‘A hardened and shameless tea-drinker’.
The vast majority of us are tea lovers, myself included, but
could you drink twenty-five cups in one sitting?
Dr Samuel Johnson was an 18th-century lexicographer, poet, critic, editor, and writer. He was also a tea fanatic and even wrote an essay in defence of his beloved beverage of choice! He described himself as ‘a hardened and shameless tea-drinker’. The author, John Hawkins once remarked ‘he was a lover of tea to an excess hardly credible; whenever it appeared, he was almost raving, by his impatience to be served . . . and the haste with which he swallowed it down . . .’
When visiting others, he was famed for exhausting his
hostesses by guzzling down his tea faster than they could serve him more. When
Sir Joshua Reynolds joked that he had drunk eleven cupful’s, Johnson shot back “I
did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number my cups of tea.” He
once described getting revenge on a hostess who had annoyed him by drinking
twenty-five cups of tea!
In James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, he writes ‘I
suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant
leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank of it at all hours were so
great . . .’
When I recently visited the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum
in Lichfield, I saw some of Johnson’s beloved teacups, saucers and a striking
black Jackfield pottery teapot dating to 1760, on display. I snapped these images before I left.
For more information on objects visit the museum's online collection.
-x-
Samuel Johnson: The Major Works
Samuel Johnson: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert
Life of Johnson by James Boswell
Comments
Post a Comment