J. for his opposition to Locke and educationalist concerns in works such as the catechistic Short View of the Whole Scripture History (1732); his Divine Songs… for Children (1715) imitated and parodied by Blake and Lewis Carroll; friend and correspondent of Philip Doddridge: 168, 589, 717, 724 and n. a, 936

  Wedderburne, Alexander, see Loughborough, Alexander Wedderburne, ist Baron

  Welch, Anne (d. 1810), younger daughter of Saunders Welch: 640

  Welch, Father (d. 1790), of the English Benedictine Convent, Cambrai: 477

  Welch, Jane, see Nollekens, Mrs Mary

  Welch, Mary, elder daughter of Saunders Welch, see Nollekens, Mrs Mary

  Welch, Saunders (1710–84), Justice of the Peace for Westminster: 640–41, 739, 866

  Wentworth, Mr, ‘son’ of one of S.J.’s masters: 32

  Wentworth, RevdJohn (c. 1677–1741), headmaster of StourbridgeSchool: 31–32

  Wesley, Revd Charles (1707–88), Church of England clergyman and a founder of Methodism; brother of John Wesley; itinerant evangelist under the influence of his brother; less inclined to travelling than John, settling as minister in Bristol (1756–71) before moving to London in 1771; perhaps the greatest of English hymn writers: 684

  Wesley, Revd John (1703–91), Church of England clergyman and a founder of Methodism; converted in 1738 after contact with Moravians during his years in Georgia; slowly organized a recognizable ‘Methodism’ (1738–48); clashed very publicly with the Church of England and Calvinists; strongly empiricist in principal; propounded the doctrine of perfection; prolific writer on a range of theological and secular subjects, output including the History of England (1776) and Ecclesiastica
l History (1781); posed a hugely important challenge to the Established Church in the eighteenth century: 616, 648, 683, 736, 814

  West, Gilbert (1703–56), author; close family connections with Lyttelton and Pitt the elder; friend of Pope; author of Observations on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (j^j); translated a selection of the odes of Pindar (1749): 777

  Westcote, William Henry Lyttelton, 1st Baron (1724–1808), subsequently Baron Lyttelton of Frankley; colonial governor and diplomat; brother of George Lyttelton; governor of South Carolina (1755–60); governor of Jamaica (appointed 1760–66); ambassador to Portugal (1767–70); lord of the Treasury (1777–82); acquainted with the Thrales and S.J.: 928

  Wetherell, Dr Nathan, (1726–1807), master of University College, Oxford: 452, 491, 500, 934

  Wharton, Revd Henry (1664–95), Church of England clergyman and historian; rector of Chartham, Kent (1689–95); edited and published The History of the Troubles and Tryal of… Dr. William Laud (1695); most important work was the Anglia sacra (1691), a collection of medieval manuscripts that chronicled the history of the English Church; prolific writer under the patronage of William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury: 389, 1038 n. 385

  Wheeler, Dr Benjamin (c. 1733–83), regius professor of divinity and canon of Christ Church, Oxford: 722, 760

  Whiston, John (1711–80), bookseller; established in Fleet Street, London; son of William Whiston; one of the printers of the votes of the House of Commons and one of the original publishers of priced catalogues; involved in promoting the New and General Biographical Dictionary (12 vols., 1761–2): 824

  Whiston, William (1667–1752), natural philosopher and theologian; Newtonian; author of the millenarian cosmogony A New Theory of the Earth (1696); Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University (1702); Boyle lecturer (1707); entrepreneur of natural philosophy in London (1711–31); played an important role in early eighteenth-century attempts to determine longitude at sea; biblical student; greatly prolific writer: 296 n. b, 775 n. a,