Samuel Johnson’s Charity Sermon During War: St Paul’s Cathedral 2 May 1745

Abstract

Abstract Samuel Johnson’s first ghost-written sermon was for Henry Hervey Aston at the annual Sons of the Clergy Festival on 2 May 1745. Hervey Aston was the fourth son of the Earl of Bristol, long knew Johnson, and entertained him in Lichfield and Johnson and Tetty in London. Hervey paid £12 interest on Johnson’s mother’s home in Lichfield and was, Johnson said, ‘a vicious man but very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him’. He learned nothing at Christ Church, Oxford, during 18 raucous months, performed poorly as an army officer before selling his commission, and was ordained as a last hope in 1743 by the Bishop of Ely. Henry’s father the Earl of Bristol appointed him Rector of Shotley, in Suffolk, which he soon abandoned for London. Why was such a man asked to present an important sermon at England’s most impressive venue, before the Archbishop of Canterbury, eight other bishops, and many of the Great and the Good in order to raise funds for the widows and orphans of deceased Anglican clergy? This essay suggests reasons for that choice and how Johnson’s early practical sermon is part of his body of sermons. It also shows how Johnson establishes Hervey Aston’s credibility in the pulpit when he had no credibility in life, and how Johnson blends sublime theology with the quotidian. Along the way, he alludes to and politely censures the unpopular War of the Austrian Succession.