2 - “Saint Samuel of Fleet Street”: Johnson and Woolf

Summary

Introduction

On February 10, 1910, the Royal Navy seemingly entertained a visit from the Emperor of Abyssinia. Admiral Sir William Henry May and other officers of HMS Dreadnought—the flagship of the Home Fleet— escorted the party on a tour of the battleship's armaments, wireless room, and other points of interest. Newspaper accounts a few days later revealed, however, that a hoax had been perpetuated upon the unsuspecting naval hosts. The party in fact consisted of a group of English, including Virginia Stephen, disguised as the emperor and members of his court (see image below. Virginia is the seated figure furthest to the left). The deception was masterminded by her brother Adrian and his college friend Horace de Vere Cole. Exposure of what came to be known as the “Dreadnought Hoax” led to public outcry and official embarrassment, precipitating a parliamentary inquiry. For her part, Woolf, after learning that the escapade resulted in tightened naval regulations, drily remarked, “I am glad to think that I too have been of help to my country.” Taking a longer view, however, we may discern more pregnant dimensions looming from the episode. A Times article reporting the event identifies Stephen as “an Abyssinian prince.” Perhaps some will recall the original title page name of Samuel Johnson's 1759 masterpiece fiction Rasselas, The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. Did Woolf think, if perhaps only fleetingly, of the book and character that has come to rank among the touchstones of Johnson's art and moral outlook? Was she in 1910 at some level consciously aware of disguising herself as Johnson’s most famous fictional character, of penetrating the Johnsonian literary universe, as well as the British naval defenses?

The anecdote symbolically suggests an important affinity that persists throughout Woolf 's written record, one indicating that she indisputably held Johnson in the highest estimation. In her 1925 review “Saint Samuel of Fleet Street,” she includes him, on the basis of being “one of the very few human beings who love their kind,” in the company of Socrates and Christ, and, among authors, with Montaigne, Shakespeare, and—“perhaps,” Sir Thomas Browne. (Woolf pointedly excludes Milton, Wycherley, Swift, Pope, and Congreve from this privileged list.)