Johnson's Use of Sources in the Life of Sir Francis Drake

Johnson's Use of Sources in the Life ofSir Francis Drake O M Brack, Jr. Arizona State University Having the satisfaction to find that the account of Admiral Blake in our last Magazine was not disagreeable to the public," Johnson announced in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1740, "we propose in our next to entertain our readers with the life and actions of Sir Francis Drake, including many of the most memorable transactions of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in which our long continued wars with the Spaniards laid the foundation of that settled animosity which yet continues between the two nations." The Life of Sir Francis Drake (1740-41) was intended to serve the same purpose as the Life of Blake—to contrast the feeble efforts of Sir Robert Walpole's administration, in pursuing the War of Jenkins' Ear, with Britain's past naval glories—though it is worth noting that Johnson, in the announcement, points out that "it is not only to his military virtues that his country owes reverence and gratitude. His fortitude in surmounting difficulties and encountering dangers of a different kind, his spirit in forming great designs, and his resolution in prosecuting them deserve to be proposed to the imitation of every age; and we are more indebted to the discoverer than the soldier, as the nation owes less of its wealth and power to its arms than to its navigation" (10:352). That Johnson for political purposes should turn to the Elizabethan period, and to Drake in particular, as a standard against which his own age could be judged and found wanting initially seems surprising. But as early as London (1738) Johnson has the poet and Thaïes "kneel and kiss the consecrated earth; /In pleasing dreams the blissful age renew, / And call Britannia's glories back to view" (24-26), at the sight of Greenwich, birthplace of Elizabeth. Here, at least for the purposes of satire, Johnson shares the romanticized view of history held by many of his contemporaries who looked to the past, and particularly to the reign of Elizabeth, as a time of great national pride and achievement. In his 1760 review of William Tytler's Historical and Critical Enquiry into the casket letters of Mary Queen of Scots, he remarks, "It has now been fashionable, for near half a century ... to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth" and in Thoughts on Falkland's Islands (1771) he calls "the reign of Elizabeth, the favorite period of English greatness" (1825 Works 6: 81; Works 10: 374). But given Johnson's skepticism, understanding of historical evidence, and zeal for truth, can there be any justification for such an exalted view of the past? 197 198Rocky Mountain Review Certainly Johnson did not think that the past was superior to the present. "We are strong as they, and a great deal wiser," he told Lord Monboddo (Boswell 5:77). Johnson could argue in Adventurer No. 95 (October 2, 1753), however, that the moralist may "deliver his sentiments" by using "historical examples" (2: 426). Liberties with historical truth, Johnson frequently reminds us, are unacceptable in accounts that purport to be objective, yet some allowance is to be made for certain moral, political, and artistic ends.1 Knowing that history "seems to be one of the most natural delights of the human mind," and that it is part of human nature to wish to escape from a complex present to a simpler, nobler past, Johnson seizes an opportunity to exploit a fashionable attitude to inspire patriotism and military prowess (Hazen 182). Sir Francis Drake was a ready-made heroic model. By the 1580s he had become legendary: "he was the poor boy who made good; the Jack the Giant Killer who defied and humiliated the greatest monarch in the European world; the Robin Hood of the sea" (Hampden 14). In John Stow's Annals, the best contemporary account , he is praised for his navigation, artillery, physics, memory, observation, and eloquence, and is said to be "as famous in Europe and America as Tamburlane in Asia and Africa" (808). His exploits could be read in pamphlet accounts written by participants in the voyages, Richard Hakluyt's...