107. Dullness; Mediocrity;
Ouch!!!
He attacked Gray, calling him "a dull fellow." Boswell: I
understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company;
but surely he was not dull in poetry." Johnson: "Sir, he
was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was
dull in a new way, and that made many people think him
GREAT. He was a mechanical poet."
Boswell: Life
Link
244. Mediocrity; Popularity
"Is getting a hundred thousand pounds a proof of excellence?
That has been done by a scoundrel commissary."
Boswell: Life
Link
982. Argument; Inconclusiveness;
Mediocrity; Ouch!!!
Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the spirit of contradiction,
eagerly maintained that Derrick had merit as a writer. Mr.
Morgan argued with him directly, in vain. At length he had
recourse to this device. "Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you
reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?" Johnson at once felt
himself rouzed; and answered, "Sir, there is no settling the
point of precedency between a louse and a flea."
Boswell: Life of Johnson
Link
1,086. Fashion; Mediocrity; Obscurity;
Op-Ed; Writing
"Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured
up in magnificent obscurity [in a library], most are
forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed
the honours which they once obtained, not to judgment or to
genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the
strategems of intrigue, or the servility of adulation. Nothing
is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally
neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the
oracles of their age, and the legislators of science."
Johnson: Rambler #106 (March 23, 1751)
Link
1,087. Mediocrity; Obscurity
"Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now
totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries
as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
Curiosity is naturally excited, their volumes after long inquiry
are found, but seldom reward the labour of the search. Every
period of time has produced these bubbles of artificial fame,
which are kept up a while by the breath of fashion, and then
break at once, and are annihilated."
Johnson: Rambler #106 (March 23, 1751)
Link
1,088. Fashion; Mediocrity; Op-Ed;
Popularity; Reading; Writing
"Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its
own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present
incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions, and
engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain
readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous
to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has
divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults
or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man
his enemy or his friend."
Johnson: Rambler #106 (March 23, 1751)
Link
