Samuel Johnson Quotes
By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.
Lockwood had sought the post of Minister to Turkey, a Muslim country which allowed a man four wives. Cleveland had instead selected a man who was generally known as a womanizer.
This edict illustrates the state of sexual mores in the 5th Century. Celibacy of priests was not then a requirement and many had children. One problem was that if a priest allowed his daughter to marry a man who lived with a concubine or mistress, the priest was accused of pandering his daughter and forcing her (the bride’ permission was not required then) to become an adulteress. However, almost all men of substance who would be good matches already had concubines. The pope’s edict was necessary in order for the daughters of priests to be married to suitable husbands.
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".
