The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [731]
n. a Adams, George (d. 1773), maker of scientific instruments and globes; mathematical instrument maker to the Office of Ordnance (1748–72); mathematical instrument maker to the Prince of Wales (the future George III) (1756); Treatise on his new 18 and 12 in. globes of 1766 included a dedicatory contribution by S.J.: 15, 286
Adams, Mrs, wife of Dr W. Adams: 921, 929
Adams, Sarah (1746–1804), daughter of Dr W. Adams: 921, 925
Adams, William (fl. 1656), founder of Newport School, Salop: 76 n. a
Addison, Joseph (1672–1719), writer and politician; Whig and member of the Kit-Cat Club; friend of Swift, Steele and Congreve; a commissioner of appeal in Excise (1704); under-secretary in the office of the Secretary of State for the Southern Department (1705); secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1708); Secretary of State for the Southern Department (1717–18); contributor to Steele’s Tatler before founding The Spectator (1711) and publishing the most important literary criticism of the century before S.J.; playwright of the hugely successful Cato (Drury Lane, 1713): 21, 114, 125 and n. a, 166, 178, 192, 225, 258, 304, 373, 398, 433 n. b, 447 and n. a, 459, 536, 542, 555, 606, 649, 676, 690, 695, 707, 776, 791–3, 806, 814, 816, 866, 987–8; see also Index of Works and Literary Characters: Spectator, The
Adey, Mrs Joseph, Felicia Hammond (d. 1778): 469, 735
Adey, Mary (1742–1830): 26, 513, 745, 844
Aelian (fl. c.ad 200), ancient Greek historian and zoologist: 976 n. a
Aeschylus (525–456 bc), ancient Greek tragic poet; combatant in the Persian Wars, fighting at Marathon and possibly also Salamis; author of some ninety plays, of which seven have survived –Suppliants, Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Vinctus and the trilogy The Oresteia; the founder of Greek tragedy: 662, 771
Agar, Welbore Ellis (1735–1805), commissioner of customs: 584
Agutter, Revd William (1758–1835), Church of England clergyman; strong loyalist; committed to abolition of slave trade; used example of the contrasting deathbeds of S.J. and Hume to demonstrate ‘the difference between the death of the righteous and the wicked’to Oxford University congregation atStMary’s Church (23 July 1786): 922 n. b, 928 n. a, 1001 n. a
Aikin, Miss, see Barbauld, Mrs
Akenside, Mark (1721–70), poet and physician; edited The Museum (1746–7), publishing work byS.J. and Christopher Smart; physician-in-ordinarytoQueen Charlotte (1761); author of ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’, a philosophical poem in blank verse that greatly influenced Wordsworth and Coleridge; published on medical themes, De dysenteria commentarius (1764): 192, 347, 520, 535, 794
Akerman, Richard (c.1722–92), keeper of Newgate: 600, 756, 757
Alberti, Leandro (1479–1553), author of the Descrittione di tutta l’Italia (Venice, 1577): 447
Alcibiades (fl. c. 450 bc), a noble Athenian politician and military commander of exceptional beauty and talent, but also unscrupulous and dissolute: 648, 667
Aldrich, Revd Stephen (d. 1789), rector of Clerkenwell: 216 n. a
Alexander the Great (356–323 bc), kingofMacedon, the most successful military commander of antiquity; conqueror of Asia, Syria, Egypt, Persia and India; responsible for the dissemination of Greek culture over the Near East: 22, 136, 362, 915
Alfred the Great (848–99), king of the West Saxons and of the Anglo-Saxons, man of great learning; the founder, defender and saviour of the English nation: 101, 838 and n. a
Allen: 25 n. b
Allen, Edmund (1726–84), printer: 247, 446, 598, 600, 668, 692, 729, 888, 889, 959 and n. b, 963, 967, 969, 975
Allen, Mr (?Hollyer, b. 1730), of Magdalen Hall: 179
Althorp, George John Spencer, Viscount, afterwards 2nd Earl Spencer (1758– 1834), politician and book-collector; pupil of Sir William Jones; member of the Club (1778); fellowof the Royal Society (1780); Rockingham Whig; crossed the floor to join Pitt in the wake of the French