Johnson of London 3 London

LONDON

         

(Boswell is writing at his desk on the left of the stage.) 

BOSWELL (To audience)

Ah, you’re back again, are you?   Now, where did I leave you last?  At Oxford, wasn’t it?  I’ve got the next part here somewhere.  Just a minute! (He searches among the papers on his table.)  He left Oxford, you see.  Well, he had to, of course.  No money.  It’s probably different now!  Or is it?  I don’t know.  Some things take so long to change!  Now where did I put the next part?  I had it ready for you.  I must get some order into all this.  (He finds the sheet under the wine bottle.)  Ah, here it is! With that window open everything blows away if you don’t hold it down! 

(He reads.)  He left Oxford after one year and started on a very empty period in his life.  He wrote little.  He had no degree, no work, and nothing to occupy him.  His mind was a machine, going round and round, but not connected to anything.  He was conscious that he was producing nothing. 

(To audience) You’ve got to keep busy, you know.  You’ve got to keep busy. 

Anyway, he got to know a group of friends in Birmingham, and one of them was Elizabeth Porter, a widow.  He was young, he could talk well, but he had no position and no prospects.  He was an awkward, gangling youth of 25, and she was a reasonably well-off widow in her mid-forties.  But love has a way of getting round things, and they got married.  He called her Tetty. They married, I think, for love.  This was in the summer of 1735.

With Tetty’s money Sam set up a school but it wasn’t a success, and he decided to come here to London like so many young men before and since.  Another Midlands man had done it before, and done well, and his name was William Shakespeare.

Sam walked from Lichfield to London with David Garrick.  In fact, Garrick had been one of the few pupils of the ill-fated school.  They walked and rode!  Well, they had one horse between them!

This is how you ride to London with one horse.  One of you rides on and ties the horse to a post or a tree, and then he carries on walking.  The other comes up, unties the horse, rides on and overtakes the first person and the he ties up he horse again, and so on!  Ride and tie, they call it!  It works quite well but I don’t know what the horse makes of it all!

They had very little money between them and they arrived in London with almost nothing, but very soon young Garrick was the actor of the moment, the toast of London, the great celebrity, and poor Johnson…well, he stayed poor and struggled on.

Later Tetty joined him and there they were, together, with no money and with few hopes of getting any.

(The light moves from Boswell to Johnson, centre stage.  He is pacing up and down but from time to time he reads from a paper on the table and moves coins from a small pile of assets on the right of the table to the pile of debts on the left. )

JOHNSON Who’d have thought we needed so much money to exist, just to get by, just to be?  To be or not to be! Ha! Nothing special, no great dinners, no bottles of wine, just carrying on!  It’s a daily battle! 

(He reads from a sheet of paper in his hand.)

Johnson, Samuel. Total assets.  Fourteen pounds, eight shillings and threepence.

(He puts down the sheet of paper.)

Look at David!  David Garrick!  He’s the lion of the London stage!  The whole city at his feet, and he was my pupil!  He couldn’t write a sentence of grammatical English, let alone one in Latin!  He is hardly ever troubled by an original thought, and now look at him!  Famous, rich, secure!   And look at me.

(He picks up the paper and reads from it. As he reads the amount for each item, he moves the money from the pile of assets to the pile of debts. The first pile dwindles and the second grows.)

Johnson, Samuel.  Total expenses.

Item one.  Rent for this week and back rent owing.

Six pounds, eight shillings and four pence.

If you’re poor to start with, it’s a long haul.  You spend years laboriously climbing up to where others start from.

Item two.  Delivered groceries:  carrots, potatoes, two parsnips and (He turns the page) miscellaneous greens!  That sounds better than two cabbages and one cauliflower, doesn’t it! “Miscellaneous greens!”  It all depends on the words.  Words are what matter!  Anyway, groceries: Three shillings and seven pence halfpenny.

“Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.”

(He mimics a conversation of gossips.)

That’s a good line!  Who wrote that? 

Why Johnson! 

Johnson?  Who’s Johnson? 

You remember him.  He showed some promise but he had to leave Oxford.  (He whispers.)  No money!  He’s been refused umpteen teaching jobs!  Too odd, much too odd!  You only have to look at the fellow. 

He married, didn’t he?

Oh yes, a woman twice his age!  But she had some money, you see!

(In his normal voice)  Oh yes, Tetty!  That’s what they all said.  I married you for our money.  How little did they know.

(He mimics the gossips again.)

Well, he soon spent that!  He set up a school.  A school?  It wasn’t a school.  It was a disaster.  Anyway then he came to London to earn a living from his pen.  Ha!  He’d have done better as a porter!  He’s big enough!  Johnson!  Who’s Johnson?  A nobody!

(He sighs and reads from the paper in his hand.)

Item three.  For Elizabeth Johnson.  Walking shoes.  One pair, with parasol.  With parasol?  In November?  In London?  With parasol.  One pound, eighteen shillings and nine pence.  Oh Tetty!  Literature is the meanest employer in London!  And that’s saying something!  I have worth, but who pays worth?  Look at David.  Gesticulating and declaiming and smirking on the stage have made him thousands.  I struggle up the hill and get nowhere.  Look at the professional men!  If you are a lawyer, it is difficult to be poor!  But if you are poor, how difficult it is to be a lawyer!  O tempora, o mores! 

(He pulls himself up.)  Still, envy is a sin.  On we go!  Up, Sam.  Up and on with the game!

(He reads again.)  Item four.  Medicines for Elizabeth Johnson.  One pound eighteen shillings.

The solution for me is to die off!  That’s when recognition comes.  When you’re dead!  Fame doesn’t give you a hot meal or a warm bed when you’re alive, but once you’re safely dead, up go all the statues!  We can’t blot our copybooks then!  Once dead, we are respectable!  Now what good is that? 

(He reads)  Item five.  Repairs to leaking roof.  Two pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence.

Item six. Tea.  Eight shillings and sixpence.  That’s a lot of tea! 

(He starts to count out the money but there is not sufficient for the tea.)

There isn’t enough!  I am in debt!  He desperately goes through his trouser pockets, looks under the candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and then, while searching on the table, he finds more coins under a bottle.)

Thank goodness for that!

(He counts out the amount for the tea.)

Total wealth minus total expenses equals (He counts the money left in the pile pf assets.) six shillings and two pence halfpenny!  Hmph! That won’t hold body and soul together very long!  Well, well.

(Going out.)  To work!  Now, where did I leave my pen?