ABSTRACT
The few references to Defoe by the lexicographer and moralist Samuel Johnson (1709–84) indicate a comparatively restricted acquaintance, but by no means a lack of sympathy. Johnson told Boswell in 1772 that the narrative of Mrs Veal was now recognised to be a fabrication; but he seems to have been quite deceived by the Memoirs of an English Officer. The text of the first two extracts is taken from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill and L. F. Powell (Oxford, 1934–50), whilst the third is taken from Mrs Piozzi’s recollections in Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. G. B. Hill (Oxford, 1897), vol. i, p. 332. It must date from Johnson’s later years.
