Photos from the 6th annual seminar
Click the thumbnails above for larger versions...
"Dr Johnson" honors us with his
presence at the Annual Seminar
The JSA's 1999 Annual Seminar and Dinner was graced by the presence of
our hero - or at least, a credible representation of him, in the form
of leading Melbourne actor Matthew King, who donned tricorn, waistcoat,
knee breeches and buckled shoes to present an entertaining outline of
Johnson's life.
(Our cover picture shows Matthew leaving the podium by reproducing Johnson's
celebrated imitation of a kangaroo, which is represented in the JSA logo).
The presentation, delivered in what we believe to approximate Johnson's
Midlands accent, was read with great gusto from a paper written by Denis
Le Neuf, who graciously gave way to "Johnson" before he himself
had time to deliver the first lines.
Of the more conventional presentations, Rusi Khan's paper on Johnson's
view of life and death was a thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion
of Johnson's fear of death and some of the dilemmas he faced in the contemplation
of his own demise. It drew many questions from the audience.
Henry Gordon-Clark presented the case for the prosecution in an accusation of plagiarism against Johnson in the Life of Savage - a well-researched case, but one which left a feeling that the jury might still be out.
Johnson and Garrick; the "really" impossible friendship - the paper presented by John Wiltshire - was a highly entertaining account of the ambivalent relationship between Johnson and Garrick. John suggested that to do justice to the subject, a Part Two would be necessary. He will be taken up on this for the next seminar.
Nicholas Hudson followed some intriguing paths through Johnson's religious
references in the Dictionary, and Denis Le Neuf began well but had his
paper "hijacked" by Johnson.
To open the seminar, President Paul Brown read a letter from our Patron,
Viscountess Eccles, acknowledging her receipt of the seminar program asnd
sending greetings to all members and best wishes for "an inspired
Seminar and a felicitous dinner."
Splendid entertainment was provided by the leading Australian blues guitarist
and singer Paul Wookey, and an excellent dinner accompanied the jovial
fraternising that has become such a feature of our annual event.
Members will be able obtain a copy of the video of the seminar shot by Denis Le Neuf. All the lectures are covered and there are plenty of shots of members and friends, as well as our entertainers. If you are interested in getting a copy, please notify the Secretary at PO Box 163 Albert Park 3206, or on tel: (03) 9699 1425. The price of the video will depend on the demand and members will be notified of this later.
New members from afar
came to the seminar
Four new members, including two from interstate, and one who later joined the JSA, were welcome guests at the Annual Seminar and Dinner.
From Toowoomba, Queensland, came Darren Lewis, while Anne Burdon journeyed from Tamania. Basil Stafford came from Casterton, in Victoria's Western District. He was accompanied by his son, also Basil, a Melbourne lawyer, who has since also joined the JSA.
Also present as a new member was Sam Reid, Secretary Bryan Reid's son, who took still photographs at the seminar and who has taken on the task of updating our web site. (There are no prizes for guessing how Sam came to get his name!)
Also from interstate were John Byrne, our former Treasurer, and Greg and Di Veitch who now live in Perth, but who crossed the continent especially to attend the seminar.
September 18 for AGM and
Fleeman Lecture
Don't forget to mark prominently in your diary:
JSA Annual General Meeting
Date: Saturday, September 18
Place: English Speaking Union, 146 West Toorak Rd South Yarra
Time: 6pm
Members have already been given details of the AGM and lecture by mail.
If you haven't filled in and returned the form attached to the notice,
please do so as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can phone Secretary
Bryan Reid on (03) 9699 1425 to let him know if you will be staying to
supper, so catering arrangements can be completed. The supper charge is
$25 per head.
The Annual General Meeting will begin at 6pm, followed by the 1999 Fleeman
Lecture, delivered by Professor Kevin Hart, who is Vice-President of the
JSA. After the lecture, a catered supper will be served and the bar will
be open.
Basil Stafford, one of our most recent members, was moved to poetry after attending his first JSA annual seminar and dinner. Basil wrote to Secretary Bryan Reid:
"It is easy to let events come and go and do nothing. I would admit to being a devotee of that approach. However, I felt I must stir myself and congratulate the load-bearing members of the JSA on a very fine Seminar and Dinner. It was a great day. Later that evening, I imagined I had to make a report to Dr Johnson himself. With trepidation in the high nineties I managed the following:
July 3, 1999
Dear Doctor Johnson hear me out,
With so stern Sir, or verbal clout.
The thing I really want to say
Is those of us who met today
Enjoyed ourselves and left devout.
Basil's son, who also attended the seminar, was so impressed he too, decided to become a member. He is also named Basil, so to avoid confusion in the JSA records, he will be known as Basil L. Stafford!
Bryan Reid: A portrait by
Paul Brown
In the following contribution, our President, Paul Brown, has penned a profile of our Secretary, Bryan Reid. We hope to offer similar portraits of members in future issues of the Southern Johnsonian.
As Bryan Reid ushers you into his parlor, you could easily feel yourself to be Johnson's neighbour off Gough Square. The ambience is the distillate of a lifetime interest in our 18th Century heroes.
There's a framed Bunbury cartoon of Johnson and Boswell at a chop house,
a Royal Doulton plate of Johnson at the Cheshire Cheese and leatherbound
editions including a sixth edition of the Dictionary, a first edition
of the Journey, a slightly later edition of the Lives of the Poets (beautifully
bound in vellum), copies of the Idler and Rambler, and a collection of
Boswelliana.
Bryan's son is named Sam!
Bryan has always been a prolific reader and his literary interests are as eclectic as some of his mentors, in particular the New Zealand novelist David Ballantyne, then a fellow-journalist, who introduced him in his teens to the American realists such as Dos Passos, James T. Farrell, Hemingway and Steinbeck.
Later, his tastes broadened to Dickens, Jane Austen, and the other English classics, but his favorite work remains Boswell's Life of Johnson.
A much-revisited passage describes how Boswell cunningly engineered the meeting between the temperamental and political opposites, Wilkes and Johnson who, in the event, got along well!
Bryan has an abiding love of the sea and his parlor is almost within sound of the wares of Port Phillip Bay. He hails, however, from a farther shore - Auckland, New Zealand, where he was educated at Auckland Grammar School. Later, as an adult student, he briefly attended Canterbury University College before setting up his own public relations business.
Bryan first encountered Johnson and Boswell after his first wife, Madeline, provided him with a copy of Boswell's Life and he was later fascinated to read in a Christchurch newspaper, the story of the discovery of the Boswell papers at Malahide Castle in Ireland.
Since then, he has been in continuous contact with Johnsonians, something which continued when he went to Melbourne in 1959, where, after a brief period in a public relations company, he set up in business on his own.
In the 1970s, his friend Professor David Bradley (also a foundation member of the JSA) introduced him to one of the great Johnsonians of the world, James L. Clifford, celebrated as the author of the landmark works Young Samuel Johnson and Dictionary Johnson who was on a visit to Australia.
Bryan has twice made trips to the Johnsonian sacred sites. In 1978 he visited Gough Square and in 1996, travelled to Lichfield and Oxford, he is a life member of the Jhnson Society, Lichfield and the Auchinleck Boswell Society, and a member of the Johnson Society of London.
With some like-minded friends, Bryan first mooted a local Johnson Society in the 1970s, but it was not until 1984 that, asked to speak at a CAE seminar on the 200th Anniversary of Johnson's death, that he met fellow-speakers John Wiltshire and Rusi Khan, who were enthusiastic in their support for the idea.
At a later seminar, he met Professor Clive Probyn who eagerly lent his weight to the scheme, but it was not until 1993 that serious moves were made to form a Johnson Society of Australia at a special CAE seminar.
Here entered the Johnson "fanatic" John Byrne who travelled from Perth to attend, later becoming the first treasurer of the JSA alongside the inaugural President, Clive Probyn. Bryan was elected Secretary and has continued to serve in that capacity.
Early meetings were held at Bill Bell's pub in South Melbourne. As numbers of attendees grew, the venue shifted two years ago to the English Speaking Union. The Society now has 104 members, including seven in the United States and others in New Zealand, Britain, and Japan.
Bryan's ultimate dream is to see he JSA with its own premises and its own library.
The Busy John Byrne in Perth
How good it was to see so many of you at the Seminar in July and how enterprising it was of Dennis Le Neuf to video the proceedings. A copy of the video has been sent to our Patron, Viscountess Lady Eccles. I am sure she will enjoy putting names to faces. It seems to me that each year the standard of the papers is better than the preceeding year. The demands of my practice permitting, I hope to see you all at the Annual Meeting and Fleeman Memorial Lecture.
Bryan Reid has just noitified me of the death of Walter Jackson Bate who passed away on 26 July 1999, aged 81. For over 30 years this great Johnsonian taught 'The Age of Johnson' and drew more than 400 students a year to this course at Havard. His brilliant biography Samuel Johnson, published in 1977 by Harcourt Brace Jovanavich, is a great work. In that work the author attempted "to reveal Johnson quitessentially as a modern man speaking to modern men and women, offering a guide and a lift to the human spirit". Among Bate's other Johnsonian works, his editorship of Volumes ii, iii, iv and v of the Yale edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson are outstanding. The world has lost a great scholar.
The first of four volumes to be published of The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D., edited by David Woolley, has just been received. Well published by Peter Lang in Switzerland, the letters offer a fascinating glimpse into the early part of the 18th century. The editor, to whom I was introduced by Clive Probyn, lives in an adjoining suburb only a short distance from where my home is located. David has a deep interest in Samuel Johnson, and has given me a number of very beautiful pieces for my Library, much of it ephemeral and rare. He has been labouring at the monumental task of of editing the Swift correspondence for many years and it is a great joy to see his efforts rewarded with publication.
For those of you who love books-about-books let me recommend Ex Libris by Anne Fabiman published by Alan Kane / The Penguin Press, London, 1999. I have seen this little volume, it is only 129 pages, enthusiastically reviewed, particularly in The Spectator and it is now readily available in Australia. The brief essays are a delight and all book lovers should buy and read this book.
Finally, two important dates. On 8 September 1999 Australian Book Auctions will hold the first of what is promised to be regular book auctions in Melbourne. Melbourne booksellers Nicholas Dawes, Barbara Hince Jonathan Wantrup are behind this admirable initiative. You should also remember the 1999 Australian Antiquarian Book Fair will be held at the Hotel Intercontinental Sydney between 29-31 October.
The first six questions are drawn from the text of Mrs Thrale's Anecdotes of Dr Johnson. The other two come from Boswell's Tour of the Hebrides.}
1: Why were the foretops of Johnson's wigs burned "down to the very network?"
2: "I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and does nothing when he is there but growl; let him out as I do, and……"
3: "…if you do shut the jade out of the door, she will always contrive in some manner to poke her pale lean face in at the window." To whom, figuratively, was Johnson referring?
4: "That man is not content with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible." Who said this about whom?
5: "When Mr Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of…"
6: "He talked to me at club one days concerning Catiline'sconspiracy-so I withdrew my attention ad thought about…"
7: Who "might as well have served his time to a bricklayer and first indeed to a brickmaker"?
8:…"wherever we have come, we have been received like…"
1: Himself
2: Garrick
3: George Psalmanazar
4: Goldsmith (to distinguish him from Dr Major, who was Johnson).
5: Opinion
6: Tom Osborne, the bookseller
7: Blinking Sam.
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