Why Dr. Johnson would never blog

Buried in Lewis Jones’ wonderful review of books about Samuel Johnson in the Weekend Financial Times is clear evidence that the 18th-century man of letters, author of the Dictionary of the English Language and subject of Boswell’s Biography, would, were he alive today, never blog:

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

Johnson – flatulent; scrofulous; half-blind; half-deaf; overwhelmed with dejection and gloom; yearning for the “Fetters and Padlocks” which his mistress deployed – wrote to avoid the debtors prison. Solid advice for all writers in today’s economy. Blogging is, perhaps, for blockheads.

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