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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Johnson's reference to oats in England and Scotland has aroused more, or broader, smiles than are warranted, at least among persons who have not consulted his book, and who may have heard it misquoted. Many know little more of the great Dictionary than what they suppose Johnson said of this grain on the spur of the moment (in a reference that is not a definition) along with his definition of network, which they commonly take at second hand. He does not say that oats never furnish human beings with food in England; like Boswell, he had himself eaten dry oatmeal when a boy; and his statement about oats and people and horses is strictly true. “Very true,” Lord Elibank declared.
1 “Johnson and Burton,” LTLS, June 21, 1934.
2 “The History of Dr. Johnson's Definition of Oats,” Agricultural History, viii (1934), 81–94.
3 Bullen's ed. (1923). 1, 255; cf. Galeni de Alimentorum Facultatibus 1. 14 in his Opera Omnia, ed. Kühn, vi (1823), 522–523: “Cap. xiv. [De bromo.] Hoc semen in Asia est frequentissimum, et potissimum in Mysia, quae est supra Pergamum, ubi et tiphae et olyrae uberrimus est proventus. Jumentorum autem est alimentum, non hominum, nisi utique aliquando extrema fame ad panes ex eo quoque semine conficiendos compellantur: citra famem autum coctum ex aqua manditur cum vino dulci, aut sapa, aut mulso, non aliter quam tipha. Calidum autem est admodum, non secus ac illa, quanquam non aeque est durum; ex quo minus quoque corpus nutrit; et panis, qui ex eo fit, alioqui est insuavis, non tamen alvum aut sistit, aut proritat, sed, quod ad id saltem pertinet, medium locum obtinet.”
4 Quoted by Read, pp. 82–83.
5 Boswell's Note Book, 1776–1777 (London, 1925), pp. xvi-xvii: “Secondly, the Notebook shows that Boswell was not content merely to transcribe his memoranda. He was not afraid to be an artist, and to let his knowledge and genius ‘Johnsonize’ what was necessarily raw material. It has hardly been realized how great a licence he permitted himself in this, the most important, part of his task.”—There are possible indications that Boswell makes Johnson use the forms Scotch and Scotchmen for persons, where present usage and that of a great lexicographer would favor Scottish, Scot, Scotsmen, confining the application of Scotch to things, as wool, whisky, and the like; yet see the last quotation in my last note below.
6 Life of Johnson, Hill's edition revised by Powell, i, 287.
7 In the Life of Johnson, Hill's edition, v, 78.
8 Hill, ibid., Note 3.
9 And for some other words indicating alimentary values in medicine, as emollient, diarrhoetick, demidcent, flatulent,
10 Abridgment in two volumes, third edition (London, 1766).
11 Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, first edition (London, 1755); Philip Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary, sixth edition (London, 1752).
* Sic; read “preferred” after Miller.
12 Hill-Powell, iv, 168–169.
13 Ibid., ii, 463.
14 Hill, v, 406–407; with two corrections, in the Latin of the Tour, supplied by Professor Pottle.
15 Ibid., v, 308.
16 Hill-Powell, i, 182.
17 Hill-Powell, I, 187–190.
18 Ibid., i, 294–296.
19 Croker's Correspondence as quoted by Hill, Hill-Powell, I, 295 (p. 294, n. 8).
20 Here may be added for completeness two items on oats for which there seemed to be no good place in the body of my article. According to Hill (Hill-Powell, iv, 168, Note 3), Percival Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii, 191) that he heard a Scottish lady, after quoting the “definition,” say to Johnson: “I can assure you that in Scotland we give oats to our horses, as well as you do, to yours, in England.” He replied: “I am very glad, madam, to find that you treat your horses as well as you treat yourselves.” The second is from Boswell (Tour, Thursday, Sept. 9,1773; Hill, v, 167): “At breakfast this morning, among a profusion of other things, there were oat-cakes, made of what is called graddaned meal, that is, meal made of grain separated from the husks, and toasted by fire, instead of being threshed and kiln-dried.” (Comma after toasted?)
And add this joke on barley from Boswell, Life, April 3, 1778 (Hill-Powell, iii, 231): Boswell. “Yet a misapplication of time and assiduity is not to be encouraged. Addison, in one of his Spectators, commends the judgment of a King, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barleycorn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley.” Johnson. “He must have been a King of Scotland, where barley is scarce.”
Lastly, add these gleanings of Read (p. 86): “As a schoolboy the young Sam was given oatmeal porridge for breakfast, and if he was like many children, this may have given him a mind-set for life. Edmund Hector, an old schoolfellow of Johnson's, told the biographer Boswell about the oatmeal porridge, and Boswell duly recorded the fact in his notebook [ed. by Chapman, 1925]; but when he came to write up the Life he did not see fit to use it. … A colloquial phrase, 'to give one his oatmeal,' was current in the eighteenth century. . . . Once after Johnson had administered a public reproof to Boswell, Boswell came up and said, smiling, 'Well, you gave me my oatmeal.' Johnson, imagining that he might be vexed, answered: 'Digest it, digest it! I would not have given it you if I thought it would have stuck in your throat.'” [Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, vi, 47 (New York, 1929).] Read also quotes (p. 87, n.) Johnson's pleasant letter to Boswell of May 27, 1775, about his friends in Scotland (Hill-Powell, ii, 380): “I will not send compliments to my friends by name, because I would be loath to leave any out in the enumeration. Tell them, as you see them, how well I speak of Scotch politeness and Scotch hospitality, and Scotch beauty, and of every thing Scotch, but Scotch oat-cakes, and Scotch prejudices.”