Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/34

 

 JOHNSON, ROBERT (1770–1796), engraver and water-colour painter, born in 1770 at Shotley, near Ovingham, Northumberland, was son of a joiner and carpenter, who shortly afterwards removed to Gateshead. Through the influence of his mother, who was acquainted with Thomas Bewick [q. v.], Johnson was in 1788 apprenticed to Beilby and Bewick in Newcastle, to learn copperplate-engraving. Johnson executed some unimportant engravings during his apprenticeship, but chiefly occupied himself in sketching from nature in water-colours. He made most of the drawings for Bewick's ‘Fables,’ which for minute excellency have hardly been excelled. His drawings for Bulmer's edition of Goldsmith's and Parnell's ‘Poems’ were cut by Thomas and John Bewick, and published in 1795. A fine drawing by Johnson of St. Nicholas's Church at Newcastle was engraved in wood by Charlton Nesbitt [q. v.]; Johnson made a small copperplate engraving from the same drawing for the publisher, Joseph Whitfield of Newcastle. Having a quarrel with Whitfield he engraved three caricatures of him. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, Johnson abandoned copperplate-engraving, and determined to take to painting. He was employed by Messrs. Morison of Perth to copy the portraits by Jamesone at Taymouth Castle, the seat of the Earl of Breadalbane, for reproduction in Pinkerton's ‘Iconographia Scotica.’ Johnson, however, caught there a chill, from the results of which he died at Kenmore, Perthshire, on 26 Oct. 1796, in his twenty-sixth year. He was buried in Ovingham churchyard, where a monument was erected to his memory by his friends. Two drawings by him were engraved by C. Warren, as illustrations to Gay's ‘Fables’ and Ossian's ‘Poems.’

(d. 1797), wood-engraver, cousin of the above, was born at Stanhope in Weardale, and was also apprenticed to Beilby and Bewick at Newcastle. He assisted in cutting some of the tail-pieces to Bewick's ‘British Birds’ and drew the illustration of the ‘Hermit’ for Bulmer's edition of Parnell's ‘Poems.’ He died at Newcastle about 1797, very soon after he had terminated his apprenticeship.

[Robinson's Life and Times of Thomas Bewick; Chatto and Jackson's History of Wood-engraving; Linton's Masters of Wood-engraving.]  JOHNSON, SAMUEL (1649–1703), political divine, was born in Staffordshire or Warwickshire (Some Memorials) in 1649, ‘of humble parentage’. He was educated at St. Paul's School, London, where he became librarian, and made progress in oriental languages. He entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, but did not graduate. Having taken orders, he was presented by Robert Biddulph on 1 March 1670 to the rectory of Corringham, Essex. The living was only worth 80l., out of which Johnson provided a curate and went to reside in London. Lord William Russell made him his domestic chaplain, and his knowledge of constitutional history (gained on the advice of Biddulph) proved serviceable to Arthur Capel, earl of Essex (1631–1683) [q. v.], and other whig leaders. On Palm Sunday, 13 April 1679, he preached before the lord mayor at the Guildhall chapel; the sermon (of which an edition was printed in 1684) was not directly political, but its argument against popery was intended to produce political effects in the direction of the ‘Exclusion Bill.’ The occasion was regarded by Johnson himself as the starting-point of a public career in which he threw away his liberty, ‘with both hands and with eyes open,’ in his country's service.

The publication which made his name was immediately suggested by a sermon before the lord mayor (1681, published 1682), by George Hickes [q. v.], on the ‘sovereign power.’ Johnson, in his ‘Julian the Apostate’ (1682, translated into Dutch 1688), made popery a modern paganism, portrayed the Duke of York in the character of Julian, and boldly argued, on constitutional grounds, against unconditional obedience. Hickes replied in his ‘Jovian’ (1683), upon which Johnson printed in the same year and entered at Stationers' Hall a tract on ‘Julian's Arts and Methods to undermine and extirpate Christianity,’ with special answers to Hickes and the writer of ‘Constantius the Apostate’ (1683). The discovery of the Rye House plot, followed by the committal of Russell to the Tower, made this tract inopportune; Johnson suppressed it, and it was not actually published till 1689, with a second edition of the original ‘Julian.’ There is little doubt that it was owing to Johnson's influence that Russell refused to save his own life by disowning the principle of resistance to unjust exercise of regal authority. Immediately after Russell's execution (21 July 1683) 